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Mini-Review - 5442-ZE-S3 AKA T54IR-ZE-S3 - Replacement to 5442-ZE

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alekk

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EMPIRETECANDY said:
The latest new Smart IR firmware has been updated to the website for downloading now. It's for S3 version use only. smart IR is working amazing with this latest new fw, so highly recommend to update.

empiretech01.com/pages/download-firmwares
Click to expand...

So "Santa" (aka Andy!) just delivered a IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 today. I've been futzing with security cams for a couple of decades - most recently the Hikvision world. So I'm fairly familiar with the concepts and the menu's are (not surprisingly) very similar.

Under System->Update, it says System Version 3.100.000000.5.R with Build Date of 2023-05-09. If I run a Manual Check, it says I'm using the latest version. So I'm assuming (similar to Hikvision), I just download the .bin files from Andy's link (for the ZE-S3!) and apply them - right? And per "UpdateAttention.txt", I first apply Firmware.bin and then the Empiretech IPC-HX5XXX (long name) .bin file - right?

I just want to make sure I don't BRICK this on my first day! ;-)

Also, is there any API documentation available?
I'm specifically interesting in being able to pull a snapshot image via a remote wget/curl command?

Thanks!
 
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wittaj

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alekk said:
So "Santa" (aka Andy!) just delivered a IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 today. I've been futzing with security cams for a couple of decades - most recently the Hikvision world. So I'm fairly familiar with the concepts and the menu's are (not surprisingly) very similar.

Under System->Update, it says System Version 3.100.000000.5.R with Build Date of 2023-05-09. If I run a Manual Check, it says I'm using the latest version. So I'm assuming (similar to Hikvision), I just download the .bin files from Andy's link (for the ZE-S3!) and apply them - right? And per "UpdateAttention.txt", I first apply Firmware.bin and then the Empiretech IPC-HX5XXX (long name) .bin file - right?

I just want to make sure I don't BRICK this on my first day! ;-)

Also, is there any API documentation available?
I'm specifically interesting in being able to pull a snapshot image via a remote wget/curl command?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Congrats!

Yep on the firmware update.

That is one of our gripes is this new GUI doesn't follow the API of the older cams, so the API documentation is fairly useless. We are trial and error to figure it out. Anything in particular you are looking for ad maybe we figured it out already?
 
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skyline_pl

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wittaj said:
Congrats!

Yep on the firmware update.

That is one of our gripes is this new GUI doesn't follow the API of the older cams, so the API documentation is fairly useless. We are trial and error to figure it out. Anything in particular you are looking for ad maybe we figured it out already?
Click to expand...
I read it the other way, update the main firmware (long name file), which caused the algorithm not to match, and proceeded to update with Firmware.bin. Glad that didn't brick it.
 
wittaj

wittaj

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skyline_pl said:
I read it the other way, update the main firmware (long name file), which caused the algorithm not to match, and proceeded to update with Firmware.bin. Glad that didn't brick it.
Click to expand...
When I was testing the camera, I tried it both ways and as long as all the firmware files are uploaded, I didn't see any difference in the operation of a camera.

In case you haven't seen it here, many of us are a believer of the factory reset 3 times, apply firmware updates, factory reset 3 times method of updating cameras. We have seen many instances over the years where the firmware goes wonky/corrupt if multiple factory resets are not done. Of course some have simply applied it and didn't have a problem either, but the factory resets are a good way to ensure it takes properly.
 
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Thanks for the feedback guys. FYI FWIW that here's what I did and what the differences were.

1. I had made some a few changes to the camera config,then did some testing, got everything read for the upgrade, got distracted by the wife, came back and hit the upgrade button ... and then realized I forgot to factory reset. It seem to "take" without any problems ... but I would advise people to take @wittaj advice - dude is like the Jedi Master of this forum! ;-)

2. I applied Firmware.bin first and got the same "algorithm not matching" message that @skyline_pl got. Camera seemed to be working fine, but I promptly followed with the main firmware that has the Emire name on ... which caused that message to go away. Since I was successful the first time not doing a factory reset, I "risked" it again ... and initial impressions are all seem to be working. BTW, I noticed that NOW when I say "manual check" for Firmware, it says "Check Timeout" ... but I'm going with whatever @EMPIRETECANDY says we should use, so not worried about that.

3. I did a quick pass through the menu's and I saw that Camera->Illuminator->Smart IR (Off/General) is now added as others have noted.
UPDATE: After getting my 2nd camera, the following is incorrect - it WAS there in the previous firmware. I think (?) there is a new option Camera-LDC (Off/On - default is off) that I don't remember being there. This appears to be doing Lens Correction.

Clicking on System Info, I saw the following AS-SHIPPED ... and BOLDING shows the changes after the upgrade:

Device: IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 SAME
SN: 9F0EA64P####### SAME
ONVIF: 22.06 (V3.1.0.1349397) 22.13 (V3.1.0.1403710)
System Version: 3.100.0000000.5.R Build Date:2023-05-09 3.100.15OG000.0.R Build Date:2023-11-27
Web Version: V5.01.0.1431017 V5.01.0.15332205
Algorithm Version: V3.5.6.0 V3.5.26.0
Security Baseline Version: V2.3 SAME
 
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wittaj said:
That is one of our gripes is this new GUI doesn't follow the API of the older cams, so the API documentation is fairly useless. We are trial and error to figure it out. Anything in particular you are looking for ad maybe we figured it out already?
Click to expand...
After searching some threads, I was able to find out what I wanted which is snarfing a snapshot. I was puzzled at first since the browser would correctly grab the image (make sure CGI is enabled under Network->Basic Services) using a format of but my "image grabber" Perl program (used with various other vendors) didn't work. Turns out that Dahua requires "digest" authentication (rather than basic) which is arguably a "good" thing. So I just had to wrangle the code a bit.

As commented on this thread, (fixed link) the image quality from grabbing an image from snapshot.cgi is MUCH less than if you do a do a Snapshot from the Live view using the camera icon. Any ideas on how to improve the quality? I've tried adding some misc. parameters to /cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi, but doesn't seem to make any difference.

Also, while the total transfer time is reliability under a second, this is still slower than a 5-year old Hikvision camera that is on the same local network.
 
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Ri22o

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I just applied both firmware updates to my ZE-S3 and now it won't load the IP in IE. It will come up in Edge or Chrome, but not IE or Edge IE.

Thoughts?
 
wittaj

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Ri22o said:
I just applied both firmware updates to my ZE-S3 and now it won't load the IP in IE. It will come up in Edge or Chrome, but not IE or Edge IE.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
That's different lol

Did you do the factory reset, apply firmware, factory reset method?
 
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Reset
Reset
Update Firmware
Reset
Saw .bin message
Update .bin

Won't show in IE
 
Ri22o

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I updated the firmware but it is still showing the previous version, as well.

1705095193610.png
 
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alekk

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Boy ... that sounds strange ... sorry I don't have anything to add beyond what I wrote in post #65 - was uneventful for both of my IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3's.
Hopefully it will "take" this time and you'll end up with the same versions that I noted.
BTW, I say "cancel" when asked to open "WebSocketServer23450.exe" as I seem to be able to do most things without it.
FYI that I can also use Firefox to view/configure the camera.
 
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