EmpireTech Andy - GB-APV1 8MP+4MP 25x - Question on dual lens down angle coverage?

[FiberMoose]

Hello,

I am planning a system for my home- and am looking for advise on my proposed camera models
I would like to cover:
The two sides of my house, and a portion of the front, with a single IPC-Color4K-T180 on each face/section
For the front and back sides, mounted up high under the roof pitch/gable peak,, i'd like to use the new EmpireTech SDT4E425-8P-GB-APV1 8MP+4MP 25x
(crappy diagram attached below) (house is approximately 56ft wide x 52 long/deep)

My first worry/question, preface:
I am worried that the dual lens 4mp cams built into the top of the 25x PTZ housing, will have a large blind spot directly below them. Even if I install the units as close to the wall (under the soffit/pitch/etc) as possible.
I know the bullet T180s have a high degree of tilt-ability when installing, so I am not worried about those, however.

The actual question:
I noticed the dual lenses are angled downwards a few degrees in the PTZ unit. Does this mitigate the blind spot entirely?
Or will I need to find a way to install the camera pitched inward some, to recover some of the blind spot?

Secondary question:
Are these the right picks for the job? Or am I better off doing a traditional setup, by putting a single lens bullet camera facing down each wall direction (but also keeping the PTZ units, for Zooming capability)
The left hand side of the house is fairly dark at night, with little to no environmental light (but nearly never has any movement/activity there)

 

[steve1225]

- do you have light everywhere around house? T180 is full color camera - it means it have only white light and it don't see IR (infra-red).. it requires some light everywhere..

- all 180 degree cams have blind spot under camera.. you can tilt down, but this means that side views will go even more down (you will cut heads of people who stand next to wall on sides).. in practical terms (I installed many t180) you accept that blind spot under camera...

- SDT4E425 have small 1/2.8" sensors - it will have much worse night performance that T180 / 54IR / Color4M with bigger 1/1.8" sensor..

- I treat 180 cams (and PTZ ones) as supplemental to normal ones... 180 cams do nice overview, especially when installer higher..

- You didn't drawed the plot, paths, driveway, streets around house.. can't judge is this good design...

- why You use PTZ? and why on house sides? is the street / driveway from front or side side of house?

 

[FiberMoose]

Thank you for replying so quickly, and sorry for taking a while to get back to this!
I've added more detail to the model, which you can view and pan around in 3d here: Fusion

(screenshot of the above 3d model)

 

[steve1225]

in that case PTZ cams don't have any sense on sides of building...
there is so small space to the plot and plot is high - so visibility for PTZ will be small...
please remember that maximal FoV for PTZ is 60 degrees (they can't work as wide overview camera)...

on sides and back there should be normal overview 90 or 110 degrees cams..
with IR (like 54IR) or even better hybrid light IR + white light activated by motion (like TIOC-PRO aka Color4M)..

on front You need two 90 degrees cams on sides of garage.. plus one on driveway..
if you very want you can try to use PTZ cam somewhere on front...

 

[FiberMoose]

Hmm.. I'm sorry for being dense, but it sounds like you are proposing that I just do the classing 90/110 degree cams on all of the corners (with IR), correct?
Could you suggest your ideal dream models to achieve all of this?
(illustration of what I think you are saying)



What if I'm able to add lighting around the house? (easy to do for me currently)
To elaborate on my thought prior process:

• For both sides (Left/right) of the house:
  • I place the 180 degree cams (without IR, but.. great in low light? (I can add some light if needed)) cams
• For the front hard (sunken in right half of front)
  • I place one 180 degree cam + some light
• For the front Drive way:
  • I place one 180 + PTZ cam, and use the built-in 180 camera for PTZ triggering (auto snapping to motion), and then also using the built in PTZ for looking around the neighborhood (up and down the road) to investigate commotions. This section has excellent ambient light.
• For the backyard roof peak:
  • I place one 180 + PTZ cam, and same thing- Using the 180 to trigger/snap the PTZ to any motion, and also using the PTZ to investigate commotions in the alleyway behind my house (chain link fence)
    
    

 

[steve1225]

Yeah.. I propose classical project with 90/110 degrees cams on house corners...
Your first projects almost look ok, with the exception of of 2 cams in front which should be mounted not at the end of front house but in the corners of front wall with walls of garage (so they will looks from middle of the house to the ends and neighbor houses)..

The best cams for this solution is:
- Dahua 5442 (54IR) - 4Mpx in 1/1.8" sensor, IR, lots of AI, you can choose between fixed lens models (-AS, -ASA) and varifocal one (-ZE/-ZHE 1-3x zoom, -Z4E 3-9x zoom)

Search: 7 results found for "54ir"

Building security systems for home and business offices. Protecting customers' personal safety and property security. All the security cameras and NVRs we sell are of great quality and at affordable prices.

empiretech01.com

- Dahua TIOC-PRO 3449-PRO - newest Dahua cam, 4Mpx in 1/1.8" sensor, hybrid lights IR + white (white can be activated by motion), deterrence functionality (speaker/siren/police lights), dual mic, better night performance that 54IR, only fixed models...

EmpireTech IPC-Color4M-T 1/1.8" CMOS 4MP Smart Dual Light Active Deter

4-MP 1/1.8" CMOS | Built-in multi-core light | Max. IR distance is 30 m | Max. warm light distance is 30 m | Intelligent monitoring: Intrusion, tripwire | Supports max. 512 G Micro SD card | Built-in dual Mic | Support two-way talk | IP67 protection | Sound and light alarm (red and blue lights)...

empiretech01.com

If we talk about 5859-A180 (180 degree cam) even if You do good lighting around the house, You will be not happy from that camera.
First in reality this 170 degree camera, so there is always missing something from left/right wall behind...

It squeeze the image (do slim-fast for people , do strange curves from horizontal straight lines, do fish-eye effect, there is big blind spot under/above camera which can't be corrected by tilting (You will lose people heads), it have problems with un-even lighting/brightness on left/rights side of image, it have big problems with AI performance (IVS works only on some part of image), do digital sharpening a lot..

I use sometimes this cam, but always as additional overview cam (best mounted higher) or in area between 2 normal cams with normal AI/IVS performance due possible mounting or cable situation..
Here I found one installation where 5849-A180 is installed in way You want to do (due cable situation - which were in middle of long wall, next to the plot with other neighbor)..

in that installation there are used 54IR and TIOC-PRO intermixed, with 180 degree cam installed on one wall and this 180 degree cam is the worst performing camera - especially at night. Even totally not technical owner asked can we change it to something different?

in the classical 90/110 overview corner mounted You have always minimum 2 cams on each side.. someone is going from left to the right, minimum one camera will catch a face. In case of 180 degree cam only this not always work..

ps. You want to use PTZ + panorama cam with even smaller sensor (1/2.8") so night performance will be even worse..

ps2. if you really want to use 180 cam, do proper way.. do classic 90/110 degree corner mounted system and add 1-2 180 degree overview cams mounted higher in front and back (terrace, patio, pool etc) ones.. they are very good as additional overview cam, nothing more... in front You can replace 180 degree cam with this 180 + panorama PTZ.. at the back, it don't have sense (to small area)...




this is night performance without light on very long exposure time (not recommended):

 

[FiberMoose]

Fantastic response. Thank you for the detail! the TIOC 3449-PRO model looks great.

Is the empire IPC-Color4M-T the oem/rebadge of the Dahua IPC-HDW3449H-AS-PV-PRO (4mp)? (just want to double check)
If so- I see Dahua also has IPC-HDW3649H-AS-PV-PRO (6mp), and IPC-HDW3849H-AS-PV-PRO (8mp) models, all with the same 1/1.8" sensor. (though Andy does not seem to carry these, just yet?)

The 4mp and 6mp seem to have the similar light sensitivity per Dahua's specs, with the 8mp being a bit worse? Does that sound right?
My understanding is that the the higher the MP, the bigger the sensor must be, for the picture to look good at night... so the 6mp shoud look worse than the 4mp, with the same sensor. 8mp much worse.

would you recommend that I wait for Andy to carry the 6 or 8mp models? or should I just jump for the 4mp now?
Or... I'd hate for them to come out with a TIOC3 PRO 8mp with 1/1.2 and IR+Color LEDs in a few months... lol

With that said- Its an older generation camera, but what about IPC-Color4K-T (8MP 1/1.2")?

 

[wittaj]

You want to get ideal MP/sensor sizes. Anything in green:



Here is a thread just this week about the 6MP.

As you pointed out, and worth affirming, the lower MP camera will perform better at night than a higher MP camera on the same size sensor, especially within the same model line.

So if night performance is a criteria, do not wait for the 6MP or 8MP, go with the 4MP.

The light sensitivity is all made up - they don't say under what conditions that testing was done. I can make a $40 camera look like noon when it is midnight if I slow the shutter down to 1/3s and crank the gain to 100 and show a rating of 0 lux. But motion would be complete crap.

 

[FiberMoose]

Thanks for all the help!
I've ordered 8 IPC-Color4M-T for now, because Andy's Site stock had 4, and coincidentally amazon also had exactly 4 in stock as well.
Hopefully they aren't actually one in the same stock, and the amazon order (placed second) isnt about to get cancelled!