Dahua recommended settings and education needed

[mattyp]

Searching the word "settings" brings up way too many hits, so I seek a crash course in the most basic stuff: (I have a 5442T-ZE running V2.840.15 and therabouts firmware - Build Date: 2022-08-18)

1) What is a substream? My default substream 1 looks like a lower quality version of the Main stream. What is its purpose?

Profile Management:
1) How are these used? For example what is the Day/night profile if you also have "day and night" in the dropdown? What is the best one to use? I found "DahuaSunrisesunset" but before i mess there i do not understand how to best use these.
2) Back on conditions tab, why is there no "Full Time" "General" and Day/Night Profile as eluded to on the profile setup? This is why i am confused, as these do not match.

Conditions:
1) Are there recommended settings here or is it 100% user preference? I have mine in default and it seem pretty good, but i wonder if i can get it better?

Video:
This is the doozy. From the "sub stream" being turned on to ALL the other drodowns, what is the best settings? (Encode modes, frame rates, Bit rate types, etc. etc etc) Again, are there recommended settings for a "best" option between resolution and optimal storage capacity? I have plenty of space, 8 TB minus 3.5 TB personal data, although how can I LIMIT the space dedicated to the footage? Is this dones in the cam software (BLue Iris etc)?

Also what is the "ROI" tab do? What is this for?

Audio:
using G.711A by Default? Are these just audio codecs i need not worry about? Sampling frequency to use?

Events:
1) Does the Surveillance software used override the 5442T's settings, or are they complimentary? What takes precedence? (Once i learn how to use them)

Thanks so much. I assume this has been asked by others learning so sorry if i was not able to find the thread.

 

[Ri22o]

IB @wittaj

All good questions that have been answered before, but, unfortunately, sometimes they are hard to search for due to the commonality of some of the terms. I do wish there were an easier/better way to search.

 

[Ri22o]

Searching the word "settings" brings up way too many hits, so I seek a crash course in the most basic stuff: (I have a 5442T-ZE running V2.840.15 and therabouts firmware - Build Date: 2022-08-18)

1) What is a substream? My default substream 1 looks like a lower quality version of the Main stream. What is its purpose?
You are correct. The substream is a lower quality, lower bitrate stream of the video. While the VMS does still record in Main Stream, the sub is used for viewing to lower the system resources required. In Blue Iris you also have the option to record substream unless triggered, and then it will switch to Main Stream. The purpose of this is to save HDD space as there is no reason to record your front porch in 100% quality if nothing is happening that needs detail.

Profile Management:
1) How are these used? For example what is the Day/night profile if you also have "day and night" in the dropdown? What is the best one to use? I found "DahuaSunrisesunset" but before i mess there i do not understand how to best use these.
2) Back on conditions tab, why is there no "Full Time" "General" and Day/Night Profile as eluded to on the profile setup? This is why i am confused, as these do not match.

Conditions:
1) Are there recommended settings here or is it 100% user preference? I have mine in default and it seem pretty good, but i wonder if i can get it better?
There are recommended ways to find the correct settings, but they are 100% dependent on your FOV, area to be captured, etc. Default might get you through the day time, but night definitely requires tuning your settings.

Video:
This is the doozy. From the "sub stream" being turned on to ALL the other drodowns, what is the best settings? (Encode modes, frame rates, Bit rate types, etc. etc etc) Again, are there recommended settings for a "best" option between resolution and optimal storage capacity? I have plenty of space, 8 TB minus 3.5 TB personal data, although how can I LIMIT the space dedicated to the footage? Is this dones in the cam software (BLue Iris etc)?

Also what is the "ROI" tab do? What is this for?
"Region of Interest" other than making that area more defined and removing definition from the area not defined, I don't know its purpose. I was using it on a FOV that was further away expecting it to help, but then found the entire picture was way better after turning it off.

Audio:
using G.711A by Default? Are these just audio codecs i need not worry about? Sampling frequency to use?
I just enable audio and leave all of the settings to default.

Events:
1) Does the Surveillance software used override the 5442T's settings, or are they complimentary? What takes precedence? (Once i learn how to use them)
Complimentary. The 5442T's settings sets the picture quality and the VMS handles the recording details. (how, when, stream, etc)

Thanks so much. I assume this has been asked by others learning so sorry if i was not able to find the thread.

See my notes above, in bold.

 

[wittaj]

In addition to the comments @Ri22o provided, here are the settings.

In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures.

You need to get off of default. You only think they look good because your camera hasn't been tested yet with a middle of the night perp. Even a great camera like the 5442 on default settings will result in motion blur ghosting at night and then all you can tell the police is what time it happened.

These are done within the camera GUI thru a web browser.

Start with:

H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS
15 iframes

Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.

We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.

In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.

Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.

Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.

 

[mattyp]

This is great thanks i will try these out!! What is "SVC"? options are 1 (off), 2, and 3.

 

[wittaj]

It is scalable video coding and you want it off or it will mess with BI (or possibly an NVR).

 

[mattyp]

Welp. That was a mistake. Something happened. I made just a few of these changes. Specifically i changed these:
8192 bitrate
CBR from VBR
15FPS
15 iframes

I also made a quick zoom in and out. That was it (i planned to do a more through read later of the above post wen i had more time).

But tonight after dusk, exactly when it got dark, i noticed my phone getting destroyed by notifications every 10-15 seconds. I then realize when looking at the camera feed that the infrared camera is now switching on and off non stop every 10-15 seconds. This was confirmed by physically looking at the camera's IR. SO i did what anyone else would do, I immediately set everything i changed back to default. DID NOT WORK.

So my next thought was maybe I may have inadvertently switched something else by accident, (maybe a profile etc), so I went and set all those to default.
NOPE. click click click.

I then set every setting I could find to default (i did not do an official reset yet) but still the darn infrared light is switching on and off incessantly. SO i just unplugged it for now, hoping you fine folks can give me an idea on what the heck happened in the morning.

At this point I am confident this can be fixed, but definitley a case where "leave good enough alone" seems to be the situation.

 

[wittaj]

Turn off smart IR as you must have something in the field of view causing the IR to bounce around.

 

[Perimeter]

Maybe just the transient phase? How long until you pulled the plug?

 

[SpacemanSpiff]

...
Profile Management:
1) How are these used? For example what is the Day/night profile if you also have "day and night" in the dropdown? What is the best one to use? I found "DahuaSunrisesunset" but before i mess there i do not understand how to best use these.
2) Back on conditions tab, why is there no "Full Time" "General" and Day/Night Profile as eluded to on the profile setup? This is why i am confused, as these do not match.

Cameras will not change profiles without input from either a user or the Dahua day/night switch utility.

Here is a couple other threads that you mind find helpful:

Day/Night mode best practice?

I have started to play with picture and exposure settings on a new camera and looking to see what others are doing for day and night profiles. I noticed in the profile manager there is a schedule where I can pick a time range and a Day/Night option. My first question is with the Day/Night...

ipcamtalk.com

New Dahua IP Cam Profile Choice: Day/Night?

Just experimenting with and learning these Dahua IP cams (2 x IPC-HDW5231R-ZE outdoors, 1 x IPC-HDBW4231F-AS indoors, so far). All three cams have V2.800.0000005.0.R, Build Date: 2019-03-25. Had been experimenting with Camera -> Conditions -> Conditions -> Sensitivity on the 1st 5231. Added...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[mattyp]

Camera is now at least unusable at night UNLESS I "Turn off smart IR" I have tried various things over 3 nights since this began - as i have to wait until dark for it to trigger.
I cleaned the lens of the camera of course. Tonight, after 3 nights of failure and turning it off, was a complete factory reset. After doing so it had no effect. The camera's light will not stop switching the IR on and off on and off, so I am getting a constant stream of events. And click click click click. I can see the light switching on and off.

TURN OFF Smart IR - fixes the issue.

The other day ALL i did was switch 3 video settings as i stated (and was recommended above). I ALSO did a quick zoom adjustment. Since then, this issue is happening. If those (long gone) setting changes somehow triggered something it should have been erased on the factory reset. My theory now is because i zoomed in and out which is a mechanical action, may have impacted how the IR functions in some way.

 

[mattyp]

BTW I have no idea what "Smart IR" is but it certainly is not so smart.

 

[Mike A.]

The IR LEDs don't move with the lens. They're attached to the shell of the cam and the wires leading to them are on a board that's fixed. So not very likely that zooming did anything. The settings that you changed shouldn't have caused anything like that either.

Is it actually at a regular 10 or 15 second period? i.e., the same frequency all the time? Or does it vary some?

What are you getting events from and what are the events?

Are you sure that the cam isn't restarting? The only time that I've ever seen any of mine do that re the on/off/on/off IR is when running from a splitter and they didn't have enough power with the IR from both on. So one or the other would drop, then they'd have enough again, power on with IR, drop...

Can you pull the cam down to check it on another known good cable/another switch port? Do you have any other way to power the cam?

 

[mattyp]

Its regular intervals. It switches the IR light off for exacty 7 seconds. Then switches it on for exaclty 12. Then repeats. 7, 12, 7, 12 - does not vary.
On my DS cam app it looks like one solid continuous "Event", and hence, if I have my phone on notify, it continuously beeps every 12 seconds.
Cam is not restarting. It is recording continuously.

 

[Mike A.]

BTW I have no idea what "Smart IR" is but it certainly is not so smart.

Smart IR is kind of an auto adjust for the IR level. It's under Setting > Conditions > Exposure. Turn that off for now if it's on.

 

[mattyp]

Yeah so i went back through my footage and realized this HUGE clue: It seems to only happen between ~8:45 and 9:45 ish. So it does seem to be related to the interaction of the final setting into complete darkness. Indeed is is some kind of transitional period but it absolutely SUCKS. So I turned off Smart IR but will have to wait until tomorrow to see if that fixes it.

Hilariously i never got past this time frame because 1) i go to bed early, 2) it was driving me crazy if i had my notifications on and 3) Because i was worried that the constant on and off and clicking is certainly not good for the camera longevity - so I simple powered it off.

But now that I am up late and testing it, I see it does NOT do this after this time frame. (Regardless of if Smart IR is on or off.

Anyway. to be continued.

 

[Mike A.]

There's a sensitivity and delay settings under Setting > Conditions > Day & Night. Might try those. Or as @SpacemanSpiff posted above, go with another way of flipping between day/night.

 

[Perimeter]

Maybe just the transient phase? How long until you pulled the plug?

Yeah so i went back through my footage and realized this HUGE clue: It seems to only happen between ~8:45 and 9:45 ish. So it does seem to be related to the interaction of the final setting into complete darkness. Indeed is is some kind of transitional period but it absolutely SUCKS.

There are several options that might help.
a) Set IR with a timer. You should have that option when using Profile management > schedule.
b) Play with the sensitivity and delay. Make the delay long - fewer cycles.

c) The switching happens afaik because in color, there is not enough light, so the cam switches to IR. Then in IR, there is so much light, that it switches back to color. And so on until it finally gets darker and the camera is happy in IR. So you have to find a way that once the switching happens, it will be dark enough in IR for the cam to stay in IR. You can do this by exposure settings, or by manually setting the LEDs or by pointing/zooming the camera differently.
I'd try to set "profile management" to day/night. Then dial in a rather lenient day exposure setting so that it stays in color until it is relatively dark. For night, give it a relatively strict exposure setting, which will give a darker picture, but capture motion at night. See if that works. Once it works, you could lessen the day exposure ceiling until you hit the clicking again.

 

[mattyp]

Thank you all so very much. This all makes perfect sense as you explained it well as to the "why". I always appreciate that more than just "flip this and that" with no explanation.

Now that i understand the "why" it will be a lot more fun to play with it.

 

[wittaj]

Or for the night profile, force it in B/W instead of auto.