FYI - Amazon lightning deal on Amcrest ( Dahua OEM ) 8MP bullet $64

mat200

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so far i can report the h.265 encryption on this ip cam is a major fail - too much frame skip and ghosting to be used on a regular movement area.
i settled on h.264h 2560*1440 25pfs for now, but will need another 18 hours (for daylight time) to reach any preliminary conclusion on this ip cam.
if anyone's curious, you can still get 25fps as high as 3072x1728 before you need to reduce your fps.
tomorrow daytime i'll test street sign legibility ~60' from my test window, which should help prove if the higher resolutions are real or mere placebo.
Dahau's Smart PSS does work with this Amcrest, and is more encode efficient on your cpu cores than ie11 (no surprise)
but some Amcrest screens only seem to work correctly using their client or web gui, such as camera/encode/overlay/privacy mask.
no matter what i tried, i could not get this June'2018 firmware Amcrest to accept Dahau's Oct'2018 update, so a lot of IVS may still be missing here.
Hi Consorts -

Thanks, looking forward to seeing your results.

BTW -
This 8MP camera at the wide FOV should have about 20 feet out until the 100 pixel per foot mark ( ID distance specs we like to use here ), a 8MP camera with a 90 degree FOV the range is about 25 feet.

Beyond that the wide FOV will quickly reduce the density of pixels so that this really is not as well suited to greater distances.
 

consorts

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Beyond that the wide FOV will quickly reduce the density of pixels so that this really is not as well suited to greater distances.
thanks for schooling me on that :goodpost:all the more reason to DIY swap out this 2.8mm lens if i can live with the handicapped IVS of the current firmware iteration.

the motion detect alert area i need is only the first 20' from where i'll mount the camera, i'd still like to be able to "see" with a lot more clarity to what lies beyond.
 

msquared

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consorts, did you mention your Amcrest camera not added to Blue Iris yet? I received my camera, but haven't put into service yet due to weather, but I have mine working with Blue Iris. Here is a screenshot of the setting page if this helps. (complete the IP address)

Amcrest IP8M-2496EB settings in Blue Iris.JPG
 

mat200

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The Amcrest 8MP bullet theoretical ID distance will be the same as the below Lorex 8MP camera w/the 2.8mm lens

Lorex 4K / 8MP LNE8950AB "Dome" / Turret Camera 3840(H)×2160 (V) 2.8mm lens H 112.5° 19.57 feet 375.8 sqft
Lorex 4K / 8MP LNB8005 / LNB8111B Bullet Camera 4mm lens 88° 25.0 feet 479.7 sqft
 

consorts

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2.8mm lens H 112.5° 19.57 feet 375.8 sqft
thanks again for elaborating; today i'm mostly going to trail and error the Motion Detect,
email notifications(direct from it's smtp) and see if i can get amcrest to write to my NAS
if they pass muster, Sunday I'll pop the front off to see what i can do about that lame lens.

i emailed amcrest about the october firmware, but i doubt i'll hear back till tuesday.
if anyone has had any luck using ssh to force the firmware maybe using an img file not
a bin, please chime in. i know i can do that with a linux router, just not with ip cams.


one thing i noticed out of the box is the cam i got seems to have been assembled off center
should i be concerned? giving it a shake - nothing seems to be loose from what i can tell.
i also noticed the metal housing remains cool to the touch. i wonder if that's normal here.

i recently tested another metal "go swift" 8mp - and it's casing always felt relatively warm.
 
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Q™

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i noticed out of the box is the cam i got seems to have been assembled off center
should i be concerned?
I don't think so. That is most likely a foam ring whose placement you be able to adjust upon dismantling the camera.
 

consorts

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so, after a full day with my new toy, the good news is i have not decided to return it yet, but there's plenty of "bad" news;

bad: submitting your email for firmware updates is merely an excuse for amcrest to spam you, not only are they 4mo behind
but you can't unsubscribe from the spam without missing out on any future firmware update notifications.

bad; as i posted earlier, h.265 is a joke on this ip cam - too much ghosting and frame skipping, so you'll have to use h.264.h
in fairness, i don't have an nvr, maybe the h.265 only works when the poe is directly plugged into it, instead of a gig switch.

bad; clients get 30 minutes timed out so you must login again after prolonged live view sessions. what's really stupid
about this is - the live view itself continues, it's access to setup changes that gets timed out and will require a fresh login.
this bug would actually be a good thing if it timed out the stream as well - so unattended live streams don't bog down a lan.

bad; event/video.detection/detection.area/region.name variable does not carry through to your email alert Alarm Name,
thus the fact that it has 4 distinct color and sensitivity regions is useless, since you have no idea which one got triggered.
worse, only the first (orange) color triggers a snapshot attachment to the alert email, no other regions include snapshots.
worse still, there is no live visual aid or audio que to tell you when an alert got triggered while the gui is active.
i was able to associate a WAV file using the Dahau client, but only for the first (orange) trigger.

bad: email alerts occasionally show up without any snapshot attachment - i can't find any reason it's doing this, it just does.

bad: there are no other triggers beyond camera errors and tampering with this june 25th firmware amcrest stuck us with.

* bad: due to this lack of ivs alternatives to it's movement trigger, this ip cam may false on snow, rain drops and shadows.
this will become a major problem the further away your zone is set from the camera without access to line cross ivs,
also the wide sensitivity range of 0-100 is laughable, as only 0-5 seems to do anything meaningful day or night.

bad; so much of the Dahau client won't work with this Amcrest, that it's more trouble to use Dahau in Amcrest's place than it's worth.
so if you were planning on managing both Dahau and Amcrest ip cams under the same SmartPSS client, I would first get an eval unit.

bad; no storage redundancy, it's microsd or FTP or NAS and not any combination of the two or three
however, the NAS page has an "Emergency (Store on SD Card)" to save your ass if NAS is unreachable.

bad; the Storage/NAS page seems to check the proper syntax of your entries, but not if it's actually working
so as long as you type in server address: x.x.x.x and remote directory: //x/x/x -it accepts just about anything.
i have a public share on my lan that anyone can read/write to, even smartphones on wifi - and nothing wrote.
i may setup an FTP tomorrow if i can find the time, just to see if that works any better, but i highly doubt it.

bad: Camera/Video/Snapshot/Interval lowest time slice is a whole second, so every shot you get is a ghostly blur
because it's some composite image of up to 25 1/25th's of a whole second mushed together... so completely worthless.

bad: both of the substreams are "VGA" or 640x480p resolution useless - nothing like Amcrest spec sheet claims.

bad: the mount stem is fixed, which means if you need to point down and left both by 30°
you are out of luck - unless you are willing to screw the mount into your wall off level,
you can't simply rotate the stem independent of the base you just screwed level into a wall.

bad: many buried options require double saving, meaning you save the page the option was changed
and you must also save on the parent page that option was nested.

bad: the Playback timeline gui is a buggy mess, the only way to reliably replay clips is to use the File List menu.

so, can i say anything good about this amcrest when i compare it to my 2 year old 3mp hikvision cube? i'll try;

good: it's metal bullet case is painted black... this blends in really well mounted between my double hung windows.
"amcrest" is only written on the removable plastic sun shade which i will remove to keep the ip cam brand anonymous.

good: 8mp means more pixels, but as regulars here preach; more pixels mean worse motion blur and worse night vision.
(both of which i'm not concerned with - as my security need is within 20' of where this ip camera will be mounted.

* good: once you take the time to fine tune the zone, motion detect is 95% accurate and of course as with most cams
that come with a microsd memory option, this one retains video the key seconds before the motion is detected.
by comparison my hikvision 3mp cube is 80% accurate while using it's double line pass ivs.

good: it handles portrait (90° or 270°) orientation properly in all aspects of the gui and output files
this is the main reason I have not returned it yet, as many budget ip cams mess this issue up big time.
warning: using 90°|270° limits available resolution to 2688*1520, so if you want to 4K in portrait mode,
too bad - you may as well return this 8mp and buy a 4-5mp, or buy a VESA mount and spin all your monitors...

there's plenty more to like and dislike, but i'm just focusing at the "hands on" stuff for now :headbang:
 
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consorts

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You should flash it to IPC-HFW48xx to see if the frog becomes a prince.
as i posted earlier, i tried every method i could think of to get the 08/13/2018 dahau firmware on this amcrest, and no joy.
DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea_EngSpnFrn_N_Stream3_V2.622.0000000.31.R.180813.bin (tried, reboot, ignored)
the only IPC-HFW4831E firmware i could find is actually older, or 11/10/2017 so probably not worth the trouble.
DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream3_V2.622.0000000.18.R.20171110.bin (tried, reboot, ignored)
again, as i posted earlier.. dahau's gui works about 80% of the settings pages on this amcrest, so it's clear what oem is.
obviously amcrest requires some form of signature in the bin file that dahau's version of them intentionally lacks.

my hope is with all the flash sales and coupon codes around for this ip cam, that amcrest just sold a container full of them
so there are a few hundred people just like me who will start bitching to them about being a firmware update behind.

but thanks Q for showing an interest... i won't be cracking it open to see the lens until i'm more confident of keeping it,
so i have a few weeks before my amazon return window closes to see if we make any progress on getting new firmware.

proposed application; IR&record on motion 12'x12' patch of grass under an ungated low floor window.
to be mounted on the outside window frame bullet spun 90°portrait, bullet tilted 45°downward.
for now i'm using the sidewalk (walkers) and shed roof (truckers) as two zones for trigger tests.
bottom third of the portrait view is the grass between the brick wall and metal guardrail
while the middle and top thirds are of the street 30' and park 60' view beyond this point.
the street to be monitored for open parking spots, and the park for spontaneous tai chi classes :winktongue:
note: each guardrail section is 6' so a 4mm lens would give me exactly 12' much view width
while i could enjoy a lot less distortion for all the view points beyond the grass. this is why i
may pursue a lens replacement - after i'm more confident it's worth keeping this $64 BF ip cam.






 
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Q™

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as i posted earlier, i tried every method i could think of to get the 08/13/2018 dahau firmware on this amcrest, and no joy.
Sorry man...I didn’t read the topic all the eay through. Did you reset to factory defaults after the flash? Did you try to update the firmware via the Dahua config tool?
 

consorts

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Did you reset to factory defaults after the flash?
no, after the flash the cam reboots and comes back to the amcrest login
so exactly at what point do you propose i factory reset button this,
have you actually seen your "method" make any difference?

Did you try to update the firmware via the Dahua config tool?
yes, and it errors out during the middle of the attempt,
while the amcrest tools pretend the dahau flash worked,
when clearly it does not.
 

consorts

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Resetting to factory defaults (and then reconfiguring the camera settings)
ok, so let me see if i have the method steps straight...

i configure my router to static ip the mac of this cam to a known free lan address.

i button press factory reset the camera

i go into the dahau ConfigTool, help it find the camera, then firmware update it with the 8/13 bin file

the camera reboots, and i should be greeted with a dahau html version of firmware, instead of 06/25 amcrap

is this exactly the steps that you propose i try? :wtf:

and your not just hazing the newbie, right? my new cam isn't gonna start puffing out smoke...
 

Q™

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No. After performing the formware upgrade the camera reboots. After reboot you login to the camera and reset it to the factory defaults. You then reconfigure the camera settings. But if you can’t flash the camera with the current Dahua firmware then all of this is really of no use to you. Sorry to waste your time.
 

consorts

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But if you can’t flash the camera with the current Dahua firmware then all of this is really of no use to you.
ok, i'm glad you caught that i tried that already - thanks for taking the time to suggest out of the ordinary things.

trust me, after years doing all sorts of offspec things to wifi/routers, i've seen many a wacky method - work :highfive:
 

consorts

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for anyone interested in motion detection reliability, i was able to dial down the false triggers to 98% accurate detection (despite fat raindrops passing the field of view from a window a/c above) but discovered an intermittent bug where you get an email alert but it's missing the snapshot attachment for no discernible reason (not spam folder'ed or virus detect omitted). the good news is when i checked the video clips at the same date/time stamp, the ones that correlated with the missing snapshot emails were in fact there and true motion. the only common denominator i noticed thus far was how the moving object loitered aka traveled slower than usual through the area. if you didn't read earlier posts - i'll be using this ip cam to monitor the grass for human size movement, just testing it using the sidewalk until it's installed outside.



 
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fenderman

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for anyone interested in motion detection reliability, i was able to dial down the false triggers to 98% accurate detection (despite fat raindrops passing the field of view from a window a/c above) but discovered an intermittent bug where you get an email alert but it's missing the snapshot attachment for no discernible reason (not spam folder'ed or virus detect omitted). the good news is when i checked the video clips at the same date/time stamp, the ones that correlated with the missing snapshot emails were in fact there and true motion. the only common denominator i noticed thus far was how the moving object loitered aka traveled slower than usual through the area. if you didn't read earlier posts - i'll be using this ip cam to monitor the grass for human size movement, just testing it using the sidewalk until it's installed outside.



There is no way to get 98 percent accuracy using camera motion detection. You may have eliminated 98 percent of the false positives. However you now have a bunch of false negatives - you are missing actual triggers.
 

consorts

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i emailed amcrest support over the weekend;
"When will the 180813 (dahua) amcrest firmware drop?
all i see is 180625 with a lot of promised ivs still missing."

Amcrest answered: Mon, Dec 3, 2018 12:30 pm
"Our developers are constantly performing patches to the firmware over time.
There should be a new release soon. Amcrest Team"

typical useless doublespeak considering we already know they are a whole patch behind :screwy:
 
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