Examining $990 USD Smart Camera

•Published Sep 12, 2009 00:00 AM

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ioimage has announced [link no longer available] a new smart camera, the sc1dn [link no longer available] that has an MSRP of $990 USD (see datasheet for technical details [link no longer available]).

This camera is 50% less than ioimage's existing smart network camera, the wdc100dn [link no longer available] which MSRPs for $1980.

The makes ioimage significantly more affordable for mass market applications. With equivalent non-smart IP box cameras at an MSRP of $650-800 USD, the analytics essentially cost $200-350 USD. This is very similar to the pricing for via:sys [link no longer available] ($250 USD) though via:sys needs to be loaded onto 3rd party cameras. Additionally, the pricing is significantly lower than Pelco's OV Sarix cameras [link no longer available] (online-price about $1,200-$1,300) though Pelco's cameras are 2MP and support H.264.

The key differences between the new sc1dn and the existing wdc100dn are:

The sc1dn does not use a Pixim imager and has a lower specified dynamic range (82db vs 120 db)
The sc1dn ships only with intrusion detection (fence crossing/trip wire) while the wdc100dn ships with those as well as object removal, vehicle no parking, unattended object and loitering detection.
The sc1dn only has 1 output stream while the wdc100dn has 2 output streams.

Both cameras are day/night, have SD resolution and support MPEG-4 and MJPEG but not H.264.

The less expensive unit could reduce accuracy in certain bright light/high lighting variation areas. However, exact differences would require testing.

Only Intrusion detection support is probably sufficient for most applications.

The 2 output streams could be an issue for some applications that need to send video to multiple systems, though not for VMS systems that support multicasting.