Editorial Review:

Product Description:
AXIS 214 PTZ Network Camera is a high performance camera for professional surveillance and remote monitoring. It combines a high quality color camera with the flexibility of remote pan/tilt/zoom operations. The 18x optical motorized lens with auto focus allows the user to zoom in on a small or distant object with exceptional clarity.









Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

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Rating: - It is expensive but at current prices, it is priced right
First of all the following link provides a live demo of the camera:
[...]

The Amazon page appears to be missing some basic specs on the camera so let's get those out of the way.
-Maximum resolution 704x576, 30 fps in all resolutions
-zoom 18x optical
-Min. illumination Color: 0.3lux B&W: 0.005 lux
-Video codec MPEG-4 part 2, Motion JPEG
-POE Nope
-Comes with:
Power supply, ceiling mount kit, Installation, CD with installation tools, recording software and User's Manual, Windows decoder 1-user license.

So let's start with probably the most important aspect of a security camera: image quality. This camera excels at that. Although it may not record at megapixel resolutions, the lens is of a high enough quality to produce clear images. Couple this with the 18x optical zoom, and you are able to peel the license plate off a car at quite a distance.
Notice the 0.005 B&W lux sensitivity (the smaller the number the better), this number is very important if you intend on using the camera to capture outdoor activity at night. Even at this sensitivity you are not going to get usable images in a poorly lit area. But if you throw a few lights out there and make sure they don't shine into the camera, you should be able to record something meaningful.
However, night time shots are difficult even for the best of security cameras. Don't expect that you will be able to clearly record detail of a fast moving object at night. Thus, if you are trying to record license plates, try to situate the camera so that vehicles will be driving directly towards it -- this should minimized the apparent movement.

Ptz functionality:
What can I say, it pans & scans quickly and quietly. You can set it to 20 preset positions, which you can flip through manually, or set the camera to automatically visit sequentially. When using the web interface, you can just click on whatever part of the image you want to focus on the and camera will figure out how to get there. If you want to zoom in on a specific area, then you just click and drag out a box, let go, and the camera will zoom in and pan appropriately.

More on the web interface:
It is slick and functional. The first page you see is the live demo page, which allows you to control all of the ptz functions, plus the iris size, and focus. You can set the presets, and all of the other typical settings (IP, time, video, audio, users). I've tried the interface in IE and Firefox and it appears to work perfectly in both.

Software:
I didn't try the Axis's software, I'm sure it is fine but it is also expensive. Instead, I opted for BlueIris. [...] software, and it does everything I need. It supports this camera, so you will be able to use the PTZ functions (although not quite as easily), and you will also be able to jump between preset locations.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a quality camera without going too high, this is a pretty safe bet.

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Rating: - Good quality
Quite expensive PTZ camera, but what you get is way superior the competitions. The camera can easily pump 30FPS at 640x480. The PTZ is very fast and easy to control (I'm not using their software).
It seems also very robust comparing to other cameras.