Convince me Reolink is bad to buy

[blocksog]

Thanks for

You might consider getting a good cam for dedicated LPR rather than trying to force the PTZ to do night LPR, which it is not really a good match for. Yes some folks have had some luck with that, but the money and time you spend on off-cam IR and trying to get this to work might be best spent on say a 5442 Z4E or a 5241 Z12E which have a proven track record of great night LPR capture.

Thanks for the recommendation. It is not a bad idea but I don't have many spots where lpr can be placed, and I don't want the house to look like a prison with too many cameras. The location of this ptz is the probably optimal both for general tracking and for lpr. Putting another lor cameras on the front side of the house maybe too much. There are already 4 cameras there.

The ptz works great for lpr during the day. At night will not work very well. I just tested again and turns out the IR illuminator does not make much difference, it's very weak.

 

[tangent]

Thanks for the recommendation. It is not a bad idea but I don't have many spots where lpr can be placed, and I don't want the house to look like a prison with too many cameras.

Striking that balance is something quite a few folks struggle with a bit. I'd worry more about looking like a drug dealer's house than a prison, but typically they put up a large number of much lower quality, poorly installed cameras and park on the front lawn. While cameras are generally a deterrent, there is a point at which they can invite trouble / seriously unnerve your neighbors.

As long as you've got sufficient detail on key points you may not need as many cameras. For the kind of LPR coverage I'd like I'd probably need 3 more Z12E's, but don't think I can get away with that.
That said, unfortunately these days it seems unless you can deliver criminals on a silver platter the cops may not do that much.

 

[Flintstone61]

Once upon a time there was a guy on this forum hiding cameras in ornamental landscapes and bird houses and shit. fake wishing wells was something I though I could slap a Z12 in.

 

[Flintstone61]

My sons buddy who has pretty severe ADHD and dyslexia installed a Reolink system and I left him alone about it because reading details and menus in Dahua and Hikvision and BI would be difficult.
EZ button scenario.
If your not at all techy, one box solutions can get you into Cam world, and then you can " see" it's benefits and limitations.
If you buy one box solutions
use about 5 shit tons of out door lighting to see anything at night.

 

[bigredfish]

You might consider getting a good cam for dedicated LPR rather than trying to force the PTZ to do night LPR, which it is not really a good match for. Yes some folks have had some luck with that, but the money and time you spend on off-cam IR and trying to get this to work might be best spent on say a 5442 Z4E or a 5241 Z12E which have a proven track record of great night LPR capture.

^^^^
Completely agree with this.
I only showed my demo to prove that the camera wasnt the problem, settings/user knowledge were.

 

[blocksog]

Folks, by day this PTZ425 works great for LPR. I have set a few IVS rules and I can see plates very well (not automatic recognition, but I don't need to log numbers in a database). With this single PTZ I can look both at the car model/color (zoomed out before triggering the LPR preset) and license plate (once LPR preset is triggered for cars only).

At night, the story is different. My street is completely dark and too far from the camera for IR to be useful. For this reason, I am still thinking a stronger IR can do the trick without needing another dedicated LPR camera. My logic is to exhaust all the possibilities of this PTZ before thinking of another camera. While LPR is something I love and I think is very useful for security purposes, my family is completely against this deep level of surveillance where we put a dedicated camera just to get license plates from 120ft away at night. Our neighborhood is quite safe, our street a cul de sac. This is why if I can get away with an IR solution or by playing with motion activated frontyard lights, that may be optimal for my case. I already have a motion sensor that triggers frontyard lights, adding a spotlight pointed behind the cars going out may be good enough, will see

I'd worry more about looking like a drug dealer's house than a prison, but typically they put up a large number of much lower quality, poorly installed cameras and park on the front lawn. While cameras are generally a deterrent, there is a point at which they can invite trouble / seriously unnerve your neighbors.

Exactly my point. I had not thought I might look like a drug dealer . Our neighbors know us pretty well though, we have each other's back. On Sunday, a neighbor asked me to review the cameras after a suspicious truck stood in front of his house and left immediately when the neighbor got out.

 

[bigredfish]

My example works because

A- I have a weak ass street light nearby. I mean WEAK 1930 candle powered . But it does add ambient light

B- I’m only 25-35 ft from each capture point.

 

[wittaj]

We are not surprised with the night performance because this PTZ is not on the ideal MP/sensor ratio, so it is not recommended by most here if they do not have enough light. The only reason it is recommended is because of the form factor being more of a driver for someone than performance because it is half the size of a regular PTZ.

As @bigredfish points out, his works due to the extra light he has and the much closer distance than you have.

Maybe you will surprise us and it works, but I am not optimistic LOL. Many of us have expended all the possibilities before you LOL. And you may spend more than just getting another camera LOL.

There is a saying here "buy once, cry once" and that especially applies to additional IR for LPR purposes as well.

Because of the shutter speed we run, the effective distances of IR blasters is cut tremendously because the faster the shutter, the more light is needed.

Mine is similar to yours but a longer distance at 175 feet and I wanted the plates to pop a little more.

I first tried to add this $40 blaster that claims 263 feet. With a parked car plate in the field of view I could not tell a difference between turning the blaster on and off. Fortunately I could repurpose it to another camera. Even moving it down to the mailbox to be within 25 feet was useless - again because of the whole angle/plane thing I mentioned earlier with the reflective properties of plates.

Next the $45 Tendelux DI20 is highly recommended. Same thing with a parked car plate in the field of view I could not tell a difference between turning the blaster on and off. Fortunately I could repurpose it to another camera.

Next someone suggested they got good results with the $90 Iluminar IRC99 blaster. Unfortunately same thing. Couldn't tell a difference.

So I am up to $175+tax on blasters that didn't cut it.

Got the $300 one and that made the difference.

But even that blaster may struggle on a less than ideal MP/sensor ratio and with all the branches you have. It would be cheaper to buy the Z12E at that point LOL. Hide it like @samplenhold did in a hose reel if you are concerned about looking like a drug dealers house (although most don't even see them).


As a frame of reference, I have no streetlights. I wanted to see if color was possible.

Not even a 3,000 lumen screw-in floodlight was useful.

Next I experimented using a 3,800 lumen 10 degree focused spotlight (not some cheap lightbulb spotlight) that is triggered for a split second by the camera to capture a plate in color and this is all I get. To the eye it looks like a tug boat spotlight LOL, but for the fast shutters we have to run to capture the plate, it needs a ton of light.

We all think we live in a safe neighborhood, until we don't. Most people don't even see the cameras.

 

[blocksog]

@wittaj thanks for all your help. Your guidance and experience have been a great time saver. Based on your pics, I would guess you are using 1/1250 shutter or even faster, right? I have found my sweet spot at 1/1000 night and 1/1250 day.

Another technical question: does a PTZ preset include the focus position in the preset parameters? Looks to me like a preset does not include the focus you determined manually when setting the preset, it just respects the focus setting of the scene, whatever is set to (auto, semi-auto manual).

 

[wittaj]

That is a 2,000 shutter because I have faster vehicle speeds than you would. And that is the S3 model of the chipset for the Z12E, so it is even better. My older version would barely see the plate at all.

Nope, the PTZ preset doesn't include a focus position, and that is why we say PTZs make poor choices for LPR. The fixed camera like the Z12E has that option.

The only way the PTZ works as a LPR at night is if you make the camera a fixed camera at night and have it on a schedule early enough that it can see a focus OR put some reflective stickers in the area so that it has something to focus on OR like in bigredfish case, enough light that it has something to focus on.

If they would add a manual set focus on the PTZ preset it would be awesome!

 

[blocksog]

Yup, agree. It defeats the purpose having PTZ presets and leaving the camera to find focus after switching to a preset. If I have a position I need, I also often know the focus it should be at that position.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, I would LOVE to take advantage of the bigger zoom to get me a more straight angle, but not willing to give up the PTZ at night just for that.

Bigredfish is I think the only one I have seen here that has a situation where the PTZ can turn and have enough time to focus. Ideal situation.

I think just about everyone else here using a PTZ for LPR makes it fixed at night.

 

[bigredfish]

Another one:

C- My vehicles are traveling 10-15mph so the camera does indeed search for focus and 99% of the time, has enough time do do so

 

[bigredfish]

And looking the other way is its nighttime "home" preset with focus as I have it switch an hour before dusk in B&W so it retains that focus for the "home" preset all night


View attachment Home_ch7_20240126224258_20240126224315.mp4

 

[bigredfish]

The downside is I lose Human detection at night from this camera. But I have a total of 4 cameras covering the front of the house/street, two of them in color.

Moral of the story is you need more than one camera to do most jobs well

 

[blocksog]

And looking the other way is its nighttime "home" preset with focus as I have it switch an hour before dusk in B&W so it retains that focus for the "home" preset all night


View attachment 213085

I didn't get your setup very well. Do you have auto focus during day and then you make it sit at the home preset before dusk to leave the manual focus stuck at that length before your night scene kicks in?

 

[bigredfish]

Any PTZ needs a Home preset. But it can be different at different times of the day

So daytime I have preset 1 (home) with a rather wide overview looking West. It tracks anything in that zone with separate Human/Vehicle IVS rules. The PTZ also gets direction from two other cameras that act as spotters, so for instance if a car is going East, the spotter sends it to a zoomed in position to the East. The other spotter cam does the opposite. By using directional Tripwires I cut down by 1/2 the work the PTZ has to do . So daytime I do both human tracking AND LPR.

At night, LPR only obviously due to the dark shutter requirement, and its Preset #1 Home position is zoomed in to capture plates in one of the two directions. So again the spotters help tell it when a car is going the opposite direction and it turns and zooms the other way


Daytime starting at its normal HOME position Preset#1. Spotter cam tells it there's a car coming around the corner heading WEST so zoom in to get plate Preset #2

View attachment Home_ch7_20241015141922_20241015141941.mp4

Other Spotter tells it to turn East and zoom in to get plate Preset #3

View attachment Home_ch7_20241030143144_20241030143159.mp4

 

[blocksog]

Thanks for clarifying @bigredfish .

 

[blocksog]

@wittaj can you help me whith what settings I should put on the PTZ425DB-AT to properly detect ONLY humans and cars? The camera is driving me crazy. Yesterday it triggered many events during rain at night. I followed your advice here to enable only IVS smart rules and disable SMD and motion detection, but then stopped recognizing people altogether. Then I did your trick of setting normal MD only a tiny square with low sensitivity and keep SMD on. Today it worked well in the morning but starting in the afternoon is has missed many events of people and cars in front of it. PTZ tracking was not performed, which tells me the camera simply did not know there was a person there. There is no schedule for IVS, so I don't know what else can be the issue. Seems to be more problematic in the evening under IR.

What is the optimal setup you have to detect only humans/cars and minimize false alarms of rain/snow?

 

[wittaj]

@wittaj can you help me whith what settings I should put on the PTZ425DB-AT to properly detect ONLY humans and cars? The camera is driving me crazy. Yesterday it triggered many events during rain at night. I followed your advice here to enable only IVS smart rules and disable SMD and motion detection, but then stopped recognizing people altogether. Then I did your trick of setting normal MD only a tiny square with low sensitivity and keep SMD on. Today it worked well in the morning but starting in the afternoon is has missed many events of people and cars in front of it. PTZ tracking was not performed, which tells me the camera simply did not know there was a person there. There is no schedule for IVS, so I don't know what else can be the issue. Seems to be more problematic in the evening under IR.

What is the optimal setup you have to detect only humans/cars and minimize false alarms of rain/snow?

Make sure that you have human and motor vehicle checked in the IVS rule.

There is a schedule for IVS as well called Time plan below the human and vehicle check boxes.