Dahua 4mp, 6mm turrets (IPC-HDW4421C)

[bp2008]

I ordered two of these in the 6mm variety on August 12th and they were delivered today: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Dahua-IPC-HDW4421C-IR-IP-Camera-4MP-Full-HD-Network-IR-security-cctv-DH-IPC-HDW4421C/32397210988.html

This camera is 3-axis adjustable.

I would have been happier with an 8-10mm lens for this, but 6mm was the narrowest available. These are replacing years-old 5MP cameras from a small-ish Chinese vendor. They had 8mm lenses and were great for capturing fine details, day and night. Honestly, they had the best night vision image quality of any security camera I have yet owned. But they were exhibiting extensive video corruption ever since they were new and this summer it got really bad so it was time to replace them.

As usual, I will jump straight to image and video samples. I have both cameras mounted in their permanent locations. Night images and videos will come later.

Click the image for full size


Here is a video of a vehicle driving past the camera, captured with Blue Iris using direct to disc. The camera was set to 2560x1440 (maximum resolution), 20 FPS, 10 Mbps, and CBR (constant bit rate) encoding. I learned with my earlier Dahua 4mp that VBR (Variable bit rate) encoding produces much inferior results, so I will only be using CBR with these cameras.


Night pics

These are not lit solely by the cameras. Additional infrared is present from other cameras and a spotlight illuminator.



Night videos

2560x1440, 6 FPS, 12 Iframe interval, H264+, CBR, 8 Mbps



Here are some pictures of the cameras. In their normal orientation, the ambient light sensor is at the bottom of the face, and the lens is on the right. IR LED on the left.

 

[Del Boy]

Great write-up. If mine are half as good then I'll be happy

 

[Larebear]

Great write-up. If mine are half as good then I'll be happy

+1 Thanks for the pics and video. Mine was in L.A. two days ago, so should be here this week. Looking forward to test driving my first Dahua.

 

[bp2008]

Just so you know, the default IP address is 192.168.1.108 and user name and password are both admin.

 

[Larebear]

Thanks for that info bp. That will save some time in setting them up.

 

[badmop]

I can't wait for mine to arrive and my new NVR, should be shipped DHL. I hope they come quickly, I can finally remove all my analog cameras
I'm curious how the IR does on them, compared to the 4mp dahua dome we both have.

How do the turrets adjust? Do you just turn them and they stay, or do you need an allan wrench to tighten them? I'm curious because if I have them mounted on the eave all the way flush with the house, how can I tighten it up if it's adjusted on the back of the camera.

Are the bases smaller on the turret than the 4mp dahua dome? I think it is by a few mm smaller.
One more question, do you have a picture of the bottom of the turret in one piece? Not pulled apart, if not no problem, I won't make you produce one (actually I don't think it'll matter, because looking at the base it's semi solid, so you couldn't tuck any extra wiring behind the camera could you?

 

[bp2008]

How do the turrets adjust? Do you just turn them and they stay, or do you need an allan wrench to tighten them? I'm curious because if I have them mounted on the eave all the way flush with the house, how can I tighten it up if it's adjusted on the back of the camera.

The camera gets sandwiched between two pieces of plastic (seen in the photos above) very tightly, such that the camera is held fairly stiffly in place. You can still adjust the camera easily -- it is not too stiff. No tools are required except to screw the plastic base to your house. I used my own screws instead of the phillips head screws that came with the camera. 3 screws are used.

These turrets are a bit different from Hikvision turrets, which have more metal parts and tighten down extremely hard by the use of a screw in the base.

I don't know how the size of the base compares with the dome. Surely they are similar. I did not measure precisely.

I did not take a picture of the bottom of the turrets in one piece, but there surely is some space in there and you could stuff some of the dongle cords in there. Maybe even the entire DC jack if you aren't going to use it. In fact it is possible the entire dongle could be stuffed in there... I didn't try as none of my existing network cable runs had that much extra at the camera ends. The circled part is where the cord for the dongle exits the base (you are looking at the base from the top). You must to tear off a plastic tab with pliers or else the base is a solid ring around the outside. If you were mounting to a junction box, you wouldn't need to tear off the plastic tab.

 

[bp2008]

Night pics

These are not lit solely by the cameras. Additional infrared is present from other cameras and a spotlight illuminator.



Night videos

2560x1440, 6 FPS, 12 Iframe interval, H264+, CBR, 8 Mbps

 

[bp2008]

These night pics and video are using default image settings. Through tweaking I have found you can greatly reduce, and even eliminate the white noise artifacts by reducing the Sharpness setting (Default is 50) and/or by increasing the 3D Noise reduction level (Default is 50). Further you could apparently set it to only change these during a Night profile.

 

[badmop]

Thanks for the pics, for some reason I was thinking it used an allan wrench to tighten the camera into place. I think the base of the turret is smaller than the dome.
I can't wait for mine to arrive.

 

[pbc]

Any chance you can take some video and turn off the other ir so it is just the camera?

Noticed you mentioned more plastic than the Hiks. Are they therefore a bit inferior in build quality ?

 

[bp2008]

Any chance you can take some video and turn off the other ir so it is just the camera?

Nope, I'm lazy.

Noticed you mentioned more plastic than the Hiks. Are they therefore a bit inferior in build quality ?

Maybe just a bit inferior. These are plenty strong enough and do not require you to loosen and tighten a screw for repositioning. But really you might position a camera once or twice in its life so the ease of doing this is not very relevant. With a Hikvision turret you can tighten it down so hard that it is nearly impossible to reposition the turret without a screwdriver (or a hammer or large rock), making it a bit more vandal resistant. But with the Dahua turret there is only one tightness level and not adjustable, so any person could easily move the camera if it is within reach. Or they could even press the release button on the base and pull the top half of the plastic off, leaving the camera just hanging there.

 

[badmop]

How long was your cameras shipped after paying? assuming you didn't wait on backorder for these cameras.

 

[tvb]

Nope, I'm lazy.

ahhhh pleasssee, pretty pleaasseee

 

[badmop]

I'll have my domes soon, once they ship with my NVR (strangely the NVR has been removed from her store, but everything else is still there... also still waiting on a reply to my message sent over 30 hours ago, as all other messages she julia replied in less than 12 hours)

He could take a cloth and put over the other cameras to block the IR without having to unplug or whatever, but if he admits he's lazy, then he won't do it lol

 

[bp2008]

How long was your cameras shipped after paying? assuming you didn't wait on backorder for these cameras.

Two business days. Ordered on the 12th, shipped on the 14th according to my email.

I'll have my domes soon, once they ship with my NVR (strangely the NVR has been removed from her store, but everything else is still there... also still waiting on a reply to my message sent over 30 hours ago, as all other messages she julia replied in less than 12 hours)

He could take a cloth and put over the other cameras to block the IR without having to unplug or whatever, but if he admits he's lazy, then he won't do it lol

Ha. See, I would need to pack around a ladder to put cloth over the cameras. It would be easier to unplug all but one cam from the PoE switch, but my cables are naturally not labeled and the switch is 8 feet off the ground and facing into a wall (so the cords would hang out next to the wall) making it difficult to work with too.

 

[badmop]

Once I get mine I will be installing them right away, so I can finally get rid of my analog cameras, so I'll do some videos once I get them. Mine should be shipped DHL with the NVR as long as the NVR isn't out of stock, even tho my order is paid and cleared as of monday. I know China is 12 hours ahead of the east coast time. My 4mp dome was on backorder before, so It took a couple weeks before it shipped.

But yea, thanks for the pictures of the cameras, I like gawking at things I've ordered, just like unboxing videos

 

[wxman]

@bp2008 do you have WDR on for either the day or night images?

 

[bp2008]

@bp2008 do you have WDR on for either the day or night images?

I haven't actually turned on WDR on either of these turret cameras yet! (they really haven't needed it where I have them mounted)

 

[Del Boy]

I haven't actually turned on WDR on either of these turret cameras yet! (they really haven't needed it where I have them mounted)

Any idea if it's Digital WDR or not?