Caught My First Door Checker With My New 5442 Andy Cams

Got my 5421 z12e installed. Directly under my 5442 2.8.. did a bunch of snip & sketch on captured license plates to a USB thumb.
Then I was going to be all fancy and put it on this thread and then I forgot the thumb drive at work.:banghead:
 
  • Haha
Reactions: looney2ns, JDreaming, sebastiantombs and 3 others
This is why i snap pictures on my phone. I never seem to forget that. But the captures are grainy. And when trying to show license Plates it was grainy and under-impressive.
 
  • Like
Reactions: EMPIRETECANDY
EMPIRETECANDY said:
@MikeLud1 Mike, can share something about your setting？
Click to expand...
Below are the steps I used to adjusted my 5442 camera's color night settings. Also I am using Dahua day/night switch utility to switch between the Day and Night settings link below

Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset

First I set all the setting as shown below.

Vf.jpg
P1.jpg
E1.jpg
B1.jpg
W1.jpg
DN1.jpg
I1.jpg
D1.jpg

After adjusting the setting shown above I start increasing the Gain enough to not overexpose the bright areas but not going above 60 if the bright areas are still to dark then I will increase the Shutter but not going over 16.67

E2.jpg

Next to lighten up the dark areas I start increasing the Gamma, if I max out the Gamma setting then I start increasing Brightness and Contrast together until the dark areas are expectable.

P2.jpg
P3.jpg

Below are the final settings to have a true to live image, one note when I took all the screenshots it was raining which makes the image look on the dark side, when it is dry out the image does brighten up.

Vf.jpg
Pf.jpg
Ef.jpg
Bf.jpg
Wf.jpg
DNf.jpg
If.jpg
Df.jpg
Final.jpg
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: karlocikovic, awonson, looney2ns and 6 others
  • Like
Reactions: Flintstone61 and looney2ns
  • Like
Reactions: sebastiantombs, Flintstone61 and looney2ns
bigredfish said:
Only thing I do different is leave Exp comp at 50ish, and not use so much gamma to compensate for it. I rarely change gamma more than 10+/- from 50 and adjust the ExpComp
Click to expand...
on the 5442 or the 5421?
 
I couldn't leave well enough alone. I fiddle fucked around with the settings which were all default. from 1/20 shutter to 1/500 night and a 1/1000 day and set a night/day schedule with the slider bar feature in another menu.
I sure hate the idea of going to work at night to screw with cameras. but i may have to.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: Looking Out, bigredfish, sebastiantombs and 1 other person
MikeLud1 said:
Below are the steps I used to adjusted my 5442 camera's color night settings. Also I am using Dahua day/night switch utility to switch between the Day and Night settings link below

Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset

First I set all the setting as shown below.

After adjusting the setting shown above I start increasing the Gain enough to not overexpose the bright areas but not going above 60 if the bright areas are still to dark then I will increase the Shutter but not going over 16.67


Next to lighten up the dark areas I start increasing the Gamma, if I max out the Gamma setting then I start increasing Brightness and Contrast together until the dark areas are expectable.


Below are the final settings to have a true to live image, one note when I took all the screenshots it was raining which makes the image look on the dark side, when it is dry out the image does brighten up.
Click to expand...
Is this a similar process to what you would use for Daytime dialing in?
 
The daytime is usually easier because there is so much light. You can almost run it on default most of the day (not recommended) but most can get by.

Here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night:

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.

But first, run H264, smart codec off, CBR, and 8192 bitrate to start, along with 15 FPS and 15 i-frame.

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.

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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cam-cam and bigredfish
wittaj said:
The daytime is usually easier because there is so much light. You can almost run it on default most of the day (not recommended) but most can get by.

Here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night:

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.

But first, run H264, smart codec off, CBR, and 8192 bitrate to start, along with 15 FPS and 15 i-frame.

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.

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.
Click to expand...
Yep, definitely read this more than once.

Why H264 over H265? I thought H265 was supposed to be better and use less resources? I currently have all of mine set to use H265.
 
Obviously every field of view is different and some use H265 without issue, but most of us have found H264 to be better.

This will explain H264 versus H265 a little better.

H265 in theory provides more storage as it compresses differently, but part of that compression means it macro blocks big areas of the image that it thinks isn't moving. However, it also takes more processing power of the already small CPU in the camera and that can be problematic if someone is maxing out the camera and then it stutters.

In theory it is supposed to need 30% less storage than H264, but most of us have found it isn't that much. My storage savings was less than few minutes per day. And to my eye and others that I showed clips to and just said do you like video 1 or video 2 better, everyone thought the H264 provided a better image.

The left image is H264, so all the blocks are the same size corresponding to the resolution of the camera. H265 takes areas that it doesn't think has motion and makes them into bigger blocks and in doing so lessens the resolution yet increases the camera CPU demand to develop these larger blocks. Now using BI motion, you can see how it could miss motion due to the larger blocks.

In theory H265 is supposed to need half the bitrate because of the macroblocking. But if there is a lot of motion in the image, then it becomes a pixelated mess. The only way to get around that is a higher bitrate. But if you need to run the same bitrate for H265 as you do H264, then the storage savings is zero. Storage is computed based on multiplying bitrate, FPS, and resolution.

1667141640530.png

In my testing I have one camera that sees a parked car in front of my house. H265 sees that the car isn't moving, so it macroblocks the whole car and surrounding area. Then the car owner walked up to the car and got in and the motion is missed because of the macroblock being so large. Or if it catches it, because the bitrate is low, it is a pixelated mess during the critical capture point and by the time H265 adjusts to there is now motion, the ideal capture is missed.

In my case, the car is clear and defined in H264, but is blurry and soft edges in H265.

Digital zooming is never really good, but you stand a better chance with H264 rather than a large macroblocked H265. I can digital zoom on my overview camera and kinda make out the address number of the house across the street with H264, but not a chance with H265 as it macroblocked his whole house.

H265 is one of those theory things that sounds good, but reality use is much different.

Plus many video software or editing cannot use H265, so you would have to convert it to H264 first.

As always, YMMV.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dave88LX, karlocikovic, mat200 and 2 others
wittaj said:
Obviously every field of view is different and some use H265 without issue, but most of us have found H264 to be better.

This will explain H264 versus H265 a little better.

H265 in theory provides more storage as it compresses differently, but part of that compression means it macro blocks big areas of the image that it thinks isn't moving. However, it also takes more processing power of the already small CPU in the camera and that can be problematic if someone is maxing out the camera and then it stutters.

In theory it is supposed to need 30% less storage than H264, but most of us have found it isn't that much. My storage savings was less than few minutes per day. And to my eye and others that I showed clips to and just said do you like video 1 or video 2 better, everyone thought the H264 provided a better image.

The left image is H264, so all the blocks are the same size corresponding to the resolution of the camera. H265 takes areas that it doesn't think has motion and makes them into bigger blocks and in doing so lessens the resolution yet increases the camera CPU demand to develop these larger blocks. Now using BI motion, you can see how it could miss motion due to the larger blocks.

In theory H265 is supposed to need half the bitrate because of the macroblocking. But if there is a lot of motion in the image, then it becomes a pixelated mess. The only way to get around that is a higher bitrate. But if you need to run the same bitrate for H265 as you do H264, then the storage savings is zero. Storage is computed based on multiplying bitrate, FPS, and resolution.

View attachment 144258

In my testing I have one camera that sees a parked car in front of my house. H265 sees that the car isn't moving, so it macroblocks the whole car and surrounding area. Then the car owner walked up to the car and got in and the motion is missed because of the macroblock being so large. Or if it catches it, because the bitrate is low, it is a pixelated mess during the critical capture point and by the time H265 adjusts to there is now motion, the ideal capture is missed.

In my case, the car is clear and defined in H264, but is blurry and soft edges in H265.

Digital zooming is never really good, but you stand a better chance with H264 rather than a large macroblocked H265. I can digital zoom on my overview camera and kinda make out the address number of the house across the street with H264, but not a chance with H265 as it macroblocked his whole house.

H265 is one of those theory things that sounds good, but reality use is much different.

Plus many video software or editing cannot use H265, so you would have to convert it to H264 first.

As always, YMMV.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that is helpful. I will convert a couple over and see how they look.

And I have ran into not being able to load H265 before, so I hear you there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom