Dahua SD49225XA-HNR - Auto Tracking Video Quality

[Dr Noisewater]

Last week I ordered a few new cameras from Andy at Empiretech in order to replace some of the older models that have been running great for a few years. One of these was the Dahua SD49225XA-HNR. I got it all mounted and powered up then began reading how to get the Auto Tracking features to work. Not knowing anything about how all of this fits together, I basically just copied some of the settings which I saw from other forum members posting with screenshots in other threads. When I started looking at the video it was obvious that I needed to learn a bit more about what settings effect what because my first attempt is pretty rough looking. I am attaching the video below of the first round. I will admit the auto tracking feature is cool for sure. I am running Blueiris at the moment. I will make all adjustments directly in the camera. All image settings are factory defaulted.


What settings will deliver a solid experience in the daytime? I will post some updates with video so that I can help other newbies like myself get a quick setup going.





Device Type SD49225XA-HNR
System Version V2.800.1341000.0.R.P9.2520.UN.NR, Build Date: 2020-03-12
WEB Version V3.2.1.819501
ONVIF Version 18.12(V2.4.5.729857)
PTZ Version V2.401.0000000.64.RHNZ_200219_34642
Security Baseline Version V2.0

 

[bigredfish]

What is your exposure setting and bitrate?

Bitrate looks verty low. Set it to 8192 and iframe same as FPS

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, bitrate is too low. You may have to go higher than 8192 as well. I run around 15,000. Get the other settings off of auto.

You need to drop down tracking target size. At 58 with how close your objects are it will get screenshots of butts all day long. Start at 40 or so and then adjust from there.

I would also recommend a longer track time.

 

[Dr Noisewater]

The Bitrate was at 4096, 25fps and Iframe 50 in that video. Track time was set at 240 but I noticed it loses this setting and goes back to 15 on its own. I will put it back to 240 and see what gives.

I will adjust to 20fps with an Iframe at 20
8192 bitrate
Target size will be set to 40.

Which settings are best removed from the default Auto setting?

Ill get some test footage and see how it looks.

 

[wittaj]

For some reason, this camera more than others, you need to set these in Internet Explorer. Too many people could not get the tracking time to stay in any other browser.

For those that do not know...use IE browser for Dahua (and others?) camera GUI to see more options

I've been using Chrome since I bought my first Dahua camera from Andy last year (the good 'ol 4231's). I was able to log in, see menu options, do the config, save, logout....all done. Always wondered how folks were able to see the AI detection boxes livestream and other stuff which I thought...

ipcamtalk.com

For daytime you can probably get by with auto settings, but for nighttime you do not want blur and ghost. Take it off auto settings at night unless you like seeing Casper. Auto settings in most situations for shutter will produce a great static picture, but motion is complete crap with blurring and ghosting. You have more light than most, but it would probably still benefit by not being on auto shutter for example.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual priority and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more and gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting.

Now what you will notice that happens immediately is 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 image results in Casper during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

So 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 30ms as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur.

You could up the brightness to offset some of that darker image with a faster shutter.

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. Mine starts ghosting at 53.

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), 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.

Then take the PTZ through the range of motion that you want it to cover and make sure that it isn't too dark for everywhere you want to cover. If it is dark, then adjust a little more.

 

[Dr Noisewater]

@wittaj Fantastic info!! I switched to IE and suddenly my settings were saving properly. I was using Palemoon so that's over with now.

I adjusted the Exposure to what you described as a baseline for testing. I wasnt to clear on the noise reduction, is this the 2d/3d settings?

Here is Round 2 with all the adjustments mentioned

 

[wittaj]

Daytime drop that iris way down, although with the range it should be ok.

The 2D and 3D noise reduction drop it as as low as you feel comfortable before you see noise. Given that most of yours is white concrete, you can probably get pretty low. But your settings are not bad either.

Looks better, although it showed in YT as 720 and had some pixelation. Not sure if that was YT or the bitrate. Try 20,480 bitrate and then drop it in increments of 1024 until you see a problem. These are so sight specific based on the scene, so 8192 might work one place and not another.

Too high bitrate and you use more memory without an appreciable increase in quality, and too low saves memory but results in a pixel mess. Looking at your image, I bet somewhere in the 15,000 will be where you will see the sweetspot.

 

[Dr Noisewater]

So the Iris has the range 10-100, are you suggesting I change to 10-50 or something like this?

 

[Dr Noisewater]

Here are the changes.

I do want to point out that the choppiness of the video is identical as its shown locally on Blueiris or on my iphone etc. Its not smooth at all.

 

[Dr Noisewater]

Ignore those last 2 videos, I noticed the Blueiris computer was sitting at 100% usage and it never does this. All the videos from all cameras were a mess during this time. I did a restart and checked the logs. Are all these hardware decode entries normal? I do not seem to remember this previous to the new cameras. Maybe I need to adjust some Blue iris settings?

 

[Dr Noisewater]

I rebooted and shot the video. Its very pixelated and still not very smooth.

 

[Dr Noisewater]

Round 4 ---

 

[wittaj]

I think there is a network issue somewhere. Are these cameras isolated from the internet? Are they running through a router? Maybe draw up a quick network diagram and post here.

Do you have an SD card in the camera? If not, put one in and see what the playback video looks like from there.

A lot of issues going on in the BI log.

Are you using the substream option in BI? Post a screenshot of you Blue Iris Status and the cameras - something isn't right.

Also, drop the substream and bitrate down for the substream on all your cameras. Mine are at 256 and that brings Blue Iris down a ton.

 

[tibimakai]

Do we even need substream? I have unchecked they from all of my cameras.
What is that date, at the bottom right, I have noticed it lately on all of my cameras.

 

[wittaj]

@tibimakai - substreams with Blue Iris bring the CPU usage down tremendously, especially during playback. With substreams and looking at your build and cameras in your signature, you would bring CPU usage below 10% and probably more like 5%.

That date at the bottom right is the Blue Iris overlay that for some reason got checked with new updates, so you need to go in and turn off Blue Iris overlays of date/time.

 

[looney2ns]

Ignore those last 2 videos, I noticed the Blueiris computer was sitting at 100% usage and it never does this. All the videos from all cameras were a mess during this time. I did a restart and checked the logs. Are all these hardware decode entries normal? I do not seem to remember this previous to the new cameras. Maybe I need to adjust some Blue iris settings?

Be certain you have performed every step in this: Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage | IP Cam Talk
For a 2mp cam, you don't need anything over 8096 bit rate. Also, 15 fps is plenty for security video.
Make sure you have excluded BI folders from any Anti-virus you have running, this includes Windows Defender, as per the BI help file.

 

[wittaj]

Be certain you have performed every step in this: Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage | IP Cam Talk
For a 2mp cam, you don't need anything over 8096 bit rate. Also, 15 fps is plenty for security video.
Make sure you have excluded BI folders from any Anti-virus you have running, this includes Windows Defender, as per the BI help file.

While in general I agree about the 8096 bitrate, there are certain times that it needs to be higher. I believe that because the scene can change so much during autotracking, in some locations it needs to be higher. My PTZ looks like crap anything below 14,000 bitrate. As always, YMMV...

 

[Dr Noisewater]

Ok so I took the weekend to get this camera dialed in based on what you all have mentioned in the thread.

A bit of background info here. I am running a Ryzen 9 3900x 12 core with 32gb of ram. Purple Drives and a 4.0 SSD for the Alerts and DB. The computer is a standalone and I would say over built for 24 cameras. I also use a Radeon GPU and process through that. The computer never has to strain from what I have noticed. Screenshot attached.

I use a 1gb Modem + Luxul Epic 5 router into a Luxul 1024 non managed switch which feeds a Unifi 500w POE switch and that feeds a 250w POE switch.

Substreams - In my application, I have all cameras displayed on a 50" screen for security purposes 24/7. I find that it does ruin the image quality when displayed like this. Since this thread, I turned on the Substream 12 cameras which are maybe considered "non essential" to see if I can live with it.


Here are my findings,

First up, I removed the camera and re-added it as a new camera and adjusted all the settings as noted in the Blueiris help file. Then I pulled all devices off the network leaving only this camera. My idea was to dial it down to only this camera and see what that looked like. At this point what looked like bandwidth issues in the previous videos seemed to clear up .Quality was still non existent however.
Next, I plugged all the other cameras into the network and the quality remained the same. So I eliminated the idea of bottleneck issues.

Next I started making videos only adjusting the Iframe, frame rate and Bitrate to see whats what. These are notes I joted down so its ugly.

Frame rate 25
Iframe 25
bit rate 8192 or 15000 - Crap quality - no real difference

Frame rate 25
Iframe 50
bit rate 15000 - Crap quality - no real difference

Frame rate 15
Iframe 30
bit rate 3072 - Changed frame rate to 15 in Blueiris and changed to Dahua mainstream rtsp from the default cam setting - No real difference

Frame rate 20
Iframe 40
bit rate 3584 - Choppy again

Frame rate 15
Iframe 30
bit rate 6144 - maybe a little better but I really cant tell

Frame rate 15
Iframe 30
bit rate 12888 - Ghosting - otherwise the same

Frame rate 15
Iframe 15
bit rate 6144 - Def. Choppier at Iframe 15

Frame rate 15 - 1228pm
Iframe 30
bit rate 6144 - Changed to VBR best quality - Might be the best one or damn close to the 1206pm video

Frame rate 15
Iframe 30
bit rate 3072 - Smoothest yet

I couldnt see much difference in quality until I hit Frame Rate 15 - Iframe 30 with Bitrate 3072, the video is below. Everything else degraded which seems to defy logic based on what I have read thus far.

 

[wittaj]

I just realized that none of us mentioned CBR - did you try that? But it does seem strange that you are getting better results at that low bitrate and VBR. But it also shows how site dependent these cameras can be.

The ghosting you got was a result of FPS and iframe being too far apart.

Are you running direct-to-disc in Blue Iris?

Also, do not change the FPS in Blue Iris - let it adjust automatically.

Do you have an SD card in the camera? If so what did playback look like on it.

 

[Dr Noisewater]

I did try CBR with the quality set to best, I did 2 tests. The results were the same, at least to my untrained eye.
Yes, Direct to disc is set on all cameras.
I havent tried the SD card yet. Any reccos on the size and brand? Ill grab one.

What I forgot to mention earlier is that when I log directly into the Camera, the movements are at least 5x better which look flawless to me. That tells me that Blueiris is mangling the footage or I need a different setup for this camera. The issue is not with Dahua, its with Blueiris.