Hi All. I made the mistake of getting 9 Reolink cameras (RLC-820A and RLC-520A) for Blue Iris before realizing that they were garbage. So after 2 months of trial and frustration, it's too late to return them. Reolink support has informed me that they have no intention of allowing the user to change the iframe rate. Lesson learned, and I know now that whatever I do get, i need to put it through a battery of tests before the return window is expired.

So as angry as it makes me, I need to cut my loss and replace them with better cameras. Budget is more of an issue now than before since I'm already out almost $700 for the Reolinks, and they were already on the cheaper end of the spectrum.

My environment has plenty of ambient lighting at night, through street lights and other landscaping lights, but I still want good IR in case the lights happen to be off. Based on the Reolinks I have now and some extra research, I think that a 3.6mm or 4.0mm lens is what I want - it seems to give me the coverage I need. I am ok with 5MP as long as it has a 16:9 ratio and has a similar FOV as the 4K models. I don't need PTZ or varifocal.

I have been looking at the Amcrest IP8M (4K) and IP5M (5MP) for $100 and $55 respectively. Has anyone used these with BI and do they meet the BI standards? The only thing I don't like about the 5MP model is that it appears to be in a 4:3 ratio which I absolutely hate, and I don't want to distort the image to stretch it to 16:9.

What other brands/models would you recommend that have the following:

• Decent night vision without terrible ghosting/smearing

• 16:9 ratio

• 1-way audio (I don't need 2-way but if it has 2-way that's ok too)

• iframe rate adjustable

• at least 25 fps (I plan to use 15 but would like the ability to go higher if needed)

• ability to stream main and sub streams simultaneously for recording continuous SD and motion in HD

• US firmware or at least reputable international version (i.e. no hacked firmware)

• prefer metal housing but sturdy plastic is acceptable

• Price point in the ballpark of $80-100 per camera for 4K, or $50-70 for 5MP

This is all very overwhelming to get started with such a rough start using the Reolinks, so I appreciate any/all advice you can give me.

Difficult one to answer ! My present preference is the Dahua starlight range, but you would be struggling to get them at that price.

Pop over to ipcamtalk.com. Most answers likely there - I'd second Reolink not brilliant, Dahua way better!

Hi GeoffC,

I personally wouldn't advise anybody to go there. I was banned from ipscamstalks by blunderman for helping somebody here with camera firmware. Aiding and abetting the enemy he called it. Many have had it much worse, and were threatened with legal action when they responded to the childish threats from the moderator. Many forum members here have had the same issue with that website. The www is full of such stories.

There is a lot of good info there from technical people, as long as you filter out the childish insults. It actually got so bad that Ken had to put up a notice to make it clear that Blue Iris is NOT ipscamstalks as people were complaining to him about it !

https://blueirissoftware.com/455-2/

Welcome to the friendly forum, where you can run any hardware you want with as many programs as you like without the moderator flaming you and calling you a retard from xyz !

TimG wrote: ↑Sat May 15, 2021 7:22 amI personally wouldn't advise anybody to go there. I was banned from ipscamstalks by blunderman for helping somebody here with camera firmware.

I second the motion. I was banned for daring to question some minor point he was nattering on about. Many people say that Blunderman has a short fuse and is easily triggered. SAD.

This is from the BlueIris FAQ page: https://blueirissoftware.com/455-2/

"After recent and continued negative feedback, we need to emphasize that this website is the one and only official Blue Iris website. We are not affiliated with any other site which may offer to resell or support Blue Iris. To be quite specific, IPCamTalk is a fully third-party website which many customers have found abusive–it is recommended that you instead visit the official Blue Iris forum."

Pianoman wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 3:51 pm Reolink support has informed me that they have no intention of allowing the user to change the iframe rate.

Hi, not sure if it is still valid, but I see on Reolink`s page for those camera that in version 3.0.0.412 dated 14/7/2021 they included "4. Added the function to set the I frame interval per second."
https://reolink.com/download-center/