Blue Iris to control DS-2DF8436IX-AEL smart tracking

[KML]

Hi guys, I`m new here.
Registered immediately after finding a solution on how to downgrade FW 560. Didn`t do it yet beause I´m not where the camera is.
Anyway, I`ve had this PTZ for about 3 years and been more and more dissapointed with the smart tracking feature, and the small
humans or vehicles which have wings... With some firmwares the camera started to search for UFOs for the most of the time.
Also I can find out that vehicles are arriving but never leaving, or the oppsote way.
At the moment I have a memory card in the camera, and one NVR in which there is no remote control to, so I use Hikconnect.
As I`ve learned that only thing really good in Hikvision is the image quality, I don`t want to have a Hikvision NVR.
My question is, would it be a good idea to have Blue Iris to handle the smart tracking and recording ?
98% of the time I check the recording history from my iPhone (Hikconnect) when I receive alarms (email), and the main purpose
is to get notified when somebody arrives my property.
I have the camera at my home in the end of an ending road, so there is no extra traffic and I can use pretty simple rules to
trigger the recording and alarms. Still it`s too difficult for Hikvision (1 PTZ and 3 smaller domes).
Thanks in advance !

KML

 

[wittaj]

Blue Iris does not control smart tracking - that is within the camera itself. But Blue Iris is a great VMS that can record and usually have much more granular control over most NVRs. With DeepStack recently integrated into it, it increases the potential to knock out false triggers.

Smart Tracking PTZs are not plug and play and take quite a bit of work to dial them in to your field of view and setting, but once done, they can usually be fairly solid. Post some screenshots of your settings and field of view and folks here can probably help you dial it in to make a more worthy PTZ.

Sounds like you also learned a common theme around here which is don't fix what ain't broke. If the unit is working and meets your needs, in many instances an update breaks what you had working and provides you with something you didn't need. A Dahua Z12E that someone updated and then constantly reboots comes to mind, and a certain Dahua PTZ that loses autotracking with an update come to mind, a Hikvision ANPR camera losing half the FPS and loses the ability to read US plates - those are big deals to have happen. Don't do it unless it is fixing a problem you are experiencing or adds a feature you really need.

Fortunately it sounds like you can downgrade the FW, but some of the newer Hiks do not allow that.

 

[KML]

Thanks for your reply wittaj !
Ok, I must have understood it wrong. The DS-PRI120 might be some kind of progres but I don`t trust that neither, and it`s an expensive test.
Yes, don`t mend what is not broken. In many other security equipments, as Jablotron, every upgrade makes it better, but it`s not made in China.
I will put snapshots of the configurations and the view, maybe somedoy can help me with catching birds and loosing lorries issue.

Br
KML

 

[KML]

Here.
A) facts: That private road continues to left for 200 meters ending to a barn and forest, owned by a neighbor farmer, he uses my road to get there.
On right behind the trailers there is a garage including stuff to protect. White house behind has three fixed DS-2CD2185FWD-I .
The wish is to record vehicles, human and possible big animals.
Some adjusment has been done between these images.
Image quality is low because they are snapshots through Teamviewer.
Recording is done to sd card in camera.
Planning to get Blue Iris.

B) facts: Sometimes a big vehicle is recorded only one way. Too many birds and insects are recorded.
Smart tracking is not enabled, it is triggered only by intrusion and line crossing alerts linkage methods, it works at least some times fine, but often misses target (vehicle) specially during zooming.
Seems that for example a line crossing line cannot be inside intrusion alarm box, because it`s not working after intrusion has triggered.. correct ?
Should all " alarm triggers" be separated from each other ? Do they interfere their other ?

C) Blue Iris would fix the poor quality of my fixed cameras recording capabilities, correct ? (Hikvision supposes everything moving to be human and every box to be vehicle, moving or not.
I have lost interest in checking those DS-2CD2185FWD-I recording history. I have a door bell in my intruder alarm system (Jablotron) which alarms me if somebody is at the door when I am away, and other detectors if somebody is entering the house).
Do you think Blue Iris would also fix the PTZ recording issues, and still work fine together with that smart tracking ?

I would apreciate if someone could give me even principles to follow.
In the help Chinese english is not that obvious clear to me.

Thanks
KML

 

[wittaj]

Some of that looks like it can be corrected with changes to sensitivity and threshold settings. What they would be is up to each field of view. I use the Dahua autotracking PTZs, so hopefully someone with your PTZ or a similar one can look at your settings and say "oh try to make the threshold this".

But for most of us, this is trial and error sitting in front of the PTZ and if one a busy area, we have subjects constantly going by to dial in the settings. In your case, you would need to have a family member or friend drive and walk by to dial it in.

Blue Iris is awesome, but it will only record what the camera sends it, so if the smart tracking is tracking a bird and you don't want a bird, it will record it.

For fixed cams that do not track, Blue Iris can certainly be dialed in to eliminate all false triggers from things you do not not want to be alerted to.

Now the question that I have not seen anyone do is combining DeepStack with an autotracking PTZ so that if the PTZ is tracking something you do not want an alert on, it will not alert. I would assume that is possible, but I do not think anyone has tried that yet.

But Blue Iris would not prevent the PTZ from autotracking - that is all within the camera settings.

 

[KML]

Some of that looks like it can be corrected with changes to sensitivity and threshold settings. What they would be is up to each field of view. I use the Dahua autotracking PTZs, so hopefully someone with your PTZ or a similar one can look at your settings and say "oh try to make the threshold this".

But for most of us, this is trial and error sitting in front of the PTZ and if one a busy area, we have subjects constantly going by to dial in the settings. In your case, you would need to have a family member or friend drive and walk by to dial it in.

Blue Iris is awesome, but it will only record what the camera sends it, so if the smart tracking is tracking a bird and you don't want a bird, it will record it.

For fixed cams that do not track, Blue Iris can certainly be dialed in to eliminate all false triggers from things you do not not want to be alerted to.

Now the question that I have not seen anyone do is combining DeepStack with an autotracking PTZ so that if the PTZ is tracking something you do not want an alert on, it will not alert. I would assume that is possible, but I do not think anyone has tried that yet.

But Blue Iris would not prevent the PTZ from autotracking - that is all within the camera settings.

Thanks wittaj

Last night I studied BI from YouTube until 5 a`clock in the morning. Yes, there was somebody who said that same, BI can be told "don`t mind about ptz action" and the issue can be gone around.
I have to try it when I get home and install that BI. It`s enough if it solves the fixed cameras issue.

 

[MadamImAdam]

I own a pair of smaller Hik PTZ and have just ditched my Hik NVR in favour of Blue Iris last week.

Previously, I was operating my cameras like you; set up intrusion detection zones and trigger smart tracking when an intrusion was detected. It worked in ideal conditions but also provided an immense amount of false positives from headlights, trees blowing in the wind, birds and other random events.

So far in Blue Iris I have set up as follows;
1) Disable smart tracking on camera. lets try a different approach;
2) Camera checks for line crossing detection on road. If it determines that there is a car, through deepstack, it tells the 20x camera to zoom in on an area of the road that will guarantee a licence plate read.
3) The same rule is set up for the other direction, to a different part of the road which also has a high chance to read the plate.
4) All cams record 24/7 in low quality sub stream.
5) All other general motion is verified by deepstack for an object match and then record in high quality main stream.

I next want to expand these rules to also integrate smart tracking. Basically the idea is that for all general motion detection that is not a car, but is verified by deepstack, then enable smart tracking for the camera. When the trigger has lapsed, disable smart tracking and return to home preset.

 

[KML]

I own a pair of smaller Hik PTZ and have just ditched my Hik NVR in favour of Blue Iris last week.

Previously, I was operating my cameras like you; set up intrusion detection zones and trigger smart tracking when an intrusion was detected. It worked in ideal conditions but also provided an immense amount of false positives from headlights, trees blowing in the wind, birds and other random events.

So far in Blue Iris I have set up as follows;
1) Disable smart tracking on camera. lets try a different approach;
2) Camera checks for line crossing detection on road. If it determines that there is a car, through deepstack, it tells the 20x camera to zoom in on an area of the road that will guarantee a licence plate read.
3) The same rule is set up for the other direction, to a different part of the road which also has a high chance to read the plate.
4) All cams record 24/7 in low quality sub stream.
5) All other general motion is verified by deepstack for an object match and then record in high quality main stream.

I next want to expand these rules to also integrate smart tracking. Basically the idea is that for all general motion detection that is not a car, but is verified by deepstack, then enable smart tracking for the camera. When the trigger has lapsed, disable smart tracking and return to home preset.

Thanks MadamImAdam
Do you mean that the smart tracking is completely disabled and is replaced with several preset positions ?
Do you trigger every preset position with different detection ?
I mean because of the vehicle speed may vary..
I paid about 2000 euros to have this smart tracking feature in that PTZ...
With the PTZ I may have to accept the false camera detections and gain the ones never came true. But in the small cameras BI will give me reasonable detections instead of ridiculous recording results. In attachment, a small camera in opposite direction of PTZ, catching objects arriving the yard (line crossing) did catch that tree shadow but not that black truck in previous attachments when the PTZ did catch it.
I will be back with results when I have some experiences.
KML

 

[wittaj]

It has to be setting error. Many people have smart tracking Hiks working incredibly well.

These things are not plug-n-play and you have to dial them in to your field of view.

Now some people do put them in areas that have a very difficult field of view and would be problematic with any type of camera.

Now one could use Blue Iris with DeepStack to call an API command to turn the smart tracking on and in some field of views that may work.

I would say to work on the settings more. The OP field of view and the speed of the vehicle shouldn't be too problematic. My Dahua PTZ would work fine there.

 

[KML]

It has to be setting error. Many people have smart tracking Hiks working incredibly well.

These things are not plug-n-play and you have to dial them in to your field of view.

Now some people do put them in areas that have a very difficult field of view and would be problematic with any type of camera.

Now one could use Blue Iris with DeepStack to call an API command to turn the smart tracking on and in some field of views that may work.

I would say to work on the settings more. The OP field of view and the speed of the vehicle shouldn't be too problematic. My Dahua PTZ would work fine there.

Wittaj, that last attachment wasn’t PTZ, it was one of those cheaper fixed domes I mentioned, if that’s what you meant.
I would be more than happy to get in touch with someone who has successfully configured smart tracking with this same PTZ
So far my diagnosis is that it’s impossible to catch a small bird and not to catch a truck in the same spot with wrong configuration, but with poor quality it is possible .
KML
Btw, been involved in importing several hundreds of Chinese, let’s say “devices”, with paid tailored features for professional surroundings and been in close contact with the R&D. Had to quit it, the quality and working was so unpredictable. The last thing was when our ITC found 10 years old vulnerabilities from the software.
That’s why my expectations are not that high.

EDIT
But one thing Chinese can do and have been doing hundreds of years longer than we,
is trading and making money, as we can note.
(I am talking too much, sorry)