Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

[J4m3s]

HI guys,
I Got this cam from a Chinese friend directly from Dahua... Works great! But in Chinese!
Does anyone use the cor35vet patch to get English on Chinese market cam?

 

[TechBill]

I been trying different settings to get the mailbox which is in the upper right corner to be more visible at nighttime but I am not having much luck. Tonight there was a full moon out and when I disable the IR completely, the mailbox is visible however it is grainy.

SmartIR enabled



IR disabled - Now the mailbox is visible however the porch area is dark



IR on Manual set at 1 - I am trying to see if I could balance it out but with IR set at 2 then it get too bright and the mailbox disappear from view.



I welcome any suggestion or feedback on this. I am hoping to balance both porch and mailbox in view.

 

[TechBill]

Look like I found a way to push the IR to the maximum. In setup -> Backlight Choose BLC in the drop down then click on customized. A square box will appear on the screen and move the box to the darkest area then the IR will crank up until image in that box is more visible but anything close will get brighter.

It look like that I will probably have to install external IR for the mailbox to balance out the image during nighttime. I have not yet install the camera above my garage door so maybe the IR from that camera when installed may help balance it out.

 

[neonate]

What if you swing your camera up more? You're capturing the actual door it self appears and the entire landing outside your door, but you really need to just capture the traffic coming up TO the landing. The IR appears to be hitting around the area of the bikes. If you move it up more, maybe so the bottom of the picture starts a little after where the railing ends on the landing, you'll negate the IR reflection from the interior walls, and allow the camera to balance better between the darkness of the mailbox and the start of the landing. Yould still see anyone approaching or leaving, and with the height, if someone was standing there.

I used to have the same issue since I was trying to capture the actual door in my overhead camera, and once I moved it so it was more on the approach, I got a better picture of the front of the yard, but a clearer picture of anyone actually coming to my door. (I had it originally setup so I could actually see if someone put a package directly against my door, when I really just needed to see that someone dropped it off, and anyone approaching my door to take it.

 

[bigredfish]

Agree with @neonate - Perhaps you're just asking too much from the camera.

The focus of the camera and the IR is currently at about 6-8 ft more or less directly at the door mat.

You could try adding an external IR throwing out towards the mailbox, but I think you have to make a choice as to area of ideal coverage..

 

[aristobrat]

It look like that I will probably have to install external IR for the mailbox to balance out the image during nighttime.

That's my thought too. Like others have mentioned, it looks like the IR follows the focus and doesn't hit the periphery as much.

 

[happf]

Is there any other thread that might provide better info on setting up IVS? I'm dead in the water with IVS. At this point, I want to set aside the NVR and just verify that the camera is doing IVS properly. How do I test that IVS is actually working in the camera? In the playback should I see different colors? I'm under the impression that I should be able to set continuous recording, then I would see all green for the continous recording and then I would see another color for the ivs events. Right now all I see is green and once I draw the lines and save, they disappear and I'm never ever able to bring them up again and on the live view I see an ivs button to the lower left but it doesn't do anything an no ivs lines are drawing on the live view. Should I be seeing the ivs lines on the camera web interface live display?

 

[Crazykiller]

Is there any other thread that might provide better info on setting up IVS? I'm dead in the water with IVS. At this point, I want to set aside the NVR and just verify that the camera is doing IVS properly. How do I test that IVS is actually working in the camera? In the playback should I see different colors? I'm under the impression that I should be able to set continuous recording, then I would see all green for the continous recording and then I would see another color for the ivs events. Right now all I see is green and once I draw the lines and save, they disappear and I'm never ever able to bring them up again and on the live view I see an ivs button to the lower left but it doesn't do anything an no ivs lines are drawing on the live view. Should I be seeing the ivs lines on the camera web interface live display?

I configured IVS through the cams WebUI and see them on the live view of the NVR and also in the live view of the cam if enabled with the bottom button.

 

[TechBill]

What if you swing your camera up more? You're capturing the actual door it self appears and the entire landing outside your door, but you really need to just capture the traffic coming up TO the landing. The IR appears to be hitting around the area of the bikes. If you move it up more, maybe so the bottom of the picture starts a little after where the railing ends on the landing, you'll negate the IR reflection from the interior walls, and allow the camera to balance better between the darkness of the mailbox and the start of the landing. Yould still see anyone approaching or leaving, and with the height, if someone was standing there.

I used to have the same issue since I was trying to capture the actual door in my overhead camera, and once I moved it so it was more on the approach, I got a better picture of the front of the yard, but a clearer picture of anyone actually coming to my door. (I had it originally setup so I could actually see if someone put a package directly against my door, when I really just needed to see that someone dropped it off, and anyone approaching my door to take it.

Agree with @neonate - Perhaps you're just asking too much from the camera.

The focus of the camera and the IR is currently at about 6-8 ft more or less directly at the door mat.

You could try adding an external IR throwing out towards the mailbox, but I think you have to make a choice as to area of ideal coverage..

Right now the camera is in corridor mode (flipped at 90 degree). This allows us to see floor to ceiling easily. Moving the camera up will cause us to see too much ceiling anyway. The camera is right next to the door about an inch away from the door edge itself when the door opens. I do not have any spaces at all to put the camera above the door or any other area on the front porch. You can see the photo of it in my installation thread

TechBill's surveillance build

In regular mode, it was seeing way too much walls on both side and it could barely see the porch floor at all which I would needed to be able to see if there is there a shipping package or not. I am a field technician and my company are always shipping me hardware every week also we shop from Amazon a lot too. We have a family member that lives close by and whenever there a shipping boxes at the porch while we are at work or on a trip, we would call them and ask them to stop by and put it inside the house for us.

I think we will probably have to use an external IR spread the balance since the IR on the camera is more of a directional focus. I already knew about the IR on the camera but I was hoping that we could manually turn down the IR power however with the setting at 1 it a bit weak and when we tried setting 2 it too powerful.

 

[happf]

I configured IVS through the cams WebUI and see them on the live view of the NVR and also in the live view of the cam if enabled with the bottom button.

ok, thanks, so I've got to figure out what I'm doing wrong in the camera that I don't see the rules on the cameras live view. For the record, I'm using IE on Win10.

 

[Mike Mo]

Is there any other thread that might provide better info on setting up IVS? I'm dead in the water with IVS. At this point, I want to set aside the NVR and just verify that the camera is doing IVS properly. How do I test that IVS is actually working in the camera? In the playback should I see different colors? I'm under the impression that I should be able to set continuous recording, then I would see all green for the continous recording and then I would see another color for the ivs events. Right now all I see is green and once I draw the lines and save, they disappear and I'm never ever able to bring them up again and on the live view I see an ivs button to the lower left but it doesn't do anything an no ivs lines are drawing on the live view. Should I be seeing the ivs lines on the camera web interface live display?

IVS recording doesnt work properly. Nor do any event recordings.

If you want to set it up. Log into the camera directly and set it up there

 

[Crazykiller]

ok, thanks, so I've got to figure out what I'm doing wrong in the camera that I don't see the rules on the cameras live view. For the record, I'm using IE on Win10.

I'm using IE on Win10, too. Works just fine for me.

 

[TechBill]

Is there any other thread that might provide better info on setting up IVS? I'm dead in the water with IVS. At this point, I want to set aside the NVR and just verify that the camera is doing IVS properly. How do I test that IVS is actually working in the camera? In the playback should I see different colors? I'm under the impression that I should be able to set continuous recording, then I would see all green for the continous recording and then I would see another color for the ivs events. Right now all I see is green and once I draw the lines and save, they disappear and I'm never ever able to bring them up again and on the live view I see an ivs button to the lower left but it doesn't do anything an no ivs lines are drawing on the live view. Should I be seeing the ivs lines on the camera web interface live display?

In the Live or Playback view, there a button on the bottom of the screen that if you hover your mouse cursor over it, a text "Rules Info" will appear above it. Click on that button and all your rules should show up. It should flashes when it is triggered by something or someone.

 

[happf]

I have an IVS rule created in the Camera's web GUI. I don't see any lines. I goto the camera's IVS screen. I see my one tripwire rule. It is checked. I click Draw Rule and now I can click on the live image and then I draw a vertical line, I click a second time, now there is a line with the <-> AB, and now it's letting me draw a 2nd segment. What do I do now? I've been clicking save, then the lines go away.

 

[Crazykiller]

I have an IVS rule created in the Camera's web GUI. I don't see any lines. I goto the camera's IVS screen. I see my one rule. It is checked. I click Draw Rule and now I can click on the live image and then I draw a vertical line, I click a second time, now there is a line with the <-> AB, and now it's letting me draw a 2nd segment. What do I do now? I've been clicking save, then the lines go away.

Did you ever get a message that your drawing is complete? Left mouse is to set a new point from where you could draw the next line within the same rule. I think was the right mouse button for ending the drawing.

 

[bigredfish]

Right now the camera is in corridor mode (flipped at 90 degree). This allows us to see floor to ceiling easily. Moving the camera up will cause us to see too much ceiling anyway. ........

I think we will probably have to use an external IR spread the balance since the IR on the camera is more of a directional focus. I already knew about the IR on the camera but I was hoping that we could manually turn down the IR power however with the setting at 1 it a bit weak and when we tried setting 2 it too powerful.

Yep. But if both facial ID/packageID on the porch and street/mailbox coverage are important to you, I would add a camera for the front yard/street/mailbox. I just think you're asking too much of a single camera location.

 

[happf]

Did you ever get a message that your drawing is complete? Left mouse is to set a new point from where you could draw the next line within the same rule. I think was the right mouse button for ending the drawing.

Unf#@#@##ing believable. I did not know I was suppose to right click to 'end' the drawing. You are awesome, THANK YOU. I now have a line that stays, I see it on my live view, it is triggering, and also the NVR has just automatically detected it all and now without doing anything I also see the lines on the NVR and now both on the camera and NVR in the playback I see yellow ontop of the green to indicate the events.

Thanks Again!

 

[TechBill]

Yep. But if both facial ID/packageID on the porch and street/mailbox coverage are important to you, I would add a camera for the front yard/street/mailbox. I just think you're asking too much of a single camera location.

I only want facial and package ID but I wanted to be able to see the mailbox to see if there was any activities around the mailbox during nighttime that all. I am not worrying about trying to ID anyone at the mailbox at all time.

If I did start seeing activities around mailbox at night like someone is checking it nightly then I will put up a camera temporary pointing it to the mailbox to get the person ID.

 

[aristobrat]

Unf#@#@##ing believable. I did not know I was suppose to right click to 'end' the drawing. You are awesome, THANK YOU. I now have a line that stays, I see it on my live view, it is triggering, and also the NVR has just automatically detected it all and now without doing anything I also see the lines on the NVR and now both on the camera and NVR in the playback I see yellow ontop of the green to indicate the events.

Thanks Again!

Also, if you haven't already done this, make Event > Smart Plan is set for IVS and not Face Detection (or set to nothing).

 

[HalfMoon]

Look like I found a way to push the IR to the maximum. In setup -> Backlight Choose BLC in the drop down then click on customized. A square box will appear on the screen and move the box to the darkest area then the IR will crank up until image in that box is more visible but anything close will get brighter.

It look like that I will probably have to install external IR for the mailbox to balance out the image during nighttime. I have not yet install the camera above my garage door so maybe the IR from that camera when installed may help balance it out.

View attachment 19095

You could try one of these pointed out towards the mailbox:

Amazon.com : Univivi IR Illuminator, 850nm 12 LEDs Wide Angle IR Illuminator for Night Vision, Waterproof LED Infrared Light with 12V DC Power Adapter for IP Camera, CCTV Security Camera : Camera & Photo

if it doesn't work for you, you can easily return it.

I got a few of these and with my testing they work pretty well.

Here was my test when I was just getting the units:

No IR, just the streetlight on the other side of the house:

and with light above and to the left of the camera: