8MP IPC-T581R-ZE-S3 fuzzy view

[Noopy66]

Hi,
I decided to renew my 10 year old cameras and ordered some from Andy, I have the 4MP IPC-T541R-ZE-S3 and then ordered the 8MP IPC-T581R-ZE-S3 as I thought the 8MP would give me a better clearer view.
I have spent a few weeks trying different settings and resetting the 8MP camera various times but cannot get rid of the fuzzy picture, the 4MP works with default settings in most places (except I set night to colour and it works fine).

Here is the same time screen shot from both cameras, the first one is the 4MP and is nice and clear, however the second pic is of the 8MP and is fuzzy.



I dont know what is causing this and I am suspecting the cable might need changing as its also old, so ordered a new one today. During the day I cannot see much difference between the camera views but there might be slight differences?

Can anyone advise on what might be causing this fuzzy view on the 8MP, as I thought it would be better than the 4MP but its not at the moment.

I was also wondering if the IR was working on the 8MP, so went out last night to have a look, and both cameras dont appear to have any IR lights that I can see, my other camera has 4 red IR's clearly visible.

 

[wittaj]

You picture is in color so the infrared will not be on. It only comes on when in B/W.

What bit rate and codec are you using for the 8MP?

It also looks like you might be getting a little lens glare due to the angle that is giving a little washout appearance.

 

[Noopy66]

Thanks for info on why my IR's are not on, didnt realise that

I am using the default settings for the 8MP (shows bit rate, no codec?) and using Blue Iris

When I look closely at the night view it looks like its raining, as little fuzzy circles flash on and off but its not raining

 

[wittaj]

You have the wrong settings

Try H264H (that is the codec, called compression here)
15 FPS
15 iframes
16,368 bitrate

Hopefully that improves it.

Keep in mind this camera is on the same size sensor as the 54IR camera, so it needs a lot more light. You have more light than most, but the 8MP needs more light to produce the same brightness as the 4MP on the same sensor.

At the zoom and relative distance you have in the field of view, I wouldn't expect to see drastic gains in improvement by doubling the MP and only in Hollywood does digital zooming work.

Most find 4MP to be the sweet spot for these types of cameras.

Also, rarely does a camera perform well on default/auto settings.

 

[Noopy66]

Thanks, will amend my settings and see what happens tonight, update tomorrow.

 

[wittaj]

Hopefully you see a change during the day as well.

 

[Noopy66]

I changed the settings to those you suggested, during the day did not notice much difference and last night the attached shot shows there was very little difference

Think I might buy another 4MP as the camera works really well, wish I had known this before I bought the 8MP

 

[wittaj]

It just shows how much light is needed for these cams. More MP isn't always better.

Most here are sticking to the 4MP 54IR series as it is just hard to beat.

Something still seems wrong though - I am assuming you are on default/auto shutter? If so the still image should look much better.

That image looks like either some washout from that streetlight and/or trying to push the camera too hard for a color image by cranking gain and gamma up.

What if you forced it to B/W and use infrared - does the image improve then?

 

[Noopy66]

I moved the camera to the left so the street light was showing less light and not affecting the camera

I will try B/W tonight and see what happens to the view.

Here are my settings

 

[wittaj]

In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.

Start with:

H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS
15 iframes

Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.

We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.

In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.

Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.

Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.

 

[Noopy66]

Thanks for all your advice, will take time and try the settings you have mentioned.

I tried it as B/W and the picture is crisp.
Then I set up a security light to see if the extra light made a difference and the picture was good.

 

[bigredfish]

Can you post a full size high res direct exported image?

 

[Noopy66]

This is a snapshot from the web interface 'Live' view to this camera, is this the file you asked for, if not let me know how to capture what you asked for, thanks

 

[bigredfish]

Yes, thanks.
Clearly its struggling for light due to the sensor size.

 

[wittaj]

Yes, thanks.
Clearly its struggling for light due to the sensor size.

Yep. It is a great example that shows how much light these cameras need because on default shutter even a less than ideal MP/sensor ratio camera should be ok for a static image, but motion would be complete blur.

Most would think with streetlights and a security light on that it would produce a better picture with default shutter. I have said before with the 58IR series that it just doesn't appear they put any effort in the firmware to try to address the more MP and I wonder if they just used the same setup of the 54IR series.

I still wonder if something else is going on though with that image. That should be enough light to produce a decent static image on default shutter. I wonder if a backlight condition is on?

 

[Noopy66]

Thanks for your advice and suggestions, I have now decided I should buy another 4MP IPC-T541R-ZE-S3 and replace this 8MP as its not what I thought it would be, I might change one of my other old cameras and replace with the 8MP

I am going to see if Andy can supply me.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Yes, the Autumn sales coming soon. Catch it. I will send the details tonight.

 

[steve1225]

Most would think with streetlights and a security light on that it would produce a better picture with default shutter. I have said before with the 58IR series that it just doesn't appear they put any effort in the firmware to try to address the more MP and I wonder if they just used the same setup of the 54IR series.

This comparison (54ir vs 58ir) shows us how good 4mpx 1/1.8" sensor is in comparison to 8mpx 1/1.8" version..

in 8mpx there are 2x more pixels.. so they are 2x smaller..
in reality on sensors there are also spaces between pixels (to isolate electric signals) - 2x more pixels means 2x more spaces between them - so sensor space wasted on spaces are 2x bigger.. so useable space for 2x more pixels are even smaller - one pixel is more like 2.5x smaller on 8Mpx version in comparison to 4mpx one..

light sensitivity increases with pixel size.. but again it is not a linear but more exponential relationship.. so 2.5 smaller pixels give us something around 4-5x smaller sensitivity.. to compensate those difference we need to use more gain which creates much more of noise and cuts dynamic range (we don't see near black levels)..

That 4-5 single pixel sensitivity difference gives us what we see in first post.
Image from 54ir is clean, bright, colorfull & high dynamic.
Image from 58ir is awful (similar to 4mpx images from 1/2.8" sensors, like in sd4 ptz)..

Firmware won't help here - the laws of optics cannot be bypassed.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

This place a 1/1.2cmos 4K will be be much better. 4K full color on normal IR mode is not good.

 

[steve1225]

Here is image from 71242 (12 mpx in 1/1.7" sensor in 7xxx-x WizMind-X)..
it cost 3x more that 5442.. Image is even much worse that 58IR...

PS. Dahua should do 58IR using 1/1.2" sensor... like axis did (4mpx is 1/1.8", 8mpx is 1/1.2" or 4/3" in latest Q36 dome / Q18 bullet series)...

it's the only way to migrate from 4 mpx to 8 mpx cams (increase sensor size in the same line)...