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[Watcher]

So, despite all the negative feedback in the other threads, I decided to try out the cam, especially since there is really no other option for a reasonable 180 degree outdoor camera on the market.

Powering it up, I used the D-Link Lite app to connect and set it up initially. All went smoothly.

After that I went to the web interface of the cam to set up some specific parameters and to play with the settings. What I immediately saw was that the interface looked almost identical to my DCS-2332L cam, with a few additional options and Preset being removed. The following options were added: WDR levels (think HDR of D-Lighting) in the Image Setup; in the IR Light they added a drop down, allowing to control the intensity of the 4 IR leds.

Seeing as the interface of 2670L look like 2332L, I tried adding it to DCS-100 DViewCam using that (2332L) profile, and it worked - with both video and audio!

One of the other things that I did was upgrading the firmware to 01.10.02. One thing that didn't work was turning off the IR lights - they still got turned on when the camera switched to the night mode. This seems to have been fixed. I got prompted to update to 02.00.02 from the mydlink website (even though this version is not listed in the download section of the camera's support site).

The image quality is quite good for such a wide angle. Comparing the 180 degree 1080p 2670L to the narrow-angle 2332L 720p, I see fewer detail. Look at the comparisons of a lawn ornament taken with both cams from about the same distance.
https://imgur.com/a/7tLtdz1
One compares the the same zoom level, and the other zooms so that both images have the same scale. Fine detail (like the clover flowers) is gone in 2670L, still overall its a good image for a camera that covers so much. And good that D-Link did not make it a 720p cam, like they did with 960L (the heir of 933L).

I have not seen any flicker problems. My experiments with the Image setup gave quite good results using the following presets: Outdoor and Moving and denoising turned off and WDR set to 1. In Custom mode, I zeroed in on shutter speeds 1/2000 through 1/25. The 1/2000 speed is something new in 2670L, compared to 2332L, which had only 1/1000 and 1/10000 to choose from.

So far I've been testing 2670L through the window, and have not tried mounting it on the outside wall. Here D-Link mad a few engineering bummers with the connectors. According to my calculations, I'll have to drill an at least 21mm hole in the wall to thread the Ethernet contact, while bending the power contact back. an alternative would be to thread only the power cord through the wall and leave all the contacts on the outside. But here there is also a design flaw - the contact at the end of the power cord is, for some reason, angled - so a rather wide hole would still be needed. One final option is to cut the power cord, thread it through the wall and then re-connect it on the inside using some clips.

My final peeve was the lack of 5GHz radio. I may be able to circumvent it by connecting the cam to an old dual-band router in bridge mode.

I'll come back to this thread once it is mounted and I've had it for some time.

[DaDDz]

It's encouraging that you are getting good results with the 2670l.  I've had my unit, hardware version A1 for 10 months and it never functioned.  I mothballed it after six months of trying, including testing beta firmware for them.  I see now there is a new hardware version, B1, which I assume you have given the prompt for a firmware upgrade.  Firmware 2.00.02  is only for the B1 hardware.  I've been asking for new hardware from support for a few weeks as my ticket is still open.  I'd like to be able to use what I paid for last year. Hoping to get a response as my warranty is running out.

[Watcher]

Mine says:
Hardware Version   A
Agent Version   2.2.0-b25

Edit: Something between A1 that you have and B1 that you mention?

[FurryNutz]

Keep in contact with your regional support office about your camera, if you feel it's not working right, ask for an RMA...

It's encouraging that you are getting good results with the 2670l.  I've had my unit, hardware version A1 for 10 months and it never functioned.  I mothballed it after six months of trying, including testing beta firmware for them.  I see now there is a new hardware version, B1, which I assume you have given the prompt for a firmware upgrade.  Firmware 2.00.02  is only for the B1 hardware.  I've been asking for new hardware from support for a few weeks as my ticket is still open.  I'd like to be able to use what I paid for last year. Hoping to get a response as my warranty is running out.

[Watcher]

Well, the camera has finally been installed at its intended place outside, overlooking a garden of approximately 10mx20m from roughly the middle of the longest side. The 180 degree covers the whole garden quite nicely leaving no blind spots. I don't use on-camera motion detection, relegating the job to DViewCam DCS-100 program.

To mount the camera, I had to drill a 22mm hole in the house wall, fit it with a tube that is 21mm in diameter on the inside and then tread the cable assembly through the tube. The camera is connected to power and an Ethernet cable on the inside of the house. This allows me to run it at 25fps, 4096kbps, 1080p. When it was on my (rather crowded) 2.4GHz link, I had to drop the framerate to 15fps to get a non-choppy transmission. Again, pity it does not support 5GHz.

It was with a heavy heart that I dismounted the 2332L camera that was overlooking the garden before. It's been mounted there since April 2014 and still functions perfectly.

Here are the data sheets for the old and the new camera. In my book, 2332L delivered the best video quality of the ones that I owned (933L, 5020L, 960L, 2630L)
https://eu.dlink.com/uk/en/-/media/consumer_products/dcs/dcs-2332l/datasheet/dcs_2332l_datasheet_en_uk.pdf
https://eu.dlink.com/uk/en/-/media/consumer_products/dcs/dcs-2670l/datasheet/dcs_2670l_datasheet_en.pdf

Even though the sensor specs of the 2670L are better, the image is a bit blockier than on 2332L (no denoising applied) and with a lower level of detail.

Another thing to note, is noticeable chromatic aberration and softness in the corners (to be expected from such a wide angle with such a small glass). The central part of the image is sufficiently sharp.

In night view, I noticed that 2670L suffers a bit from IR light bleeding, resulting in a hazy image on the periphery. 2332L suffered from the same problem. Still with a wide angle protruding lens, it is difficult to avoid some IR light bouncing inside the casing and the glass. I noticed that the bleeding becomes especially apparent if the IR power is set to High or Highest. At Medium and below there is almost no noticeable haze. Alas, the for area of my size, the IR lighting needs to be at full power to make a difference in the outer reaches. On the bright side (pun intended), the sensor seems to be more light sensitive, so the night modus cuts in later,than when it did on 2332L.

As wit the other D-Link cameras, SD card is pretty useless as the camera does not automatically rotate out old footage, but rather stops recording the events once the card is full. I thus decided against fitting the camera with an SD card, as I prefer more of a fire-and-forget solution.

[FurryNutz]

Wow. Glad you got it all set up. Hope you enjoy. 

[Watcher]

Wow. Glad you got it all set up. Hope you enjoy. 

I'll definitely will, especially come autumn and winter, when the behoved denizens of the nearby forest start wandering through the garden

In general, and despite what my critical comments can give the impression of, I am pretty satisfied with the camera overall.

My only real gripe is that D-Link should have used a sensor with more megapixels. While 2MP is exactly 1920x1080, an oversampling with a 3-4MP sensor would have been highly appropriate for a camera trying to capture at such a wide angle, especially since it seems to do quite a lot of image processing internally. Practically, the level of detail should not have been worse, than on a 1280x800 2332L, which sports a comparable 1MP sensor.

[FurryNutz]