Did I break this cam? Hik 2032 25mm conversion...

[pozzello]

As I mentioned in a couple previous posts, I modified a perfectly good Hik 2032 12mm bullet
with a 25 mm lens in attempt to grab license plates.

I've tweaked the camera settings for getting decent license plate images at night.
(see settings screen grabs,) but I'm getting some odd ghosting in the BI videos now,
and think maybe I messed something up in the cam. Images are daytime, but as you
can imagine, the effect is even more pronounced in night scenes...


cam settings -
3MP VBR @ 10 FPS & iframe interval = 10
contrast: 0
exposure: 1/500
gain: 75
DNR @ 100
WDR off

BI settings -
disabled 'use rtsp/stream timecode.'
recording DTD w/ 10MB receive buffer.


Please take a look at snapshot and video and setting screen grabs and let me know what you think.


[video]https://flic.kr/p/CSf412[/video]


thanx, Paul.

 

[pozzello]

hm. on a lark, i changed the i-frame interval to 1 (from 10) and it seems to have eliminated the ghosting.
some visual distortion from the lens, but i have others to try. will see how it does at night now...

[video]https://flic.kr/p/DoAzsm[/video]

 

[pozzello]

gah! spoke too soon. still happening, at iframe=1

 

[pepperfr]

I have recently been dealing with similar ghosting on one of my Hikvision cameras. DNR seems to be the largest contributor to the effect. Try reducing it from 100 to something below 50. I am actually running mine at 20.

 

[pozzello]

sure enuf! I set DNR to 20 (from 100) and it's gone for real. I had it cranked to try and get the clearest low-light/night image.
hopefully night/low-light images will also be clear still. Thanx!

 

[pepperfr]

Setting the DNR this low is a bit of a trade-off. I assume with shutter speed at 1/500 your night images are pretty dark anyway. Based on my experience, you won't notice the noise too much in the nighttime images. Your license captures will be pretty crisp as long as there is enough IR reflection off of the plates.

 

[foreverjne]

DNR helps with reducing the noise and therefore helps to compress the video better. Too much DNR would remove details that may otherwise help with reading the license plates. I too plan to use a 2032 with 25mm lens to read plates. I would try to increase max bitrate and reduce DNR to as low as possible without seeing compression artifacts. This keeps the more details in the video. There are better software solutions to remove noise of recorded video than the built-in DNR of the camera.

 

[Duke]

Where did you get your 25mm lens?

 

[pozzello]

i got one from here:
http://wrightwoodsurveillance.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_91&products_id=388

one from here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/131517491001

and one from here (suggested by zero-degrees, i think?)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121375945476

i meant to test 'em all and see what works best, but i got kinda side-tracked and now
i''m not sure which one is in there. doh.

anyways, i'm coming to the conclusion that I either need better IR at night to read plates
at the distances i'm working with (60-70ft and 30+ degree angle off to the side) with this cam.

then again, may be time to try a better night-vision cam like the huisun 10x ptz...

 

[foreverjne]

I got my 25mm lens from Wrightwood. Tested it during daylight and it's working well. Since I need to be able to read plates around 100 - 150 ft, I'm thinking of installing narrow beam IR illuminator like the Axton AT-6E-S PoE which consumes 6 watts and comes in 10°, 30°, and wider beams.

 

[pozzello]

not to dissuade you from trying it, but 25mm lens is gonna be marginal for license plates at 100 feet, much less 150.
http://ipvm.com/calculator shows it results in about 100ppf @ 100ft.
that may work during the day, but at night, i doubt it, and at 150ft, even less...

an IR illuminator closer to the plates than the cam will always help.

 

[foreverjne]

I know the 2032 camera with 25mm lens can see California plates at 200+ ft during cloudy days. With that in mind, I hope a high quality IR illuminator would help at night. Will post my result when it's all set up.

 

[foreverjne]

It's a year later and I've finally installed the camera to read plates.

During the day, the plates on moving cars 100-130 feet away coming toward or moving away from the camera are perfectly readable. The camera is placed and aimed to reduce the lateral motion of the cars.

However, there's too much blur at night to read the license plates. I'll need to install additional IR illumination and tweak the camera's settings to try to get readable plates at night.

Here are a couple of frame grabs during the day. In the first image, the car is about 125 feet away and the characters on the plate are about 65 pixels across. In the second image, it's about 100 feet away, and the characters are 70 pixels across. The plate is readable in both images.



I'll post an update after I can or give up trying to capture license plates at night from this camera. Hopefully it won't take another year.

 

[nayr]

this is the IR illuminator you want for grabing plates at that distance, can be narrowed down to a very narrow beam: IR Cannon w/Adjustable Focus

im using it to read plates @ 180ft

 

[pozzello]

Please show a night shot or two. As for evening motion blur, try reducing exposure. What is your exposure set to?
I run my LP cams at 1/1000 day and night. At night, you really don't see anything but lights & plates, but that's what it takes.
That tree may give you some grief when you blast it with IR. May need to aim camera right to avoid the tree in view.
Or place the IR blaster off to the right somewhat and make sure it does not hit the tree, but since plates are quite
retro-reflective, it's best to have the IR on the same line of sight as the cam. Too bad the tree doesn't have an outlet on it
so the IR could be placed on the backside

 

[foreverjne]

I was hoping I won't need IR, but in my situation, cars are too far and area too dark without it. The tree is in front of my next door neighbor about 75 feet away from the camera.
The camera is Hikvision 2032 rebranded as Swann with 25mm lens. The 2 frame grabs at night are one frame apart from each other. The front of the car is about 120 feet from the camera. Video is captured at 15 frames/second, exposure at 1/500 second. Blur is minimal, so exposure is in the right ballpark, but there's not enough light to illuminate the plate. I'll probably try the IR Cannon as suggested by nayr. Thanks, nayr.

 

[pozzello]

agreed. you need more IR on those suckers.

 

[foreverjne]

this is the IR illuminator you want for grabing plates at that distance, can be narrowed down to a very narrow beam: IR Cannon w/Adjustable Focus

im using it to read plates @ 180ft

Do you know the actual power consumption of this illuminator? The specification on aliexpress shows 10watts. I have extra PoE at the camera to power the illuminator. I'll also need a PoE splitter to power this light at 12VDC. One splitter I found can handle 12VDC at 1A. My PoE injector can supply 13.5 watts at the device end. I want to make sure the PoE injector and PoE splitter can handle the power required by this illuminator.

 

[nayr]

it uses 10W as measured by my midspan, im powering mine w/a separate PoE line.. ive burned up a couple weak ass PoE to 12v splitters with these even though 1A = 12W, these ones been holding up alot better: Amazon.com: WT-GAF-12v12w 802.3af Gigabit Poe Splitter with 12 Volts output. Power Over Ethernet for Non-poe Devices like IP Cameras to 328 Ft for PoE Switches: Computers & Accessories