Product Reviews

Axis Communications has delivered some highly desirable network cameras recently and claims yet another accolade this month as its latest 223M is its first 2-megapixel camera. It focuses on surveillance in areas such as banks and airports, and its top resolution of 1,600 x 1,200 pixels makes it well worth considering if you want a high enough quality for facial identification.

You pay a premium for these features, but there's plenty more to help justify the price. The 223M sports Axis' excellent build quality, and it's 802.3af PoE compliant, so you can power it over a standard network cable. It employs a Sony progressive-scan RGB CCD sensor, and the Computar f1.4 varifocal lens has a power cable that connects to the camera to power the iris. Two-way audio is supported with an internal microphone plus sockets for connecting an external microphone and loudspeaker. It delivers some of the best motion-detection features around and operates in light levels as low as 0.2lux, where it will switch to a mono mode.

The only drawback of the highest resolution is the frame rate, which drops to 9fps and, as we found during testing, you won't get smooth movement with this selected. We also found it took a while to get the picture looking good, as the manual zoom and focus pullers

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on the lens are fiddly to use.

Nevertheless, picture quality is truly remarkable - the live view delivers a pin-sharp image with excellent colour balance across a range of lighting conditions. The image size at the top resolution is massive as well, and we'd recommend using at least a 20in TFT to get the best from this camera.

Installation is a cinch with the bundled IP Setup utility. This finds the camera on the network, lets you set up the network port and jump straight to the web interface. Both Motion JPEG and MPEG4 compression are supported, but for the latter you only get a single decoder licence included (you can get more licence packs from Axis).

For 24-hour surveillance, the camera has an IR cut filter that automatically switches when light levels change, and you can use IR illuminators for night vision.

For surveillance in high-security areas, the feed can be encrypted over HTTPS and user access limited with lists of names and passwords that determine whether they can view, operate and administer the camera. Allow and deny lists based on IP addresses can be applied, and external authentication using a RADIUS server implemented as well.

Motion detection is a cut above the rest, as up to ten areas in the live view can be used to detect or ignore movement, and it's even possible to use audio and temperature threshold triggers.

Two input ports at the back of the camera accept devices such as door sensors, and these can be used to trigger events as well. If an event occurs on any trigger method, the camera sends images to HTTP and FTP servers, and then emails them to multiple recipients.

The price is high, but Axis' 223M delivers the goods for picture quality and size. It's packed with a wide range of features for automating surveillance and is an ideal choice for applications where video clarity is a must.