Dahua Ultra Starlight Varifocal Bullet (IPC-HFW8232E-Z)

hmjgriffon

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LOL, Thanks for @nayr nice pics!
Just back from hospital to see my brother in law, talk to the doctors for the future cure, tracking wait slightly later, back to work and update to you, buddy, no worry!:)
Hope your brother is doing okay and gets out soon!
 

nayr

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Shootout Video, damn this thing kicks the living shit out of the Ecco Savvy Starlight; and that thing kicked the Shit out of everything else I could get my hands on


In the above video only the Ultra has its IR on; so its not a combined IR setup.
 
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hmjgriffon

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Shootout Video, damn this thing kicks the living shit out of the Ecco Savvy Starlight; and that thing kicked the Shit out of everything else I could get my hands on


In the above video only the Ultra has its IR on; so its not a combined IR setup.
Epic camera and epic dreds lol
 

nayr

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Wide Angle, both IR on.

Ultra:
Galileo NVR----2017-01-09-22-45-39.jpg

Eco Savvy:
Galileo NVR-Dahua Starlight HDW5231R-Z-2017-01-09-22-45-32.jpg
you can see the Ultra in wide angle :)

normally I dont have eco Savvy pointed down, I wonder if the bright IR on the ground is causing it to darken up.. normally I have it pointed up a little so the center of frame is the fence practically.. I think we are seeing the advantage of a p-iris vs auto-iris here
 
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nayr

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yep, the last shots showed where the precision iris on the ultra really helps the photon gathering process.. here are two back to back shots w/no IR in wide angle.

Galileo NVR----2017-01-09-23-21-50.jpg
Galileo NVR-Dahua Starlight HDW5231R-Z-2017-01-09-23-21-44.jpg

and again w/only the pathetic IR from my back patio 4300S to light things up (lol)
Galileo NVR----2017-01-09-23-33-34.jpg
Galileo NVR-Dahua Starlight HDW5231R-Z-2017-01-09-23-33-29.jpg

The Eco Starlight is good; but it sure aint no Ultra ;)
 
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nayr

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great report nayr big thx !!
Its been my pleasure; my initial impression: this camera is really just amazing and my only problem is that I didnt take opportunity to buy two of em, @EMPIRETECANDY can I has another? I have one more 4MP bullet to replace and I dont want an Eco Starlight Bullet anymore :D

Its amazing what +/-0.004 Lux will do, but this SSA Backlight feature is the shit, wish they all had it; its like it takes the light and spreads it around perfectly.. After seeing what it does at night I cant wait to see what it does in the day, where this camera is going it needs backlighting very badly.

Its built like a freaking tank, none of my other bullets are vandal resistant and you can tell that this thing can take a beating.. lots of nice features for professional installers, the 1080p Substream is awesome for streaming to Youtube since they want a lower bitrate/fps than I like to record with (4096Kbps).. This would make a fantastic high end webcam with its featureset..

It uses the same multi-IVS system that the Starlight Varifocal Turret, you can have multiples enabled at a time.. but people counting/heatmap are like facial detection and separate and can only be enabled one at a time.. I'll still play with em even though I'll use tripwires

Having the camera control the iris w/precession instead of the iris just controlling its self makes this camera amazingly adaptable.. and the IR in this camera is significantly more powerfull than the Eco Starlights.. easily 2-3x brighter as observed from 3rd camera.

I got this camera thinking it'd be great but a lil hard to justify compared to the eco varifocal starlights; but given how much more you get for +$130 I'd highly recommend this if you can afford it and can tolerate a fairly decently sized bullet.. It'd be fantastic if they offered this in a turret but alas this is basically it unless you want an Ultra Starlight PTZ ;)

Right now if I could install just one camera; it'd be this one.. because I know it'd get me the most detail regardless of the situation.

This is going to be my anti-prowler camera, wired to a motion sensor, strobe light, and z-wave contact switch to turn on security lights instantly... Setup to react to people walking down sidewalk very late at night or walking up into front yard.. stacking all the odds I can towards getting some excellent images of sidewalk traffic night or day.
 
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morpheus

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Hi nayr,

could you check the power consumption of the cam with ir disabled, please? Maybe your POE-Switch shows this.
 

nayr

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yeah I'll do power tests with it eventually and get the idle w/IR on and off, right now I have the power split with the turret.. the both of em are pulling about 18W right now heh.. I'll have to do some rewiring to make individual measurements..

iirc the turret pulls ~5W w/IR on, so tha'd put it around ~13W but the splitter takes some power too, dunno how much that takes all by its self.

also remember I have a heater in this one, and its cold here.. will see if I can figure out when its off
 
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EMPIRETECANDY

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Its been my pleasure; my initial impression: this camera is really just amazing and my only problem is that I didnt take opportunity to buy two of em, @EMPIRETECANDY can I has another? I have one more 4MP bullet to replace and I dont want an Eco Starlight Bullet anymore :D

Its amazing what +/-0.004 Lux will do, but this SSA Backlight feature is the shit, wish they all had it; its like it takes the light and spreads it around perfectly.. After seeing what it does at night I cant wait to see what it does in the day, where this camera is going it needs backlighting very badly.

Its built like a freaking tank, none of my other bullets are vandal resistant and you can tell that this thing can take a beating.. lots of nice features for professional installers, the 1080p Substream is awesome for streaming to Youtube since they want a lower bitrate/fps than I like to record with (4096Kbps).. This would make a fantastic high end webcam with its featureset..

It uses the same multi-IVS system that the Starlight Varifocal Turret, you can have multiples enabled at a time.. but people counting/heatmap are like facial detection and separate and can only be enabled one at a time.. I'll still play with em even though I'll use tripwires

Having the camera control the iris w/precession instead of the iris just controlling its self makes this camera amazingly adaptable.. and the IR in this camera is significantly more powerfull than the Eco Starlights.. easily 2-3x brighter as observed from 3rd camera.

I got this camera thinking it'd be great but a lil hard to justify compared to the eco varifocal starlights; but given how much more you get for +$130 I'd highly recommend this if you can afford it and can tolerate a fairly decently sized bullet.. It'd be fantastic if they offered this in a turret but alas this is basically it unless you want an Ultra Starlight PTZ ;)

Right now if I could install just one camera; it'd be this one.. because I know it'd get me the most detail regardless of the situation.

This is going to be my anti-prowler camera, wired to a motion sensor, strobe light, and z-wave contact switch to turn on security lights instantly... Setup to react to people walking down sidewalk very late at night or walking up into front yard.. stacking all the odds I can towards getting some excellent images of sidewalk traffic night or day.
Lol, this one I booked last month. Only 5pcs, also very hard to get the stock.After this lot, have to wait at least 1 month.
 

j4co

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yeah I'll do power tests with it eventually and get the idle w/IR on and off, right now I have the power split with the turret.. the both of em are pulling about 18W right now heh.. I'll have to do some rewiring to make individual measurements..

iirc the turret pulls ~5W w/IR on, so tha'd put it around ~13W but the splitter takes some power too, dunno how much that takes all by its self.
Nayr, thx for these tests, can you tell me what that back/white sign in the front is? Is that self made or do you have a link where to buy.

That is nice to have and put in same distance with test to compare.
 
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hmjgriffon

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Wide Angle, both IR on.

Ultra:
View attachment 13876

Eco Savvy:
View attachment 13877
you can see the Ultra in wide angle :)

normally I dont have eco Savvy pointed down, I wonder if the bright IR on the ground is causing it to darken up.. normally I have it pointed up a little so the center of frame is the fence practically.. I think we are seeing the advantage of a p-iris vs auto-iris here
P iris will be fixed though right so when the lighting changes it doesn't adjust
 

Dave Lonsdale

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Around three months ago I bought four HFW8231E-Z to use security triggering around my home which were the only starlight bullets available at that time, hoping the Exmor R would make up for it being the smaller 1/2.8". If I'm honest I've been disappointed. OK, the low light colour sensitivity is a bit better than my non-starlight Dahua cameras but the HFW8231 switches to black and white well before you would see the benefit and unlike the HFW8232, I have not found a way to control the IR without using only colour.

The setup screen is different, see below, even though the firmware is nearly the same. You can see in an example below, to use enough wanted video triggering sensitivity, the IR causes a vast number of unwanted triggers from very light rain, snow, fog and cobwebs. I need discrete IR several feet away from the cameras instead. In my rural environment, colour mode gives a totally black screen at night.

(I fitted each of the cameras with 128GB SD cards to avoid the need to run my Blue Iris PC continuously)

Screenshot 2017-01-10 12.07.53.png Screenshot 2017-01-10 12.09.48.png Screenshot 2017-01-10 12.19.52.png
 

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EMPIRETECANDY

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Around three months ago I bought four HFW8231E-Z to use security triggering around my home which were the only starlight bullets available at that time, hoping the Exmor R would make up for it being the smaller 1/2.8". If I'm honest I've been disappointed. OK, the low light colour sensitivity is a bit better than my non-starlight Dahua cameras but the HFW8231 switches to black and white well before you would see the benefit and unlike the HFW8232, I have not found a way to control the IR without using only colour.

The setup screen is different, see below, even though the firmware is nearly the same. You can see in an example below, to use enough wanted video triggering sensitivity, the IR causes a vast number of unwanted triggers from very light rain, snow, fog and cobwebs. I need discrete IR several feet away from the cameras instead. In my rural environment, colour mode gives a totally black screen at night.

(I fitted each of the cameras with 128GB SD cards to avoid the need to run my Blue Iris PC continuously)

View attachment 13889 View attachment 13890 View attachment 13891
Dave, your camera is IPC-HFW8231E-Z slightly different, but latest new camera already has some update for the software and hardware too, right now the camera is S2, from your picture, the IPC-HFW8231E-Z not very good picture. Your firmware also too old, can ask for some updating, because there has some bugs for the old firmware cams.
 

Dave Lonsdale

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Oh OK, Empiretecandy, thanks for that extremely quick response! I wonder if updated firmware would be compatible with my hardware? I was unaware of your organisation and bought from elsewhere. Should I ask them for updated firmware?
 

EMPIRETECANDY

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Oh OK, Empiretecandy, thanks for that extremely quick response! I wonder if updated firmware would be compatible with my hardware? I was unaware of your organisation and bought from elsewhere. Should I ask them for updated firmware?
Sure, let me check and send you firmware, you just try it, if can't work, then i will ask dahua guy to send me the right one.
 

Bryan

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Its been my pleasure; my initial impression: this camera is really just amazing and my only problem is that I didnt take opportunity to buy two of em, @EMPIRETECANDY can I has another? I have one more 4MP bullet to replace and I dont want an Eco Starlight Bullet anymore :D

I got this camera thinking it'd be great but a lil hard to justify compared to the eco varifocal starlights; but given how much more you get for +$130 I'd highly recommend this if you can afford it and can tolerate a fairly decently sized bullet.. It'd be fantastic if they offered this in a turret but alas this is basically it unless you want an Ultra Starlight PTZ ;)
.
Yeah if I only needed one or two cams it'd be great. Probably will need 16 to cover entire perimeter and out buildings. Loved the way you staked the distances.
 
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