EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-X is an amazing weather cam

bp2008

bp2008

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IPCT+ Member
Mar 10, 2014
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I recently purchased an EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-X with a 2.8mm lens from @EMPIRETECANDY. This model is also known as Dahua DH-IPC-HFW5849T1-ASE-LED. I installed it not as a security cam, but as a weather cam. The high resolution and large sensor make for great captures both day and night.

Purchase links: empiretech01.com, store.ipcamtalk.com, amazon.com

The video above is a timelapse created from about 9 days of source material (snapshots taken at a 10 minute interval).

In my opinion, the low-light quality is better than the older 2MP full color starlight series.

As this camera was intended for 24/7 color capture, I believe its IR filter is not mechanically movable so the camera cannot be used with IR lighting. The integrated LEDs emit warm white light, but I have them turned off.

Because I intend this camera to observe the weather, I turned off the built-in LEDs and maximized the exposure and gain range to allow it to produce images that are as bright and detailed as possible at night. These settings are unrealistic for traditional security purposes, as any moving object at night is just a blur at 1/3 second exposure time. I also reduced Sharpness to 25 from its default of 50, because I consider the default to be a bit too oversharpened.

To improve daytime capture quality, I enabled Backlight mode "SSA" (Smart Scene Adaptive) during the day. I found that this mode improves capture quality substantially when large amounts of sky are in view. However "SSA" mode limits the maximum exposure time to 1/30 sec. With backlight mode "off", the maximum exposure time is ten times longer at 1/3 sec, making it much better suited for low-light capture. Therefore I have configured separate Day and Night profiles which are being toggled 1 hour before sunrise and 1 hour after sunset. This camera does not support intelligently switching between profiles, so I've configured Blue Iris software to do the profile switch using Dahua's standard CGI API methods over HTTP.

Day Profile (1 hour before sunrise to 1 hour after sunset)
  • Backlight mode: SSA
  • Shutter: 0 - 33.33 ms
  • Gain: 0 - 100
  • Sharpness: 25

Night Profile (1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise)
  • Backlight mode: Off
  • Shutter: 1/3 sec (333.33ms)
  • Gain: 0 - 100
  • Sharpness: 25
 
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bp2008 said:



I recently purchased an EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-X with a 2.8mm lens from @EMPIRETECANDY. This model is also known as Dahua DH-IPC-HFW5849T1-ASE-LED. I installed it not as a security cam, but as a weather cam. The high resolution and large sensor make for great captures both day and night.

The video above is a timelapse created from about 9 days of source material (snapshots taken at a 10 minute interval).

In my opinion, the low-light quality is better than the older 2MP full color starlight series.

As this camera was intended for 24/7 color capture, I believe its IR filter is not mechanically movable so the camera cannot be used with IR lighting. The integrated LEDs emit warm white light, but I have them turned off.

Because I intend this camera to observe the weather, I turned off the built-in LEDs and maximized the exposure and gain range to allow it to produce images that are as bright and detailed as possible at night. These settings are unrealistic for traditional security purposes, as any moving object at night is just a blur at 1/3 second exposure time. I also reduced Sharpness to 25 from its default of 50, because I consider the default to be a bit too oversharpened.

To improve daytime capture quality, I enabled Backlight mode "SSA" (Smart Scene Adaptive) during the day. I found that this mode improves capture quality substantially when large amounts of sky are in view. However "SSA" mode limits the maximum exposure time to 1/30 sec. With backlight mode "off", the maximum exposure time is ten times longer at 1/3 sec, making it much better suited for low-light capture. Therefore I have configured separate Day and Night profiles which are being toggled 1 hour before sunrise and 1 hour after sunset. This camera does not support intelligently switching between profiles, so I've configured Blue Iris software to do the profile switch using Dahua's standard CGI API methods over HTTP.

Day Profile (1 hour before sunrise to 1 hour after sunset)
  • Backlight mode: SSA
  • Shutter: 0 - 33.33 ms
  • Gain: 0 - 100
  • Sharpness: 25

Night Profile (1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise)
  • Backlight mode: Off
  • Shutter: 1/3 sec (333.33ms)
  • Gain: 0 - 100
  • Sharpness: 25
Click to expand...

Awesome I'll try some of these settings. Thanks
 
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bp2008 said:


The video above is a timelapse created from about 9 days of source material (snapshots taken at a 10 minute interval).
Click to expand...


Hey Brian, was it easy to create the timelapse? I'd maybe like to try that with a couple of my cams in general. Thanks.
 
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Creating a timelapse can be a bit frustrating without the right software.

I had Blue Iris upload a jpeg snapshot every 10 minutes to an FTP server.

Then I had to write a small script to rename all the files like this, named with a 6 digit incrementing number.

1638048516287.png
...

Then I had ffmpeg produce a video from those frames.

Code: 
ffmpeg -r 30 -i "%06d.jpg" -vcodec libx264 -crf 18 -preset medium -movflags faststart WeatherTimelapse.mp4

Breaking down that command:
  • -r 30 specifies 30 FPS frame rate
  • -i "%06d.jpg" specifies the input file(s) match the pattern of 6 numerals with a jpg extension. There may be other input arguments that would just load the images in alphabetical order, but I didn't find that in my searches.
  • -vcodec libx264 specifies to use H.264 codec
  • -crf 18 says use constant quality 18. This is rather high quality, as the scale goes from 0 (lossless) to something like 51 (horrible quality). 18 is generally considered to be visually very close to lossless. Just 1280 frames with an original size of 1.28 GB ended up producing a 737 MB video. That is a bit rate of 140 Mbps, pretty insane, but Youtube would of course re-compress this video anyway to make it much more efficient for people to stream.
  • -preset medium says to use the x264 encoder's "medium" preset for encoding.
  • -movflags faststart says to make the mp4 file perform better for streaming. Does not really matter if you are going to upload to YouTube.
  • And finally the command ends with the output filename. ffmpeg learns you wanted the mp4 format
 
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I only have this one Color4K-X and it isn't pointed in a direction that is useful for security. But I can change the shutter speed and take more snapshots.

1ebNnTM.png


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/3 shutter


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/30 shutter


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/60 shutter


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/120 shutter


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Auto Exposure
 
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I've still got a stack of cams I bought from you Andy. How much are you gonna hit me for one of these? I prefer turret if they have one coming soon let me know.
 
Staff Curtis said:
I've still got a stack of cams I bought from you Andy. How much are you gonna hit me for one of these? I prefer turret if they have one coming soon let me know.
Click to expand...
The turret still no news right now, has plan on it, but when can make it and work great need bit time, at least wait to June i think. Turret will not be as strong as this bullet one.
 
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Andy is on a holiday, Chinese New Year.
 
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