Very Disappointed by AMC4KBC28 8MP Analog Camera

[Revo2Maxx]

Looking over your text I seen you said that the camera is a power hog with IR on? Huh, In the Tech Doc it says that the camera is 12v 8w max with Ir on. That is only .667ma less then 1 amp and any good 2amp power supply if not using a PDU should be able to work the camera. However that don't take into count the Voltage Drop per foot of cable your using and if you are using a Real Siamese cable with true Copper wiring or you are using a Cheap All in 1 unit that is really only 3 wire setup sharing the Power ground and Video Ground over 1 wire (VERY BAD) I mean funny thing is Annke with my BR200 camera sold me at the same time a POS cable that at the time they said would work. It was 60ft long and sure it worked as long as the alarm of the camera didn't off lol. Once that happens the power draw on the cable running ground or power and video made the Video so unstable it was Trash..

Problem is today there are so many people out there that is selling JUNK cables. Sure more in the Cat (Ethernet) part of the security more then Siamese. However there is just some bad actors out there and for some people that buy it and using analog cameras from 10 or 5 years ago sure wouldn't really notice any issue. Some people don't know that there are some cables out there that still using CCA in Siamese cables. For me anyway what is important is that the cable uses Real Copper wires for the power wires and I will deal with the video issues if that is all I can find. However I was out of good cable and my supplier that I buy from was out at the time I bought the JUNK from Annke for my BR200.. My thought then was their camera it should work on their cable. Not the case..

So my guess is that your issue with IR on is the type of cable you were using has shared Ground and pulls to much current even if as little as .667ma. I do have some power Hog cameras that take 2amps almost full time. If I use cheap cables at any distance over 20ft the camera suffers.

Problem is that people try to run Siamese cable at long lengths without taking into count the Voltage drop of a Power supply. I mean at times i have a power jack maybe mid span of a long range so I will inject my power at that area rather then trying to use one at the DVR location. I mean 2amps on a 60ft of Siamese for a camera that don't like much under 11v means that isn't going to work well without adding some extra voltage at my PDU. Then the issue is if I have a 16ch PDU and I turn it up to 13.8v I need to make sure that I am not going to over drive the voltage to other cameras on that power supply. In some cases the best thing with cheap wire is to have camera close to the power supply and not run it down the Siamese cable at all. That isn't always practical I know.. That is why I have a good few PDU's. Some I have even converted to using both 12 and 24vac however that again isn't practical for most users because not many people use dual volt cameras and connecting the wrong camera to the wrong supply is a case for some Blue Smoke if not a Loud POP lol..

[Pogo]

You guessed wrong. I use 24AWG solid UTP CAT5E with baluns and don't have a powering problem. My reference was to what others have mentioned about their experience with the camera -- undoubtedly due to the reasons you provided above.

[Revo2Maxx]

Awsome. Well your post looked like something you had ran into. UTP is great as long as it is a good company and is real copper and not CCA seeing it is the biggest con. I mean even the Big box stores seem to have moved some in. So it has to be a known good brand and even with that I do some testing when I first get my roll.. I mean if you go to Ebay and search for some. My guess is that you would see 100 cca to every 1 or 2 of real copper. Now they are even trying harder to make CCA look like copper with the larger copper words over the fine print that it is cca lol.

My matter of fact post that I would post would be something I know and have delt with first hand.

But glad to hear you use good wires and I was wrong with my guess of what could have been the issue to something it sounded like you had dealt with.

[Revo2Maxx]

So one of the cameras that I rejected was damaged. So it was shipped out again and if things goes as planned it should be here by Friday maybe before. To be honest I am interested to see what happens with the 7108 more then my 8M16-H5. However I will test them on both. Seeing the H5 is an older DVR I really want the cameras to work on the 7108 before getting the new FW to fix the issue with my new 5mp camera. However if there is a problem with the 8mp camera on the 7108 I will maybe be able to get that fixed in the FW that would fix the 5mp so really wish the Amcrest cameras would work with Audio in all formats (Besides CVBS) as I know it wouldn't there normally anyway. However with the cameras being 4 in 1 it would be nice if all HD formats in audio that is in the camera.

Is that would you found with your 8mp as well. Audio only works on CVI format? Nice to know before I setup the cameras in TVI format lol.

On my 4-1 Hikvision DVR's lol What a POS. Says it works with cvi, tvi, AHD and CVBS (960h) however the 5mp camera works on all formats BUT CVI lol. I have other Cvi cameras that work on it, however picture isn't' as nice in them DVR's in any setting outside of TVI lol. At least the Amcrest DVR's work in all formats even if the cvi on my 7018 don't work right. The H5 did and audio sounded clear as well.

[Pogo]

I'm only runniing audio in CVI mode and haven't tried any of he others. Pretty sure CVI is the default and required mode for the analog side of the DVM8.
The audio on the AMC4K seems to be pretty decent from what I've tested so far, which has been limited to seeing if it even worked. Was pleasantly surprised.

Was also looking into the 7108 a bit and I see that it should handle the full published specs of that camera. Problem is, they're unavailable with no date or timetable given for availability. Right now I'm debating over getting a 4108-A2 or another H5. I really like the H5 for both the price and its general flexibility. but it NEEDS MORE BANDWIDTH, LOL

[Revo2Maxx]

To be honest, Stay with the DVR's I would hold out for the 7108 if you want the max FPS for 8mp however to be fair you already have 7 for a few dollars cheaper you could get the 5116-AI DVR with 2x the channel and with 8mp cameras all your recorders would be at 7fps..

However 7108 will give you the max 15fps that is offered right now by Amcrest even though the cameras has the ability to deliver even more that just means in the future if they were to bring out one with higher FPS the camera is already built that could support it. I personally doubt there will be much better over what is offered now until and if even a higher MP camera and DVR counter part is built. At one time they said Analog would never be over 2mp lol. Some people said IP would top at 4 lol They are still in the stone ages..

[Revo2Maxx]

So far I like my camera connected to the 7108. I have not tested it on the 8m16-H5 yet. There are a few things that kind of Irk me and at this time I am not 100% sure where the issue is. Camera connected to cheap cable for testing gave me the results I expected. JUNK lol. The cable that is lol.. So I moved the camera to short testing lead of some real Siamese cable because I don't have much floating around anymore. Need to find a new local to me supplier that will sell the real stuff.

Anyway there seems might still be an issue somewhere (Only with the Audio) all other parts are working with the 7108 at this time. I have not as I said tested it on the older DVR.. One of the things I like about this camera is on the 7108 anyway the camera can be setup in 4K-N and incase have not worked with that before that is for Narrow format. . Also another item I don't get is what is up with this Voltage display on or off? There is no display on my 8m16-H5 or my 7108 so what is that there for

Talking about Voltage. This camera isn't power hungry, It is out of the box setup for 200ma once turned on and all the test are complete. Once I turned on the IR my Voltage and Current showed that the camera only required 470ma and that is with the IR turned to full power and the Voltage stayed steady at 12.4v in my testing power supply from all function with IR off and IR on. My test was done at the cameras power connector not through a cable. Please keep in mind that connecting a Wall Wort power supply through 120ft of cable, really isn't good for most high end cameras.. Local to the camera or a PDU with adjustment for voltage regulation is best for long run. Also if the run is really long, Adding voltage in the mid point will work as well..

I will test the OLDER DVR now see if maybe issue with audio is 7108 issue because the 5mp camera running 3mp lol and alien audio so maybe it is just the DVR seeing the older one worked perfect..

[Revo2Maxx]

The 4k-N is only really 4mp but still cool either way

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[Pogo]

So one of your new cameras is a 4KBC28 also? Somehow I got the impression it was going to be anothet IP camera.

[Revo2Maxx]

Nope I figured you having issues I wanted to see what I could find out on my systems. I wanted for a while to get 4k analog. Maybe because I said something like got 3 cameras for cost of one ip camera I was looking at. Sorry wasn't clear.