Dahua IPC-HDW5442T-ZE 4MP Varifocal Turret - Night Perfomance testing

[Wildcat_1]

@samplenhold

Didn't want to miss your other question on focal length. This test was completed at full wide (2.7mm), for comparison at 12mm (full tele / zoom) I've included 2 quick day caps. The wide shot represents the 2.7mm and the close shot the 12mm. Distance to the closest edge of the table (between the 2 couches) is 14' and distance to the front of the brick wall (at the back of the shot) is 24'. I'll also try and capture some more video tonight (with the latest FW to test if any IR changes) in both wide and tele for you and others.

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2.7mm​

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12mm​

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As this cam has fixed f1.8 through the lens the good news is you won't lose light sensitivity through the zoom albeit you do get IR drop off over distance of course. With that said, remember that turrets don't feature zoom priority like bullet cams therefore don't have a setting to adjust IR based on focal length which may or may not be a deal breaker for you depending on your lighting situation at the install location(s). While on that subject let me point out that there IS a 'stated' difference in IR distance between fixed (164ft of IR) vs vari (131ft) of IR. In real terms, you're generally better off assuming you'll hit a max of 1/2 to 3/4 (would be approx 65' to 100' in this case) of stated distance especially with turrets featuring 2 IR LED's and certainly should plan for that data point if solely relying on IR (no external or ambient light) to be happy. You'll of course experience light drop off over distance. Also just remember that with 2 LED vs 4 (although depends on the IR LED layout) you will get more of a conical IR effect therefore again can be critical to your install location. 4 LED's of course primarily being on bullet cams & PTZ's vs 2 & 3 IR LED layouts on turrets.

You mentioned you want color at night, just make sure thats not at the expense of good quality, blur free caps. Always have to mention the caveat of making sure the available lighting can support your needs, if not back down to B&W and get the shot. Alternatively I also suggest for many people that you run a mix in an environment so 2 cams cross covering 1 area, 1 in B&W, 1 in color ensures color details such as clothing or vehicle color are grabbed while you also get perfect clarity in the B&W cap etc where you don't have to compromise shutter/exposure as much as you do in color UNLESS of course you have amazing lighting.

HTH. If you need any further help OR if you would like me to take a look at your location for any recommendation etc, just DM me. Happy to help where I can

Personally, I want color at night. My areas around my house have varying light strength. I have had decent face caps with the old 5231 vari turret from 2018 and have just upgraded that driveway spot with a T5442 in 6mm. I do get better face caps with that new one.

But I have other places that have less light and need more zoom than 6mm and really would prefer the turret over the bullet. So that is why I was asking about what Focal Length you were testing at. I have one position where I might have to go with the Z4E. Still have to decide.

 

[Arjun]

Right on time, was wondering when a new varifocal would come out

 

[samplenhold]

You mentioned you want color at night

Thanks for the reply. I currently have ten outdoor cams with two more to be installed and two LPR cams to be installed just as soon as I can figure out how to get the Cat5e from the attic to the front porch. I have a mix of crossing cams on the driveway, wide angle view cams covering the front and side yards and four cams at the front door. I agree with you on having a mix of cams and fields of view. I only have one cam that goes to IR at night outside.

The reason I am so interested in your review is that I am considering yet another cam that will augment the two LPR cams at night. Specifically zoomed in to the T-intersection for the sole purpose of getting color and make/model of vehicles at night that my other overview cams can't get a good enough capture for that purpose.

We had an incident a week ago where some guy in a pick up pulled into the driveway of a neighbor and stole his tailgate. It took about 5 minutes at about 3:00am. I have the whole thing on one of my overview cams. But since this was so far away, the best I could do was to get a color and a few observations on the guy's pickup, but no make/model. And those observations (like no front plate) were mostly from other cams that picked him up as he drove by my house. I don't have the LPR cams installed yet. I felt really bad that I could not give him more info and the police asked me for footage since I have given them good footage in the past, one that allowed them to ID a perp and charge him.

I recently swapped out a 5231 varifocal turret that I had in my driveway for the T5442 in 6mm. I did a test using that varifocal the other night on the T-intersection and was not happy with the result. I also tested a
T5442 in 2.8mm that I have yet to install in it's final position. While the 2.8mm FOV was obviously not the right FOV for the task, the color recording was much better than the 5231 varifocal. So now I am leaning towards getting the B5442 Z4E for that position. That does mean I now have to run five wires not four from the attic to the porch!

I like your reviews, especially the PTZ ones. I almost pulled the trigger on one of your POEs for the above job, but decided that maybe the B5442 Z4E would be less creepy looking from folks walking by the house on the corner.

 

[Arjun]

The varifocals always seem to produce a better depth of field

Color mode seems to better than the IR mode on the 5442 at least in my opinion.

I;m starting to get the impression that Dahua expects the 5442 series to be kept in color mode 24/7 given the way the auto and manual IR is working.

 

[Wildcat_1]

@samplenhold / All

I did load the new FW (no change to IR but thats expected based on just reporting it) and re-captured some 1/60 and 1/100 footage specifically showing night performance at full wide and full tele/zoom. Will compile and upload tomorrow

 

[ArnonZ]

I've ordered 4 of those plus 4 of the bullets together with AI NVR (5216-1P-I) that supposed to extend the face detection to facial recognition.
my goal is to control the surrounding walls and three gates and trigger alarm in case human crossed the border (line crossing for human only) or in case a stranger entered one of the gates.
[most cams would use line crossing for human on the line of the walls and three cams would do facial recognition for the gates]
do you guys think it's doable?

 

[random101]

I've ordered 4 of those plus 4 of the bullets together with AI NVR (5216-1P-I) that supposed to extend the face detection to facial recognition.
my goal is to control the surrounding walls and three gates and trigger alarm in case human crossed the border (line crossing for human only) or in case a stranger entered one of the gates.
[most cams would use line crossing for human on the line of the walls and three cams would do facial recognition for the gates]
do you guys think it's doable?

Easily if set up right great AI capability on these

 

[ArnonZ]

thanks very much random, I was counting on it and it's a big relief to hear that.

I guess that there is not enough flexibility to have one of the cams not dedicated to human line crossing OR facial recognition but do them both (adding the facial recognition feature along the line only where the gate is).
that way or another, I'm happy now that I know it's doable and I only need to wait for the performance test in real setup. I expect the facial recognition to be tricky and hard with parameters as height, distance (up to 6-7 meters in my case), light etc.

 

[m00st]

Face recognition isn't 100% reliable, but fortunately I've not seen any false positives (wrong person detected as a known person), just a lot of false negatives (known person detected as stranger). Be aware that the specs of the 6216-16p-I state 4x face recognition and 16x perimeter (meaning accurately detect humans and vehicles). But if you would turn on face recognition on 4 camera's (without the camera's assisting with face detection), the NVR won't do any perimeter detection anymore. Fortunately, these camera's can do perimeter protection themselves. Also with these camera's being able to do face detection, this should offload the NVR.

All in all a nice combination, should provide a lot of flexibility for the future.

 

[Arjun]

Where is the spec sheet for this model? Can’t seem to find it on Dahua’s website

 

[spammenotinoz]

@spammenotinoz Yes thats exactly what its doing (ms) BUT there is an easier way where you don't have to calculate. Little tip in case you hadn't seen it

• Go into Settings, Conditions Menu
• Choose Exposure sub menu
• In the Mode sub menu change to Manual
• Go down 1 box to the first Shutter selection sub menu and change to Customized Range - You'll now be presented with the 2 entry fields below that, left box represents the lowest shutter/exposure, right box represents highest. These are the shutter value inputs in ms
  
  To figure out what value to enter (without breaking out the calculator)
  
  
• Click on the drop down arrow in the same Shutter selection menu (where it now says Customized Range) and instead choose (click) your desired shutter speed from the list, lets say 1/2000 then in that same box click back to Customized Range and you will see its pre-populated the number in the right shutter value box below (0.5 in the case of this one). Do the same for the other value you are interested in (it will always display the returned value in the right box, just need to transpose lowest to left, highest to right) and then populate the shutter value fields with those values while leaving Mode to Manual and Shutter to Customized Range

Thank-you!!

 

[kbgator]

@spammenotinoz Yes thats exactly what its doing (ms) BUT there is an easier way where you don't have to calculate. Little tip in case you hadn't seen it

• Go into Settings, Conditions Menu
• Choose Exposure sub menu
• In the Mode sub menu change to Manual
• Go down 1 box to the first Shutter selection sub menu and change to Customized Range - You'll now be presented with the 2 entry fields below that, left box represents the lowest shutter/exposure, right box represents highest. These are the shutter value inputs in ms
  
  To figure out what value to enter (without breaking out the calculator)
  
  
• Click on the drop down arrow in the same Shutter selection menu (where it now says Customized Range) and instead choose (click) your desired shutter speed from the list, lets say 1/2000 then in that same box click back to Customized Range and you will see its pre-populated the number in the right shutter value box below (0.5 in the case of this one). Do the same for the other value you are interested in (it will always display the returned value in the right box, just need to transpose lowest to left, highest to right) and then populate the shutter value fields with those values while leaving Mode to Manual and Shutter to Customized Range

You may have already seen that but if not, maybe that helps, save calculator batteries too

For daytime (again depends on light available in area, time of year etc) but generally having a low of 1/250 (4) and a high of even 100,000 (0.01) for those super bright locations ensures enough speed (even on the low end when it get darker as the day goes on) to capture blur free vehicles / fast moving targets. You can always drop as low as 1/120 (8.33) depending on how long you leave your schedule before you kick into Night config or if its a darker day but don't go lower if vehicles are in your target list otherwise you will be disappointed with a lot of the results.

The other caveat here is of course the purpose of the camera itself. If this is a front door/porch cam that is only interested in capturing people right in front of it then of course you adjust your config accordingly. If on the other hand you are trying to do LPR (with appropriate cam) then you would lock Shutter to around 1/1000 or 1/2000 to ensure crisp plate captures (depending on FOV of camera, angle height distance to / and speed of target etc). So again adjust accordingly but LPR would be an area where you set a specific shutter and then leave it rather than have a value range. The reason for not wanting the value range in LPR is you don't want the camera to 'think' about adjusting exposure/shutter within a limited capture window (FOV) on a fast moving target therefore by locking it down you remove the option for the camera to choose

Manual is absolutely the way to go (STAY AWAY FROM AUTO) and I advocate for it wherever I can. I also use this in every system I am involved with as you truly dial in your shutter/exposure for a given situation with a range that can adapt to the location, lighting and target type you are needing to capture.

HTH, let me know with any other questions

Good points!
BTW, could you, if you tried, use this weakly for LPR a little?

 

[samplenhold]

where is the spec sheet for this model? Can’t seem to find it on Dahua’s website

 

[Arjun]

Thank you @samplenhold

 

[JK200SX]

Specifically 1/60 shutter is the slowest you want to go for slow moving people capture, 1/100 for those wanting to avoid cams and 1/120 for slow moving vehicles (1/250 for fast) and fast moving people. That is why I focused on these 3 exposure rate / shutter speeds here.

How do you adjust the shutter speed?

(I've read your post #18, but which program are you using that is being described?)

 

[QuantumCam007]

Does this have the custom bitrate option (up to 20mb/s) like the other 5442's ?
As long as the answer is yes, i'm getting one, looks like a great camera. !

 

[biggen]

How do you adjust the shutter speed?

(I've read your post #18, but which program are you using that is being described?)

Its in the camera settings GUI.

 

[IAmATeaf]

Really appreciate this review

Quick question, what options are available for substreams, is 720p available at say 10 or 15 fps?

 

[ArnonZ]

Face recognition isn't 100% reliable, but fortunately I've not seen any false positives (wrong person detected as a known person), just a lot of false negatives (known person detected as stranger). Be aware that the specs of the 6216-16p-I state 4x face recognition and 16x perimeter (meaning accurately detect humans and vehicles). But if you would turn on face recognition on 4 camera's (without the camera's assisting with face detection), the NVR won't do any perimeter detection anymore. Fortunately, these camera's can do perimeter protection themselves. Also with these camera's being able to do face detection, this should offload the NVR.

thanks m00st.
I am aware of those: facial recognition is good enough => good identification, minimal false positive.
the false negatives are due to a lack of identification that could be a result of: saturation/low light/wrong angle/cover/shade and a lot more. cannot identify a know person good enough => false positive.
however that, most systems can give you info about the % of fit to the known picture and you might even get the tools to play with the threshold. but that won't do much good cause it all starts with an image that is not good enough for identifying.

also, I did learn that the NVR I'm talking about can have 4 face identification or 16 with cam that supports FD. that's just why I was choosing that set.
I do expect relatively high lever of false negatives but if I'd use it for the night time, when I go to sleep and I not not expect any guests, I expect it to work as an alarm (maybe I aim to high, I know.... it's a test).

one thing I expect to work good in here is the human detection. while identifying a person is harder and requires shorter distance, I do expect the SMD to be reliable at night time, from a system that is capable of face recognition.
also, I expect the setup to act as tripwire SMD if the known person is not clear enough - set off for any human rather than skipping the identified ones.

 

[Wildcat_1]

Camera web GUI

How do you adjust the shutter speed?

(I've read your post #18, but which program are you using that is being described?)