user8963
Known around here
for me it already looks much more natural, sharper and overall better.
maybe post a video when there are more colors
maybe post a video when there are more colors
Color4K-X - one man's journey towards clarity
- Thread starter NightLife
- Start date
Mike A.
Known around here
- May 6, 2017
- 4,165
- 6,974
Agree. Hard to compare directly with the snow but scene as it is seems more natural and sharper to me.
I agree guys. It's all interconnected, and in the upsweep of that learning curve we do daft things. ha
But we're getting there, slowly but surely. I was too dazzled initially by some of the effects which things such as the WDR provided. Or maybe blinded is more accurate. But it does feel more natural now, and feels like a giant leap forward. Once this blizzard passes by tomorrow it will be really interesting to go back to trying to compare the scene as it was prior to tweaking.
One thing I spotted again which I don't really understand is how the image changes attributes when the defrost is enabled. Does it do that because it pulls PoE power to defrost, and so relegates the quality to a lesser standard? Taking from Peter to give to Paul?
But we're getting there, slowly but surely. I was too dazzled initially by some of the effects which things such as the WDR provided. Or maybe blinded is more accurate. But it does feel more natural now, and feels like a giant leap forward. Once this blizzard passes by tomorrow it will be really interesting to go back to trying to compare the scene as it was prior to tweaking.
One thing I spotted again which I don't really understand is how the image changes attributes when the defrost is enabled. Does it do that because it pulls PoE power to defrost, and so relegates the quality to a lesser standard? Taking from Peter to give to Paul?
And check this out ..
I have been watching my wee NAS's resource usage all day as I went along tweaking the setting, just to get a vibe for any unwarranted peaks. I saw none, but what I always saw was that the CPU never went above 10%, and the memory no more that 64%. And the data coming in and out of the NAS was varied, which I thought was normal but now when I checked that resource monitor again I see an almost perfect conformity, continuously.
This is how it is, with the up and down locked in step with one another. Could this represent that the NAS and camera, the FPS and I Frame intervals etc are now playing nice together?
And 5 minutes or more later ..
I have been watching my wee NAS's resource usage all day as I went along tweaking the setting, just to get a vibe for any unwarranted peaks. I saw none, but what I always saw was that the CPU never went above 10%, and the memory no more that 64%. And the data coming in and out of the NAS was varied, which I thought was normal but now when I checked that resource monitor again I see an almost perfect conformity, continuously.
This is how it is, with the up and down locked in step with one another. Could this represent that the NAS and camera, the FPS and I Frame intervals etc are now playing nice together?
And 5 minutes or more later ..
I ended up doing a bit of tail chasing last night. No .. the camera 
It turns out that a Synology user, in my case, cannot just walk up and begin changing things in the Surveillance Station App without it feeding some of those setting back to the camera, potentially UNdoing hours of work in settings. I only caught on to it because after changing one little thing I went back to the Dahua UI and something had changed. I've noticed this when changing the FPS, for instance - at some undisclosed rubicon the software will suddenly alter the bitrate, and certainly the I Frame Interval. At that point you can flip back to the Dahua Web UI and everything will look unchanged but that's only an illusion. Once you click onto another settings tab, and then click back to the tab where the I Frame Interval, FPS and bitrate are you can see that some settings were indeed altered because of actions taking in the Synology software. But at a quick glance? Everything looks as it should. So order matters, and I believe that order is Dahua UI settings first, and then Synology Surveillance Station second. And so one needs to be complete in their changes, preferably making them in one sweep, then going to the Synology SW and attending to every one of those settings there.
Here is this mornings outcome. Still the odd bit of aberrancy seen, but overall it looks pretty good. I will now go about trying to tease some details out of the cliff face above the lake and elsewhere.
*I may also re-drop the audio bitrate down from the 32000 I have it at now. My gut tells me that as it gets higher it somehow creates a transient bottleneck or something which will erode video quality with lagging etc. Last night I noticed it was at 8000, so I maxed it out, and that seemed to freeze video, then dropping it gradually down to 32000 the video began to flow again, but still I'm going to drop it further to give the bandwidth some wiggle room. Perhaps someone here knows if that logic is sound. Maybe there is another reason running a high bitrate will cause stuttering or video freezing. I heard the results of that last week when I was reading on here how to enhance audio quality, and set about doing so. Once I set the bitrate too high I could hear the audio cut out in approx 2 second intervals, but back then I had not achieved the right relationship of FPS to I Frame Interval either, so maybe that factored.
And a short clip of video, with nothing but the audio bitrate being altered from yesterday's latest setting above. *Watch for the slight aberrancy in the midground trees, centre of the frame. I've noticed that if everything isn't near perfect, it will be revealed when the system tries to perform a recording. I don't see the NAS straining at all so it must be something else causing it, which is why, for starters, I'm dropping the audio bitrate back down to 16000, or even 8000 if that serves my situation better.
View attachment Post camera adjustment FPS I Frame Interval Bitrate etc.mp4
It turns out that a Synology user, in my case, cannot just walk up and begin changing things in the Surveillance Station App without it feeding some of those setting back to the camera, potentially UNdoing hours of work in settings. I only caught on to it because after changing one little thing I went back to the Dahua UI and something had changed. I've noticed this when changing the FPS, for instance - at some undisclosed rubicon the software will suddenly alter the bitrate, and certainly the I Frame Interval. At that point you can flip back to the Dahua Web UI and everything will look unchanged but that's only an illusion. Once you click onto another settings tab, and then click back to the tab where the I Frame Interval, FPS and bitrate are you can see that some settings were indeed altered because of actions taking in the Synology software. But at a quick glance? Everything looks as it should. So order matters, and I believe that order is Dahua UI settings first, and then Synology Surveillance Station second. And so one needs to be complete in their changes, preferably making them in one sweep, then going to the Synology SW and attending to every one of those settings there.
Here is this mornings outcome. Still the odd bit of aberrancy seen, but overall it looks pretty good. I will now go about trying to tease some details out of the cliff face above the lake and elsewhere.
*I may also re-drop the audio bitrate down from the 32000 I have it at now. My gut tells me that as it gets higher it somehow creates a transient bottleneck or something which will erode video quality with lagging etc. Last night I noticed it was at 8000, so I maxed it out, and that seemed to freeze video, then dropping it gradually down to 32000 the video began to flow again, but still I'm going to drop it further to give the bandwidth some wiggle room. Perhaps someone here knows if that logic is sound. Maybe there is another reason running a high bitrate will cause stuttering or video freezing. I heard the results of that last week when I was reading on here how to enhance audio quality, and set about doing so. Once I set the bitrate too high I could hear the audio cut out in approx 2 second intervals, but back then I had not achieved the right relationship of FPS to I Frame Interval either, so maybe that factored.
And a short clip of video, with nothing but the audio bitrate being altered from yesterday's latest setting above. *Watch for the slight aberrancy in the midground trees, centre of the frame. I've noticed that if everything isn't near perfect, it will be revealed when the system tries to perform a recording. I don't see the NAS straining at all so it must be something else causing it, which is why, for starters, I'm dropping the audio bitrate back down to 16000, or even 8000 if that serves my situation better.
View attachment Post camera adjustment FPS I Frame Interval Bitrate etc.mp4
If you haven't, makes sure you are making the changes in the camera GUI in Explorer - not Edge, not Chrome, but plain ole explorer baked into Win10.
It might not be the issue here and maybe Synology is changing stuff, but many have found that using any other browser with Dahua cams and the settings won't hold.
It might not be the issue here and maybe Synology is changing stuff, but many have found that using any other browser with Dahua cams and the settings won't hold.
You know that kept going through my head, but I stubbornly persisted while using Chrome MacOS Monterrey. I verified multiple times, though, once I caught the order of changes being important, and saw that adhering to that order seemed to allow settings to 'stick' in both the Synology side, and the Dahua UI side. But if the tail chasing continuing a minute longer I was all over firing up Parallels, Windows 10 and making changes through Edge BUT while emulating IE, which works brilliantly from what I saw in my initial forays the other day. As much as I seem to dislike windows, I do enjoy having a Parallels installation on my Macs.
I appreciate the nudge. If things slide settings wise, I will definitely fire up W10 and get to it.
If you do, definitely do not use Edge while emulating IE - explorer is baked into W10 - just type in explorer in the search bar.
This camera is too new that we do not have all the data on it, but another Dahua camera (49225) we do have years of data on and all the people that bought it on Black Friday are coming here saying it doesn't work and as soon as the accepted the nudge to try Explorer, the settings held.
This camera is too new that we do not have all the data on it, but another Dahua camera (49225) we do have years of data on and all the people that bought it on Black Friday are coming here saying it doesn't work and as soon as the accepted the nudge to try Explorer, the settings held.
Copy that - So I'll tell you what, I'll let these settings stand for now but I monitor every detail daily right now, and any changes seen moving forward - changes 'not' initiated by myself, and I'll report back here. *I'll also try that Explorer hack which sounds awesome. Nice that it's still lurking in the shadows. IF my settings hold, then perhaps there is an alternative approach for users that run only MacOS. If not, I'll be the first to decry that fact in this thread.
*They 'may' be encountering the same 'order' bug that I ran across with my Synology/Dahua settings. Perhaps if they begin in the Dahua UI, and only then attend to all those changes in their other software (NVR, NAS etc) they may encounter success.
**I just tried bringing up IE in W10, and everything looks as it does in MacOS Chrome, however in IE the live feeds are a black screen. I can see the bitrate changing, but no video yet. It may require similar tweaking as the EDGE browser needed initially. I had to download a patch, and install it in EDGE. But the new camera users having issues didn't have this IE black screen hurdle?
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The only reason for the cams to freeze, is the snow! Heck, just looking at the pics I'm freezing
and it's 50F!!!
On a serious note, why do the new military uniforms have a block type of pattern?
Welcome to the brave new world of pixels.
Take your 4K point it to the sky at night. If one does B/W and on a very large screen the effect will be better .
I use a 65 inch as you know but, the bigger the better. Once the pic is adjusted to it's max, some stars will
twinkle and some turn off and on because not enough light is hitting the individual pixel. Now strobe the shutter
and light up an adjacent pixel and one's star has changed by 90 degrees up down or sideways. Same as your bushes
"moving". As someone keeps telling us "These are not GoPros or Hollywood cameras.
and it's 50F!!!
On a serious note, why do the new military uniforms have a block type of pattern?
Welcome to the brave new world of pixels.
Take your 4K point it to the sky at night. If one does B/W and on a very large screen the effect will be better .
I use a 65 inch as you know but, the bigger the better. Once the pic is adjusted to it's max, some stars will
twinkle and some turn off and on because not enough light is hitting the individual pixel. Now strobe the shutter
and light up an adjacent pixel and one's star has changed by 90 degrees up down or sideways. Same as your bushes
"moving". As someone keeps telling us "These are not GoPros or Hollywood cameras.
As my post edit above stated, the IE failed to display the live feeds. I realized that was a similar issue that the EDGE browser had initially until I downloaded a webplugin executable to install. So with IE open on the live feed, I found that downloaded EDGE webplugin, and installed it again, and once I restarted IE the feeds began flowing .. it looks a bit more dystopian in IE through W10, but hey, it works
The blue lines even made me colder. I have to turn the blanket up! ha ha ha
Can you elaborate on 'stick'? Once I changed setting in the Dahua UI and then changed those settings in the Synology APP I haven't seen a back slide. I'm wondering if new users are making changes in their NAS or NVR etc prior to changing those setting in the camera, which may not work. Order may count in that regard. I have not made a single change in my settings (through IE), right now. I simply got IE working fully and once I saw the live feed was flowing again, I put WIN10 into suspension again.
So far so good - but time will tell if a setting shifts on it's own. I only think a few of mine did because I didn't yet appreciate that settings needed to happen in an order when changing them in both Dahua UI AND a third party software such as a NAS or NVR.
Well many people here use a Dahua camera with no VMS system - they simply log into the camera GUI for playback. If they use a different browser, the settings won't "stick", which is what I am referring to.
I do not have Synology, but I use Blue Iris and none of the camera GUI settings are able to be changed in BI. But yes, for folks with a Dahua NVR, the recommended approach is to make all the camera changes within Explorer (the NVR even has the ability to open up the gui in Explorer - that is how dependent they are on the browser LOL) and only use the NVR GUI for things like setting up alerts and recording.
I do not have Synology, but I use Blue Iris and none of the camera GUI settings are able to be changed in BI. But yes, for folks with a Dahua NVR, the recommended approach is to make all the camera changes within Explorer (the NVR even has the ability to open up the gui in Explorer - that is how dependent they are on the browser LOL) and only use the NVR GUI for things like setting up alerts and recording.
I JUST caught it in the act or regressing settings!
* I was in the Synology Surveillance Station, and I decided to change a single setting - pre-recording time, from 15 seconds, back to 5 second.
When I popped back into the Dahua Web UI to see if everything was cool, I saw settings like as the I Frame Interval were changed. See screen captures below. So either making 'any' change in the Synology APP which wasn't first made in the Dahua setting OR making a change in the Synology APP which has no correlating setting in the camera will corrupt settings in that camera.
My approach in this instance will be to change back those Dahua settings which changed, and then monitor, all from within Chrome. IF I am understanding this bug a bit better, things should be alright. *But as an experiment some time in the near future I should open the Synology APP in IE as well, and then make a simple change to see if making a change via IE makes a difference. IF it doesn't then it is Synology and Dahua not playing nice together, and the user will always need to go back to the Dahua web UI to check to see if any changes in settings were made after they changed a setting or 10 in the Synology side of the equation.
Below is what I changed (the time prior to an event which is added to the recording of that event; 5 s), as well as what I saw when I went back to the Dahua web UI which revealed changes to settings not made by myself, nor having anything (I feel) pertinent to do with the setting I did change myself. In this case my altering the Pre-recording time inadvertently messed up all the bitrates, and I Frame Intervals in all 3 streams. The main stream for instance had a bitrate of 12228, and an I Frame Interval of 80, 4x FPS, which seems optimal for my setup.
* I was in the Synology Surveillance Station, and I decided to change a single setting - pre-recording time, from 15 seconds, back to 5 second.
When I popped back into the Dahua Web UI to see if everything was cool, I saw settings like as the I Frame Interval were changed. See screen captures below. So either making 'any' change in the Synology APP which wasn't first made in the Dahua setting OR making a change in the Synology APP which has no correlating setting in the camera will corrupt settings in that camera.
My approach in this instance will be to change back those Dahua settings which changed, and then monitor, all from within Chrome. IF I am understanding this bug a bit better, things should be alright. *But as an experiment some time in the near future I should open the Synology APP in IE as well, and then make a simple change to see if making a change via IE makes a difference. IF it doesn't then it is Synology and Dahua not playing nice together, and the user will always need to go back to the Dahua web UI to check to see if any changes in settings were made after they changed a setting or 10 in the Synology side of the equation.
Below is what I changed (the time prior to an event which is added to the recording of that event; 5 s), as well as what I saw when I went back to the Dahua web UI which revealed changes to settings not made by myself, nor having anything (I feel) pertinent to do with the setting I did change myself. In this case my altering the Pre-recording time inadvertently messed up all the bitrates, and I Frame Intervals in all 3 streams. The main stream for instance had a bitrate of 12228, and an I Frame Interval of 80, 4x FPS, which seems optimal for my setup.
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Todays efforts - I zoomed into areas 16x and left that in one tab (Synology Surveillance Station), and in another tab (in MacOS Chrome, don't hate me @wittaj ) I kept the Dahua settings open, and went about making small alterations in most cases, and a few larger leaps after experimenting. This is where I'm at.
I managed to get the shutter speed down to 0~0.2, and the gain down to 0~1. But I needed to raise the 2 & 3D NR up to 64 which showed promise, especially when zoomed way in. (it's just my way of checking if I'm making headway since anything at a distance is more of a challenge, and generally looks mushy the further away you look. I figure if I can tease any of that into looking better, it should ripple down into the things closer in the frame). WB is auto, and the Backlighting is OFF.
And a short movie to check results -
View attachment Dec 6 camera setting moving out from 50 percents and shutter speed way down etc.mp4
I managed to get the shutter speed down to 0~0.2, and the gain down to 0~1. But I needed to raise the 2 & 3D NR up to 64 which showed promise, especially when zoomed way in. (it's just my way of checking if I'm making headway since anything at a distance is more of a challenge, and generally looks mushy the further away you look. I figure if I can tease any of that into looking better, it should ripple down into the things closer in the frame). WB is auto, and the Backlighting is OFF.
And a short movie to check results -
View attachment Dec 6 camera setting moving out from 50 percents and shutter speed way down etc.mp4
bigredfish
Known around here
Just a note about zoom and pixelation and DNR
When you manually “zoom” a fixed lens camera you’re using digital zoom. Unlike optical zoom, digital zoom distorts the image, ie pixelation. Trying to smooth that using DNR doesn’t improve the image, it simply smooths the pixels with no improvement in detail. It’s using the same number of pixels and enlarging them making things “blocky”
no real advantage of using digital zoom or trying to correct your overall image using DNR to try and “fix” a digitally zoomed sample. You’ll just turn your normal fixed image soft.
Optical zoom found on variable focus cameras physically moves the lens providing the same clarity but without the pixelation. It does however reduce your field of view as you zoom in.
www.getscw.com
When you manually “zoom” a fixed lens camera you’re using digital zoom. Unlike optical zoom, digital zoom distorts the image, ie pixelation. Trying to smooth that using DNR doesn’t improve the image, it simply smooths the pixels with no improvement in detail. It’s using the same number of pixels and enlarging them making things “blocky”
no real advantage of using digital zoom or trying to correct your overall image using DNR to try and “fix” a digitally zoomed sample. You’ll just turn your normal fixed image soft.
Optical zoom found on variable focus cameras physically moves the lens providing the same clarity but without the pixelation. It does however reduce your field of view as you zoom in.
Is Digital or Optical Zoom Better for Security Cameras? | SCW
What do digital and optical zoom mean when it comes to security cameras? Let Security Camera Warehouse guide you through them, so you can choose wisely.
www.getscw.com
Just a note about zoom and pixelation and DNR
When you manually “zoom” a fixed lens camera you’re using digital zoom. Unlike optical zoom, digital zoom distorts the image, ie pixelation. Trying to smooth that using DNR doesn’t improve the image, it simply smooths the pixels with no improvement in detail. It’s using the same number of pixels and enlarging them making things “blocky”
no real advantage of using digital zoom or trying to correct your overall image using DNR to try and “fix” a digitally zoomed sample. You’ll just turn your normal fixed image soft.
Optical zoom found on variable focus cameras physically moves the lens providing the same clarity but without the pixelation. It does however reduce your field of view as you zoom in.
Is Digital or Optical Zoom Better for Security Cameras? | SCW
What do digital and optical zoom mean when it comes to security cameras? Let Security Camera Warehouse guide you through them, so you can choose wisely.
Ah yes, very good. Thanks for the input - I'll go back and revisit the DNR. I don't want the foreground of the frame to become soft.
Ok, I decided to just turn off DNR entirely. Then I dropped the shutter speed to 0~0.08, and bottomed out Gain to "0~0". I may need to brighten it up a bit, we'll see, especially as the sun drops. That'll tell me a lot.
Here is a short clip with the above setting changed. I didn't realize these cameras could be shot so fast, but perhaps sunset will be a rude awakening. Which is ok .. I'm anticipating that.
View attachment shutter at 008 gain 0 DNR off.mp4
Here is a short clip with the above setting changed. I didn't realize these cameras could be shot so fast, but perhaps sunset will be a rude awakening. Which is ok .. I'm anticipating that.
View attachment shutter at 008 gain 0 DNR off.mp4