I am very New to LPR Camera and Cameras in general

[tech101]

Need Advice So I am Thinking about getting and LPR camera system form my home so I can capture Plates going thru our residential street


I am debating either to get this one

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Dah...W5231E-Z12-free-DHL-shipping/32804998458.html

or

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KBJCLVK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Please advise even if there is any better than this My range is About $500 .. Please let me know Also what software to use to automatically record these plates ?

 

[tech101]

Sorry about creating multiple threads earlier The create thread button was stuck. Sorry !

 

[tech101]

Also If it can have software built in maybe I can go up to $800-1000 range so that way all I would need to do is install the camera and setup and not worry about Someone wiggling around finding a software to make it work..


Also I am posting a distance picture of what I think How I should mount the camera if someone has a better idea let me know of mounting the camera in order to get the plates.

 

[richardgohth]

Its rather oblique view, if possible reduce the angle.

 

[tech101]

Its rather oblique view, if possible reduce the angle.

Yes, That is what My Initial thought was and still is But I am not sure where else I can put the camera .. I mean I can add a pole on front Yard and then add a camera but that will for sure raise the price of installation up because I will then have to have wire run underground up to the pole and it might not look pretty just a camera sitting on a pole.

Any ideas where else you think I can put the camera ?

 

[bigredfish]

Try to get as small of an angle of attack as possible

 

[tech101]

Try to get as small of an angle of attack as possible

View attachment 35151

Awesome that seems a better location for it also Seems like that is between 80-100 feet from the target..

What is the camera that you guys recommend IP based with built in LPR or ALPR Also I am in California don't know if the region matters I was reading some of the camera is specific to region of the world due to the plates how they are ... Anyhow so it be US plates

 

[tech101]

Can this setup work ? it is one of the camera a user is using with excellent result if there is a better camera for me please let me know.. Thanks !

This one is Dahua IPC-HFW5231E-Z12

 

[bigredfish]

What benefit are you looking to get from running ALPR and collecting tens of thousands of license plate numbers? Are you going to whitelist them and stop cars who arent in your list? Didnt think so..

I see no benefit of ALPR or other means for the average residential user.

The benefit is simply being able to record the plate, and be able to go back and find it in the event of some type of disturbance where you likely will want to give it to LE. Any simple NVR will handle the recording and storage. Its no different than any other motion event.

With an overview camera pointing the same general direction, you will have both car ID and tag ID..

Get the Dahua 5231 Z12 and save the other $800 for something more useful like more cameras...I have two capturing tags at 120ft

 

[tech101]

What benefit are you looking to get from running ALPR and collecting tens of thousands of license plate numbers? Are you going to whitelist them and stop cars who arent in your list? Didnt think so..

I see no benefit of ALPR or other means for the average residential user.

The benefit is simply being able to record the plate, and be able to go back and find it in the event of some type of disturbance where you likely will want to give it to LE. Any simple NVR will handle the recording and storage. Its no different than any other motion event.

With an overview camera pointing the same general direction, you will have both car ID and tag ID..

Get the Dahua 5231 Z12 and save the other $800 for something more useful like more cameras...I have two capturing tags at 120ft

Thank You ! So The Dahua If I understand is not ALPR but LPR is there a link to the 5231 Z12 model where I can buy it in the US also now this one still records tags but I will just manually look for them right in a case something happens that can work Thank you bigredfish.

I am glad I came across this form this is already helping me out a lot.. By the way I have PC running 24/7 that is what I am planning to use to dump the recorded files and record the tags does this 5231 Z12 comes with the software or do i have to use something like Free LPR software to tag and keep the license plates.

 

[bigredfish]

The camera I am talking about is the first one in your first post - This one IPC-HFW5231E-Z12E

It does not have any LPR software. It is not made specifically for LPR. It's simply a long zoom camera with a 64mm lens. It records video and motion (and IVS features like tripwire) like many other Dahua cameras. It simply has more zoom. It is not sold as an LPR camera.

Dahua and others sell cameras with built-in software for identifying and collecting a database of thousands of plate numbers. These are sold as LPR cameras. The difference is largely the built in LPR software and whitelist database, not the camera. They are much more expensive.
Example:
https://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/productDetail/12251

You can run ALPR or similar program with the 5231E-Z12E and many others to capture and catalog plates. My point is why?
What benefit do you get from tagging and keeping a database of tens of thousands of plates for?


Example:
Last night a neighbor asked about a suspicious vehicle at about 10:30am (Pizza guy)

From that I easily found the the video clip of the vehicle from the over view and tag cameras watching that area. I simply used the standard motion detection recording indicators on the playback timeline built into the camera. No LPR software, no database, no whitelist.

 

[richardgohth]

Example:
Last night a neighbor asked about a suspicious vehicle at about 10:30am (Pizza guy)

Need for anpr
Example:
There was an incident, partial number plate was seen and you want to check if the vehicle has been roving around during recce runs.
You want an alert if the vehicle comes round again

 

[bigredfish]

Sure, thats a good reason. I guess I could then notify LE that that vehicle was in the neighborhood again....
I didnt say there werent any good reasons to use LPR software. Just that the average residential homeowner really doesnt need it.

 

[tech101]

Need for anpr
Example:
There was an incident, partial number plate was seen and you want to check if the vehicle has been roving around during recce runs.
You want an alert if the vehicle comes round again

Well Thank you for that too because there is something which I can tie this to in the past, I had a neighbor who witnessed someone break-in thru window as soon they saw him they took off where he was able to pick up a partial plate number with make and model of vehicle I guess I can create that as a black list so if it see something similar it will flag it.

Anyhow So I guess there will be a good $500 difference at-least between APLR and Regular Zoomed in Camera right ?

So first non ALPR is this

IPC HFW5231E Z12E 2MP Full HD WDR Network IR Starlight Bullet Camera replace the IPC HFW5231E Z12,free DHL shipping-in Surveillance Cameras from Security & Protection on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group


and I guess ALPR will be

Dahua ANPR LPR 2.0M DHI-ITC237-PU1B-IR IP 1080p License Plate Recognition Camera | eBay

This right


So if I use the first one with OPEN ALPR will that be fine say if I wanna find a plate or flag it in a way that it will notify if we see some partial plate match every again ?

 

[wtimothyholman]

Sure, thats a good reason. I guess I could then notify LE that that vehicle was in the neighborhood again....
I didnt say there werent any good reasons to use LPR software. Just that the average residential homeowner really doesnt need it.

I beg to differ, as I have found OpenALPR to be quite useful at my home.

Case #1: We had a guy stealing items off front porches in my neighborhood (drug user looking for anything to sell). Someone in my neighborhood got his license plate, which I then entered into my database and retrieved some great daytime high-resolution photos of his car to put on NextDoor. The nice part was that the photos were from 3 weeks earlier, long after the recorded video had rolled over on my system (I have 8 TB of video storage with about two weeks of retention). Fortunately, the OpenALPR client software retains the still image of every vehicle / license plate, which can go back for months or years if you allocate enough storage on your PC.

Case #2: A neighbor reported a suspicious vehicle driving back and forth, up and down my street. He was concerned that the guy was out to steal packages. I checked my database, and found that the same license plate had multiple occurrences within about 20 minutes, going in both directions past my house. I immediately knew who it was without having to fast-forward through a lot of video footage.

More data is always a good thing. If you're going to go to the effort of setting up LPR cameras, adding the OpenALPR client is a no-brainer. Sure, 99.99% of the time having that stored license plate database adds nothing to your security system, but that 0.01% is where you are glad you set it up.

 

[tech101]

I beg to differ, as I have found OpenALPR to be quite useful at my home.

Case #1: We had a guy stealing items off front porches in my neighborhood (drug user looking for anything to sell). Someone in my neighborhood got his license plate, which I then entered into my database and retrieved some great daytime high-resolution photos of his car to put on NextDoor. The nice part was that the photos were from 3 weeks earlier, long after the recorded video had rolled over on my system (I have 8 TB of video storage with about two weeks of retention). Fortunately, the OpenALPR client software retains the still image of every vehicle / license plate, which can go back for months or years if you allocate enough storage on your PC.

Case #2: A neighbor reported a suspicious vehicle driving back and forth, up and down my street. He was concerned that the guy was out to steal packages. I checked my database, and found that the same license plate had multiple occurrences within about 20 minutes, going in both directions past my house. I immediately knew who it was without having to fast-forward through a lot of video footage.

More data is always a good thing. If you're going to go to the effort of setting up LPR cameras, adding the OpenALPR client is a no-brainer. Sure, 99.99% of the time having that stored license plate database adds nothing to your security system, but that 0.01% is where you are glad you set it up.

A Very good point taken. That What if I needed that data even for that 0.01% of the slight chance is worth it for me. Because the reason I am setting this LPR UP is we recently had about 4 break ins in our neighborhood. And like I said we have a partial plate of one of the person but if I had a database maybe That would have helped us narrow it down anyhow.


I am still just a little bit confused so now With OPEN LPR Application the free version I guess you can still have the function of ALPR ? or just that it is tagging the vehicle ?

Question to with ALPR camera I have that built in or the software what ever it needs comes with camera to do the tagging flagging and all that right ?

I am not sure if I understand this correctly, So Like for instance if I get this camera model

IPC HFW5231E Z12E 2MP Full HD WDR Network IR Starlight Bullet Camera replace the IPC HFW5231E Z12,free DHL shipping-in Surveillance Cameras from Security & Protection on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group

I can use it with OPEN LPR software to do the tagging but I cannot flag it and stuff right ? So no autmatic alerting and stuff ?

Vs if I get the one from ebay

Dahua ANPR LPR 2.0M DHI-ITC237-PU1B-IR IP 1080p License Plate Recognition Camera | eBay


I will get the ALPR With it hence all the automatic tagging feature and would not need OPEN LPR right ?

Also I am not sure if these are the right vendors to go with for buying it in USA anyone has better links I think I am leaning more towards ALPR if I understand it correctly.


Thank You everyone You guys are absolutely amazing community and some of the plates that the camera has captured here with your help and setup are just beyond amazing !


Also One other thing I do want to make sure is that these camera can work over IP so I do not have to buy separate Equipment like NVR or DVR. If I can access these camera and make it run through the PC which is on my local network running 24/7 - W10 PRO

Stay Safe thank you once again !

 

[bigredfish]

Understand the .01% @wtimothyholman, thats fair.

I suppose it will somewhat depend on how much traffic you're watching. For my little street, over the past 5 years we've had the need for plates for LE a couple of dozen times and each time I was able to provide actionable overview and tag video in a matter of say 10-20 minutes, even from 7-10 days past with just a date and rough time.

@tech101 , in theory the LPR camera will do what you want but I havent used it obviously so I cant speak to the details or features...

 

[tech101]

Understand the .01% @wtimothyholman, thats fair.

I suppose it will somewhat depend on how much traffic you're watching. For my little street, over the past 5 years we've had the need for plates for LE a couple of dozen times and each time I was able to provide actionable overview and tag video in a matter of say 10-20 minutes, even from 7-10 days past with just a date and rough time.

@tech101 , in theory the LPR camera will do what you want but I havent used it obviously so I cant speak to the details or features...

Thank you BigRedFish so you have the NON LPR camera, Do you know how many feet up you have it and what is the distance you are targeting Because seems like I will have to mount it up maybe 15-20 feet with 120 feet out

 

[bigredfish]

12ft high on pole, 120ft to target. I think it may go 150+ max but thats just a guess...for tag capture anyway

 

[bigredfish]

Do come back and show us how it works when you get it up and running. The camera specs seem very good!