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

[Larebear]

I don't know if this will help or not, but this is a snapshot with WDR set at max (100), with contrast set at 80. All other settings are default (50). Problem is that I don't get much shade or shadows, so WDR probably wouldn't be much of an advantage here whether it be true WDR or digital.

 

[Tom OSullivan]

Is the Chinese firmware an issue on these cameras....will be using them on a Digital Watchdog Spectrum Cube?
Thanks
Tom

 

[hal9000]

WDR seems to work here with the same camera from Ali, 3.6mm lens. Without it there are more shadows and no detail in bright areas, the sky is white. No amount of tweaking the settings could improve the bright areas with WDR Off. With WDR the picture is washed out with default settings but it can be corrected. By adjusting the Saturation, Gamma and White Balance the picture has better colors and is more detailed. It's not perfect, the WDR produces visible artifacts. The result is much better than the previous Hikvision 3MP turret that died after only a couple months last Winter. Pushing the contrast too far removes the benefits of WDR. In my case I found that lowering the Gamma helped get back some contrast.

without and with WDR:

Day setup for now:
Brightness 53, Contrast 55, Saturation 85, Sharpness 55, Gamma 0, White Balance Customized Red 36 Blue 32, WDR 50

Here's how to get both WDR and keep good contrast/colors:
- enable WDR, don't set it too high unless it is absolutely needed, doing so darkens the picture
- set Gamma to 0
- increase Brightness until right before the brightest parts of the picture start losing detail
- increase Contrast and Sharpness until right before it stops looking natural
- increase Saturation to get similar colors to WDR Off

 

[wxman]

I don't know if this will help or not, but this is a snapshot with WDR set at max (100), with contrast set at 80. All other settings are default (50). Problem is that I don't get much shade or shadows, so WDR probably wouldn't be much of an advantage here whether it be true WDR or digital.

That is a little better. Like Hal9000 suggested, I'd try adjusting the gamma. The wrong gamma setting can make an image look washed out.

 

[Larebear]

Day setup for now:
Brightness 53, Contrast 55, Saturation 85, Sharpness 55, Gamma 0, White Balance Customized Red 36 Blue 32, WDR 50

Thanks for the settings hal9000. I set my Dahua 4421C to those exact settings and took a capture with and without WDR turn on. Your settings do seem to make quite an improvement with WDR on compared to the way I had it set. Here's the comparison. First capture is with it off and 2nd with it on.

 

[hal9000]

Great, I'm glad that it was helpful! The second picture looks nice. WDR changes the picture too much to use the same settings for comparison. That's why it doesn't look right at first when trying WDR with normal settings. The WDR does seem to work, it does the same here as on your second picture, better sky, improved shadows. It will be interesting to get comparisons with the Hikvision 4MP to see if it's the same.

I'm pleased with the results, the only issue really is that the IVS Tripwire detection doesn't seem to work. I drew lines, adjusted the min and max size for the moving object, it works fine on the live preview (moving objects are detected with a green rectangle and the trip lines flash in red) but it just doesn't produce any event in the log and doesn't record anything. The motion detect works fine though.

Here's the Night profile I use for now:
Brightness 54, Contrast 60, Saturation 0, Sharpness 50 (it produces too much noise during the night when enabled higher than 54, it kicks in at 55), Gamma 50, Exposure Low Noise Gain 60, White Balance Auto, Day & Night Black & White, BLC Off, 3D NR On 60

 

[Larebear]

Thanks again. I used your night settings and will see what it looks like tonight. I wasn't real happy with the night image with the settings that I had used. Will post the results later.

 

[wxman]

Hmm, looking a bit better, but it still looks kinda dark, dull, low-contrast to me. I still think that I prefer the original WDR off image. It still seems like we're basically just lowering the contrast by turning WDR on. I'm not convinced yet that I need to replace my 3mp cams with the 4mp.

Will be interesting to see the night shots

 

[Del Boy]

Thanks for the settings hal9000. I set my Dahua 4421C to those exact settings and took a capture with and without WDR turn on. Your settings do seem to make quite an improvement with WDR on compared to the way I had it set. Here's the comparison. First capture is with it off and 2nd with it on.

For me, that 2nd picture is spot on! It's not as vivid as the top pic but I don't like vivid as it's too unnatural. Plus these are security cameras not TV cameras! What we need is evidential detail should the worst happen and I think this is perfect for that!

 

[hal9000]

@wxman: The first WDR Off picture was from a different day, it's hard to compare. I'm also not convinced that the WDR in those 4MP Dahua and Hikvision is the same as expensive cameras but it seems to work and make a nice difference in my case. I adjusted the settings with and without and the result looks much better to me (sky, shadows, bright areas not completely white). The Sony video also looks dull but it's dull before and after so we only see what changes.

For WDR to make more difference the scene needs to actually have a wide dynamic range. The real test would be the same as the Sony video. Outdoors WDR is interesting to avoid a completely white sky and improve shadows but it can never be as spectacular as indoors with bright light coming from a window. I think it makes a nice difference outdoors in my case because the camera is in a corner with trees behind it, without WDR the picture is too dark in areas closer to the camera and too bright for everything else.

To get a brighter picture it's possible to lower WDR. It seems to change between 30 and 31, there's a step around 15 then 30, it looks the same from 31 to 50. Depending on the scene someone could lower it to 1. WDR 1 is very different from WDR Off.

@Larebear: I would try WDR 50 then 30 then 1 to see what works best for you. You'll get a brighter picture by lowering WDR but with less WDR effect. It may work in your case. I use a custom white balance here because it looks better for most of the day but it depends on the scene, for others it would be a different settings and Auto may be better.

 

[hal9000]

Here's another Night profile. "Low Noise" reduced the noise but also reduced detail so I tried the manual exposure this time. I tried to get as much light as possible while keeping noise to a minimum.

Brightness 50
Contrast 65
Saturation 0
Sharpness 55
Gamma 70
Exposure Manual, Customized, 0 112, 0 50
Day & Night Black & White
BLC Off
3D NR 80

If anyone has spent some time adjusting profiles please share

 

[AlpineWatch]

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

Link is no longer valid

 

[hal9000]

The store seems to be unavailable at the moment: http://aliexpress.com/store/638300 but there are other sellers http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?&SearchText=Dahua+IPC-HDW4421C

 

[AlpineWatch]

The store seems to be unavailable at the moment: http://aliexpress.com/store/638300 but there are other sellers http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?&SearchText=Dahua+IPC-HDW4421C

Thanks. I'm a newbie at buying cameras from Aliexpress so I tend to stick with sellers that others have used.

 

[Larebear]

Here's another Night profile. "Low Noise" reduced the noise but also reduced detail so I tried the manual exposure this time. I tried to get as much light as possible while keeping noise to a minimum.

The previous night profile didn't work too well for me. The IR range view was reduced considerably. I was going to take a snapshot last night and post it here, but there was too much moisture and fog in the air causing interference with all of my cameras. Most of my cameras motion recorded continuously due all the crap flying around. :rolleyes-new:

Thanks hal9000, I'll try your new profile tonight and post the results when the visibility is good.

 

[hal9000]

I hope it will be useful, the night settings are tricky... I plan to add a camera in the opposite corner, this way both cameras will benefit from the IR.
Bugs and spiders really mess up the motion detection, it also tends to record for hours during the night when that happens... That's why I wanted to try the IVS TripWire event detection, since it would only detect a motion from point A to B and not only random activity on part of the picture. At least that's the idea because it just doesn't seem to work with the 6.R firmware.

 

[Larebear]

I hope it will be useful, the night settings are tricky...

Here's a capture taken tonight using your settings. Any suggestions?

 

[hal9000]

It didn't seem to work, it depends too much on available light. The bright side is that you can definitely get a better picture, it's only a matter of finding the sweet spot. After hours of tweaking last night it appeared that Defog set to the minimum can help reduce noise. The last profile I settled with for now has very little noise and a good IR range but is worse for motion compared to the previous profile. It's still a work in progress but I have to say that I like both the day and night picture now.

For a night profile it depends on the priority. We can have one or the other but not both:
Better movement (shorter exposure) but darker and with more noise
or
Better light and less noise but with blurry movement
It's possible to have good movement and a bright picture but with a ton of noise and blown whites.

Here are some tips for each setting:
Brightness: don't increase too much, no more than 55 for Night in my case and only if it doesn't blow out the whites too much.
Contrast: for Night can be lowered a bit to get more light in dark corners if there's enough exposure/gain.
Sharpness: for Night 70 is the limit here. 70 to 74 looks the same and 75 introduces too much noise to be useful.
Gamma: for Day Gamma 0 helps get back some contrast when enabling WDR. Saturation needs to be increased with WDR On.
Exposure: for Night increase to get more light (try 150ms) but it will make motion worse
Exposure Gain: for Night increase to get more light but can blow out whites and introduce too much noise
Defog: for Night set to "Manual 1, Manual 1" to remove more noise in addition to the 3D NR

The settings that made the difference for me were:
Day: Gamma 0 to get back some contrast with WDR
Night: Exposure set to Manual and Defog set to Manual &, Manual 1 to reduce noise further than with 3D NR alone.


Newer Night profiles from last night, I tried to reduce the noise and increase the light again.

- low noise, good IR, good for fine detail
It seems to hit a sweet spot here with less noise and more detail than I thought was possible.
Brightness 55
Contrast 48
Saturation 0
Sharpness 70
Gamma 100
Exposure Manual, Customized, 120 150, 0 50
Day & Night Black & White
BLC Off
3D NR 80
Defog Manual 1, Manual 1

- plenty of light, decent noise
Brightness 51
Contrast 45
Saturation 0
Sharpness 70
Gamma 100
Exposure Manual, Customized, 120 150, 0 85
Day & Night Black & White
BLC Off
3D NR 80
Defog Manual 1, Manual 1

 

[Larebear]

- low noise, good IR, good for fine detail
It seems to hit a sweet spot here with less noise and more detail than I thought was possible.
Brightness 55
Contrast 48
Saturation 0
Sharpness 70
Gamma 100
Exposure Manual, Customized, 120 150, 0 50
Day & Night Black & White
BLC Off
3D NR 80
Defog Manual 1, Manual 1

- plenty of light, decent noise
Brightness 51
Contrast 45
Saturation 0
Sharpness 70
Gamma 100
Exposure Manual, Customized, 120 150, 0 85
Day & Night Black & White
BLC Off
3D NR 80
Defog Manual 1, Manual 1

The first night settings didn't work too well for the camera location, but the 2nd one was much better.

1st settings

2nd settings

 

[hal9000]

Nice, it's more like it! The second pic looks similar to the results I get with the first setting that's meant for low noise, there's good detail and a lot of what can be seen during the day. I would fine tune from there. The drawback is that it won't be too good for motion (good for still picture or slow movements, blurry for fast movements), it depends if that's acceptable to you.