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The DCS-5300 only works with Internet Explorer, which is okay.The DCS-5300 lets you remotely control the camera, which is okay.The DCS-5300 reboots itself every 24 hours from when you plugged it in, which is okay.My DCS-5300 doesn't always respond to the remote control requests, which is not okay, but it will reboot in 24 hours and some times that fixes this problem, so that makes it okay.It's just okay. For $250, I wanted more than okay.
The camera is a nice design, fair quality image and easy to set up.The enclosed web-based software from Dlink is nice and easy to handle and does the job cleanly and simply.Exactly what you want from a home or small office camera system to monitor activity.However, I purchased the cameras (2) because of the description of the IP security suite that was supposed to come with it, allowing 16 cameras to be monitored and recorded simultaneously.Rubbish. The software was terrible and recording just one camera was a pain, then playing it back was even worse.It's hard to describe just how bad that software was.Cameras were nice though.
The lack of an auto focus, or even a way to focus it from my PC, makes it nearly impossible to set up properly. This one is clearly a lower quality camera in every way. All I can say is it works.for now. This was to replace my old D-Link 6620 camera which just quit working eafter about 1 year. I figured why spend a fortune if they don't last. The low light ability is not as good either.
It will move almost 360 degrees. There is no DVR necessary as the software is in the camera. I have purchased 6 of these and the last two were older models although the model numbers were the same. The camera is excellent. I have retail stores 50 miles from me and I can watch my employees while I control the movement of the camera from my PC at home. However, be careful about which vendor you use.
Turning off security didn't help (like we were going to do that for any length of time). Right away we never could get 33 of 36 computers to be able to access it (all 36 worked fine with the DCS-900). Now the thing has gone totally toes up after just a couple of weeks. Other than the occasional re-boot never had an issue. If we can't get it going in a day or so, hopefully Amazon will take it back/exchange it. Technical support was a joke, "lower the security on the computers and remove the old activeX object installed by the DCS-900".
Guess what, D-Link says no returns under any circumstances, deal with your vendor. We had a DCS-900 for several years. This was the replacement. We couldn't find and they couldn't say what the activeX object was we were supposed to be deleting (nice job, most reputable companies sign their objects).
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