What our experts say…
The 215 PTZ is one of them; it’s a compact general-purpose indoor model designed for day or night operation, with a useful assortment of features that take full advantage of network operation. But as usual it’s the camera that really matters, and this one is off to a promising start with a 12x optical zoom that can be extended to 48x with a 4x digital zoom option.
Behind the lens there’s a 1/4-inch CCD with low light sensitivity in the order of 1 lux in colour (day) mode and 0.3 lux in night mode, with the servo operated IR filter flipped out of the way. Resolution is switchable between QCIF (176 x 120), CIF (352 x 240), 2CIF (704 x 240), 2CIF Expanded (704 x 480) and 4CIF (704 x 480) at up to 30 frames per second using simultaneous JPEG and MPEG compression and streaming.
Up to 20 preset positions can be stored and there’s a motion detection system with five configurable zones. If activated it can be programmed to upload images to an ftp server, send email notifications or move to a preset position. There’s a two-way audio facility and this can also be used as an alarm an alarm trigger. The camera pans and tilts at up to 140 and 180 degrees/second respectively; it has a tilt range of 180 degrees and it pans through 360 degrees.
That last item requires some explanation, though, because like previous Axis PTZ models the camera platform can only rotate through 340 degrees before it hits the buffers, and some clever jiggery-pokery is required in order to achieve the claimed 360 degrees rotation.
During a continuous pan, after it has moved through 170 degrees, the image freezes; the camera spins and flips then resumes panning more or less where it left off. When panning slowly or intermittently, as soon as it reaches the end stop the same thing happens. Either way it is quite distracting and the loss of moving video, which lasts for around a second, could be enough to lose track of a rapidly moving subject; this also means the camera is unsuitable for continuous patrols.
The cylindrical base on which the rotating camera platform sits is made from cast alloy; a recessed segment houses a set of sockets for the power connector (12 volt DC via a external mains adaptor), Ethernet cable, audio input put and output (3.5mm minijack) and a four way connector for the alarm connections.
This area also has a set of three LEDs for power, network connection and status. A button on the side is used to reset the camera to its factory defaults; the pan motor sits inside a moulding to one side of the central bearing.
A surprisingly complex arrangement is used to tilt the cylindrical camera module, the stepper motor drives a toothed belt/gear reduction mechanism, which in turn drives a worm gear that acts on the main camera bearing. It’s also quite noisy and a little jerky, making precise adjustments quite tricky.
Setup and operation
After the camera has been powered up and connected to the network it has to be located using the Axis IP Utility, which is supplied with the camera on a CD-ROM. This identifies the camera and double-clicking on the ident opens a web browser window, which displays a request for a Username and Password.
Active X and MPEG 4 plug-ins, downloaded form the camera, need to be installed before streamed images can be displayed in the Live View Window. In addition to the picture there are slider type controls for pan, tilt, zoom and focus, and in common with other recent Axis domes these are supplemented with extra controls that rely upon the mouse.
There are two operating modes: ‘Centre’ uses the mouse pointer to define an area of interest by drawing a rectangle on the screen, after which the camera centres on the box and zooms in until it fills the screen. In ‘Joystick’ mode the camera follows the mouse pointer when the mouse button is clicked; pan/tilt speed varies proportionally to the distance between the mouse point and a crosshair at the centre of the screen. Both methods are reasonably intuitive and quickly mastered, though it has to be said that neither are as convenient or easy to use as a traditional joystick.
A secondary control panel can also be displayed, in the Live View window. This has buttons for switching the Autofocus on and off, enabling backlight compensation, switching navigation mode (Joystick or Centre), displaying or hiding the screen crosshair, setting day/night mode (on/off/auto) and controlling brightness. A drop-down menu switches between Motion JPEG and MPEG 4 video format.
Internet Explorer is the preferred browser but it will also work in Firefox, though with some loss of functionality. For example, we couldn’t get the MPEG4 codecs to install, though this also proved tricky in IE working under Windows XP, taking several attempts and a number of reboots before it would display an image. For some reasons we never managed to get MPEG4 streaming to work in IE in Windows Vista.
Clicking Setup in the top right hand corner of the screen opens the main configuration menus. Seven options are displayed: Basic Configuration, Video & Image, Audio, Live View Config, PTZ Configuration, Event Configuration, System Options and About.
Basic Configuration covers password and administration, network and date and time setup, plus direct access to the Video and Image and Audio sub menus. Video & Image deals with resolution, compression, image rotation, white balance (auto, indoor, outdoor, fluorescent) colour/mono operation, image overlays (date, time, camera title), video stream time limit, maximum frame rate and Test Settings.
The Audio sub menu has switches for full and half duplex and simplex modes, audio input (line or microphone, powered or unpowered), input sensitivity, gain, encoding, bitrate, alarm level and audio output gain. Selecting the Live View menu displays options for customising the appearance of the page, inserting custom web links and buttons, setting the default video format and browser and enabling or disabling the various toolbar and page elements.
PTZ configuration is concerned with programming preset positions, setting up a sequence or tour, defining display zones, setting PTZ limits and speeds, enabling the auto flip function, calibrating the zoom and limiting the number of viewers.
Event Configuration includes provision for setting up event servers for uploading images, selecting alarm triggers and responses as well as activation times, motion detector setup and alarm input/output port status.
Finally, System Options. This covers a lot of ground but the main points of interest are Security settings, IP Address filters, secure HTTPS settings, Date and Time, Network configuration, ports status, server maintenance and firmware upgrade, links to Axis support, logs and reports and access to an script editor to delve even deeper into the dome’s configuration settings.
As with previously reviewed Axis IP cameras, the sheer range of configuration options is staggering, certainly more than are ever likely to be needed for most users, but they are there if you need them, and the well thought out menus makes them reasonably accessible.
Performance
As far as picture quality is concerned little appears to have changed since the last Axis dome Bench Test. At the highest resolution settings and in good daylight it produces a clean image with a fair amount of detail, colours look reasonably natural and noise levels are low.
At lower light levels noise increases quickly but dips back down again when switching from day to night mode. Colour balance only starts to waver when the camera is used in fluorescent or mixed artificial light, though the white balance options are able to minimise the worst effect.
Pan and tilt motion is not as smooth as we would have liked, and there is some overshoot; this, we suspect, is due to a combination of the complicated drive mechanism, plastic chassis and components, which lacks the rigidity of metal. It’s by no means a problem but this, and the less precise mouse-driven controls, conspire to make it harder to track moving objects at higher zoom settings.
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