Dahua On-Camera Event Logging for 5442/Color4K-X

[Mike A.]

Trying to test different triggers and would like to see which gets triggered when.

Should the on-camera log show events? There's a selection in the pull-down menu to select Events, but I see nothing logged but logins/logouts and configuration saves there. I don't see anywhere to specifically enable event logging.

I don't have SD cards in the cams to capture otherwise. Any other way to see?

 

[NightLife]

Mike, if you want a way to test the camera's IVS rules and you can't install an SD card, then what about limiting yourself to a single trigger/IVS rule and walking in front of the cam to test it, or having someone else do that while you check for new recordings. Once satisfied, or not satisfied move on to the next IVS rule/trigger, and repeat. Cumbersome but it sounds like you're adverse to installing an SD card. If you can get to doing that then the testing will be easier, and you can use the method I outlined last we spoke.

IVS rule setting up is a challenge. Differs for conditions like lighting, surfaces, movement like trees, clouds, etc. So it does take some experimenting. Develop your settings before hand so they are really solid without tearing, or stuttering etc. Once it's perfect, then begin expanding to IVS rules. Keep in mind you'll want to create a 'Smart Plan'. Label it IVS, and select 'IVS' from the options, and map that onto the schedule as a 24x7 thing.

Mapping out what triggered which recording without leaning on the SD card is probably pretty recorder dependant - be that Synology in my case, or an DVR or BI. Remind people what your back end set up is in that regard and I'm sure guys will have further ideas.


Cheers

 

[NightLife]

And if it's animals you're interested in, then take a look at the power of the Abandoned Object IVS rule. The animals were here for over 30 minutes tonight and I'll zoom in on my timeline so you can see that the way I have it set up with 10 sec pre-recording, and 25 seconds post I very often end up with contiguous, lengthy recordings when critters arrive. It's common for that setup, with the Abandoned Object IVS rules working exclusively, to get 30+ minutes non-stop recording times. *I have a multitude of IVS rules defined, but the AO rules work best, and seem to constantly re-engage so the breaks between recordings when they are in frame is minimal. *And to truly identify whether the AO rule reigns supreme I would have to eliminate them both from play, and introduce the others one at a time. I've tried that in the past and been skunked, so I gave up once already and just stuck to the tried and true AO IVS.

It would be nice when there are multiple IVS rules which are the same type, to see them differentiated somehow in the list, or playback. EG: IVS-1, IVS-6, IVS-7.







And finally, I wasn't sure if you knew you could ID what rule is being triggered during a live event. For that you enable "Rules Info", as seen below. During live testing/viewing, triggered IVS rules will flash red.

 

[Mike A.]

Thanks. My question was more general about the log. Seems if they have a selection for Events under logging, you'd think that some events would be logged. Wasn't sure if they'd be tagged to whatever trigger, but I don't see any at all so kind of moot. I could use the SD card but I have 5 different cams that use the IVS rules and don't want to do that in all of them. Which was why I was looking for a simple alternative. BI doesn't say which rule triggered things, just External. Live view works but need to be watching. I can't get the cat to cooperate with my testing. ; )

But, yeah, I'm still trying to get some good triggers set up for wildlife. I can't seem to get the Abandoned Object rule to do anything now. Thought that it worked the first time that I'd tried it but that was day one with the cam and I may have confused something between cam and BI et. al., since I was playing with everything. I've tired with a number of things of various sizes since with that as a single rule. Take it out and abandon whatever.... nothing ever triggers. I do get other triggers from Intrusion, Trip wires, etc. All that works great. Just not as great for wildlife. So still kinda working on all that.

Which firmware are you using again?

Anyway... more foxes. I just had the cam running auto at the time. Pretty good for that (switch to 4K). Some blur but not too bad. Wasn't triggered. : / You can see some of the objects that I'd abandoned still there. lol

 

[NightLife]

I have an idea ..

What if you stick exclusively to IVS rules, BUT only activate ONE rule per camera. That way the moment you see an event on a particular camera you know which IVS rule succeeded. Just make up a cheat sheet of which IVS rule applies to which camera.

No joy on a certain rule, disable it on that camera and define a new rule. As long as your rule/camera list is maintained you can see at a glance what worked. You can even stick to a single rule such as the AO rule on each camera, but define the rule with slight tweaks in each to see if some work, while others don't.

You may be able to fine tune things this way. However this works better if the cameras are pointing over the same plot, or similar, and not if you need some for security detail etc.

FW - 2.840.15OG000.0.R, Build Date: 2021-07-09 *The version my camera came with.

 

[Mike A.]

That's basically what I've done. Long explanation but...

My front cams (5 total, 3 using cam-based IVS rules) are intended more as people cams. I've got that all set up and working well. Very few falses and I sit at my desk here enough to see that they don't miss much if anything. So happy with that. I record continuous on all of my important cams so can go back and look for wildlife when I want but not the primary purpose. I have rear entry points covered in the same way. IVS with human detection and other cams that I've tuned all work pretty much perfectly. So that's all good and not really in play. Might be interesting to me at times to know what rule triggered when but it all works well so don't really care all that much.

Wildlife tends to end up in the backyard anyway since it's mostly coming from a big wooded area in that direction and things are attracted to the pond that I have there. So even if coming from the front, most all ends up back there and I can go back and look at the front if I want. That's the main purpose for the Color4K-X and now another 5442T-ZE (and some lesser cams that I have just for fill in). I had the previous cams tuned pretty well for that but getting the Color4K-X caused me to move things around some. So now I've got those two new cams in new locations for a new purpose. That's what I'm trying to optimize more for critters.

On the Color4K-X I've done just that. Run one rule at a time to test. IVS intrusion/tripwires work great to get me but misses wildlife. SMD/motion detection will work to get everything that moves but way too many falses since the sun passes through that big elm tree there all day and it's just a mess with shadows and wind. So I'm looking for that happy medium again somewhere between the two. Just takes some work again to get it right. Wish I could get the Abandoned Object thing working as well as you seem to have yours. That would be easy and perfect. But as I said haven't been able to get it to work now. Doesn't seem to detect anything.

Edit to add:

Under Settings > Information > Log, if your select a timeframe where you know some event was triggered, do you see any events logged on yours? Just curious since you have a card installed.

 

[NightLife]

I just tried on mine, and filtered by event, but got nothing. Not in the 24 hrs, and not even narrowing it down to a 2 minute time frame when I saw there was a capture.

 

[Mike A.]

OK, thanks. Just wondering. You'd think that there would be but I've given up questioning such things. It is as it is.

I'll just stick an SD card in the Color4K-X. Went to get one the other day but they were out of anything worth getting. I'll order one and do it when it gets here. Worth having around anyway.

 

[NightLife]

This is the card I went with for it's robustness after asking around here. "SDSQQNR-128G-GN6IA"


SanDisk 128GB High Endurance Video microSDXC Card with Adapter for Dash cam- C10, U3,V30,4K UHD,Micro SD Card-SDSQQNR-128G-GN6IA


Both it and the Max Endurance cards are on sale right now on Amazon. Canada or US.

 

[Mike A.]

Thanks. $19 USD is good.

 

[Aronder]

From what I read in this thread the IVS feature in the 5442 may require an SD card.
I have been trying to draw an intrusion IVS setting in the 5442 but every time I try to save it says to draw.
Might the lack of an SD card in the camera be the problem?

 

[sebastiantombs]

You also need to be using IE for the browser. Chrome, Chrome based, won't work well. Dahua cameras can be pretty selective about which browser they will work with. When in doubt IE is the best choice.

 

[Aronder]

When IVS writes a file to the SD card - I assume then the file is pushed to Blue Iris - does the camera delete the file on the SD card?
Can the SD card fill up with files - how is that managed?

 

[tigerwillow1]

Old thread I've never seen, and I have comments on a few things.

Event logging: Logging IVS events seems to be off by default in the newer cameras. There's a place in the NVR UI to turn it on for each IVS rule individually. I have not found this in the camera's UI. (Screen shot at end of post). I suspect logging can also be turned on with the API, using the event handler setting in a SetVideoAnalyseRule command. There are a lot of parameters in this command and it looks pretty intricate, but first doing a get, flipping the one parameter, then doing a set would maybe accomplish the job. Just brainstorming, haven't tried it.

IVS requiring an SD card: I've never run into the SD card presence affecting IVS.

Drawing an intrusion box on the 5442: Are you doing a right-click when done drawing the intrusion area?

Detecting wildlife on 5442 or 4k-x: Even though there's a UI setting to turn off human/vehicle detection with tripwire and intrusion box, it does not work. You cannot detect wildlife with these cameras using tripwire or intrusion box. (Exception: fixed focal length 5442 with older firmware). I need to try Abandoned Object. The UI for this is different between the 5442 and 4k-x. On the 4k-x it's under IVS, on the 5442 it has its own event type.

Screen shot of NVR UI to turn on IVS logging, under AI/Parameters/IVS/(select channel)/More:

 

[Mike A.]

Yeah, I've looked everywhere in the cams to find where some setting might be to have events logged but I don't see it. Even with an SD card in the cam. Don't have an NVR. Have to look more at the API. Would be useful sometimes to have that. Surprised that they have the filter but doesn't seem to be a way to enable it.

IVS doesn't require a card. Just lets you see better which rule triggered an event vs having to watch live. No files are pushed to BI. All that's sent are ONVIF event triggers which can be used by it independently for whatever purpose by BI. Nothing is done by BI to files on the cam. That's controlled by the cam itself independently in its own settings.

 

[Mike A.]

Just happened to notice that on another of my Dahau cams (4231F-E2-M, original "boobie cam" with no SD card) the event logging DOES work exactly as I'd expect.

e.g.:

Detailed Information
Time:09-01-2022 04:48:58 PM
Username:System
Type:Event Begin
Content:
Channel NO.: 1
Event Type: Motion Detection
Region Name: Region1

Detailed Information
Time:09-01-2022 04:49:04 PM
Username:System
Type:Event End
Content:
Channel NO.: 1
Event Type: Motion Detection
Region Name: Region1

It's an old cam though. Wonder if we can bug @EMPIRETECANDY to get that turned back on in the newer firmware.

 

[tigerwillow1]

My vague memory is that IVS event logging was on by default with older cameras.

 

[Mike A.]

Seems to be the case. Looked at a couple of other older cams and working there too. Wish they'd bring that back.

While I'm dreaming also would be nice to have some basic network utilities in there somewhere to help test things at times. And a wildlife/pet filter. And... ; )

 

[wittaj]

When IVS writes a file to the SD card - I assume then the file is pushed to Blue Iris - does the camera delete the file on the SD card?
Can the SD card fill up with files - how is that managed?

No, the SD card and Blue Iris are two separate recording devices.

Blue Iris cannot and does not interact with the SD card.

The SD Card is used by many as a backup in the event BI went down. The SD card rewrite is what you set up in the camera - either overwrite or fill and stop recording.

Blue Iris simply takes the video the camera provides it. You can set up BI to accept the IVS triggers and that will work whether and SD card is present or not.

 

[tigerwillow1]

I made it a point to look at IVS logging on a couple of 5442s. It does not work. It's either a bug or Dahua removed it intentionally. I had IVS logging enabled via the NVR interface, and was recording on an SD card.