High-up Driveway Cameras - thanks for your help

[John.McClane]

Hi all,
I'm in the process of setting up a Blue Iris 6-camera system (5 POE and 1 WiFi). I know WiFi is not the best choice, but I don't have another option - it's all the way at the back of the garden and I have no feasible way of running a LAN cable. I can only use the remnants of an old DVR setup - there's a power source.

For the 2 main garden cameras, I went for the budget version of Hikvison - I chose the HiLook IPC-T250H-MU 5MP IP Turret Camera with Mic 4.0mm
The garden is not that big and these will suffice.

For the front door with a micro-porch, I chose the HiLook IPC-T250H-MU 5MP IP Turret Camera with Mic 2.8mm
The space is tiny, hence the narrower lens.

Now, the driveway has 2 cameras (front and side) that are quite high up installed on the eave (about 5m). A long time ago I bought these 2 cameras from Facebook Marketplace for a steal: Lilin P2R6522E2. These are 2MP 1080p resolution.
Daytime is relatively fine and nighttime is understandably worse - I think I can do better. What bothers me is that I can't read a licence plate at night and not 100% in daytime.

What would you recommend I replace these 2 with?

Some points to consider:
1. Ideally, I would like to stay within the Hikvision/Hilook brand, as all other cameras are the same (not sure if this makes a difference for Blue Iris). Of course, open to other recommendations - after all, Blue Iris gives you the freedom to choose whatever works best.
2. I can't seem to find an answer to a (stupid) question - if I buy a camera with optical zoom, does this mean the recording is sufficiently high quality for the zoom to make any difference when reviewing footage, or does it only work when you zoom in in real-time?
3. Not really bothered with PTZ - they will point at a driveway.
4. I would prefer a turret camera - the holes for the old ones are already there. Even if the new camera won't fit them exactly, at least it will cover them.
5. I am trying to be as considerate as possible to our neighbours - would prefer IR only. As far as I understand, colorvu, nightfighter, etc... come with bright led's that I would personally hate being shined into my window all night long.
6. Finally, with 4k and very high megapixel counts, I'm trying to be conscious of storage space and resources on the Blue Iris PC. I followed the very useful BI guide to the letter and bought a used HPprodesk 600 with i5-8500@3.00Ghz 16GB with a 6TB surveillance drive and an M.2 SSD for Windows and BI. Not sure how thiswill handle 4k - I haven't learned that far from the forum yet.

Many thanks and apologies for the long text! All the best!

Attached are two pics of night-time footage for the front drive Lilin 2MP camera - maybe I'm crazy and this is indeed good quality.

 

[wittaj]

Before I answer, I do have to comment though that those high cameras won't help ID a perp - you will get top of heads and hoodies. Best practice is to be no higher than 8 feet if possible.

Answers to your questions:

1. Ideally, I would like to stay within the Hikvision/Hilook brand, as all other cameras are the same (not sure if this makes a difference for Blue Iris). Of course, open to other recommendations - after all, Blue Iris gives you the freedom to choose whatever works best.

That is the beauty of BI - any ONVIF camera will work with it. Of course the proprietary stuff that are usually cloud based like Ring and Arlo will not.

2. I can't seem to find an answer to a (stupid) question - if I buy a camera with optical zoom, does this mean the recording is sufficiently high quality for the zoom to make any difference when reviewing footage, or does it only work when you zoom in in real-time?

A camera with optical zoom, commonly referred to as a varifocal, is a set it and forget it camera. You set the OPTICAL zoom to the area you want high quality. DIGITAL zoom after the fact results in poor resolution. The sensors are just too small to rely on DIGITAL zoom.

3. Not really bothered with PTZ - they will point at a driveway.

A PTZ is when you want to be able to OPTICALLY zoom in live. Or have a tracking PTZ to track the person around.

4. I would prefer a turret camera - the holes for the old ones are already there. Even if the new camera won't fit them exactly, at least it will cover them.

The base for a turret or bullet would likely cover the holes or be be close.

5. I am trying to be as considerate as possible to our neighbours - would prefer IR only. As far as I understand, colorvu, nightfighter, etc... come with bright led's that I would personally hate being shined into my window all night long.

That is true, colorvu, etc. is simply a marketing term for full time color. But the cameras are not magic and need light. These cameras can only see visible light, not infrared, so you either need enough light or be willing to use the built-in white light.

6. Finally, with 4k and very high megapixel counts, I'm trying to be conscious of storage space and resources on the Blue Iris PC. I followed the very useful BI guide to the letter and bought a used HPprodesk 600 with i5-8500@3.00Ghz 16GB with a 6TB surveillance drive and an M.2 SSD for Windows and BI. Not sure how thiswill handle 4k - I haven't learned that far from the forum yet.

An i5-8500 will handle the video just fine. You would need a crazy amount of 4K cameras before it would bog down. I have 5 4K cameras, and a bunch of 4MP and 2MP cameras, on a 4th gen under 15% CPU. As long as you use substreams and direct to disc you will be fine.


You may want to consider adding some varifocals OPTICALLY zoomed to pinch points in the public areas that can be installed higher and take advantage of the distance away to "flatten" the angle.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection

At the urging of several folks here, I created a thread to show the importance of focal length and how focal length can be more important than megapixels (MP). I mentioned some of this in the post regarding The Hookup’s latest video demonstrating different cameras, including one sold from a...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[samplenhold]

Everything that @wittaj stated above. Also, for LPR, see these threads.

New to LPR? Considerations Before You Begin

Thought I would throw together a post on my experiences so far with LPR in an effort to help others that are considering running down that rabbit hole. There are some practical considerations you should know about LPR. I am approaching this from the position of using Blue Iris and Plate...

ipcamtalk.com

LPR Case Study: Scoping, Planning, Proof of Concept, Installation, & Results

Introduction This thread is about my journey into LPR (License Plate Recognition) after having about 18 months of experience with IP cams and having quite a bit of my system finished. I am not an expert on LPR, or IP cameras either. But I have spent a lot of time working with my system and...

ipcamtalk.com

Use of Overview and LPR Cams to Document Midnight Vehicle Distributing Offensive Flyers on Lawns

We were out of town and I was checking my cams remotely one morning and noticed one of the Deputies that regularly patrol my subdivision had been at my front door. She has come to me a few times requesting video as she knows I have fairly good coverage of the streets at my corner. I noticed that...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[wittaj]

You would have to set the camera up specifically to read plates. You need the proper camera with OPTICAL zoom for the distance you are covering and the angle to get plates.

Regarding plates, keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):



See the LPR subforum for more details.

 

[John.McClane]

Thank you! A lot of reading materials to go through - I'll take them one by one.

 

[The Automation Guy]

5. I am trying to be as considerate as possible to our neighbours - would prefer IR only. As far as I understand, colorvu, nightfighter, etc... come with bright led's that I would personally hate being shined into my window all night long.

As wittaj noted, these full time color cameras need light to function. The don't break the laws of physics. However I think you have a over estimation of how bright these LEDs are. It would be similar to holding up your cell phone with the camera's "flash" on. It isn't going to be bright enough to "shine light into your neighbors windows all night long" any more than a cell phone LED would bother your neighbors.

EDIT - admittedly, the camera does have two of these LEDs, but my point still stands....