Impressed with HFW5442E-ZE

It would appear there is only one limitation with the following settings, that is the camera being forced into black and white during poor light. Yesterday afternoon/evening it switched about an hour earlier than my other cameras including the 5442 with fixed 2.8 focal length. Roughly around 40 minutes before sunset, the others switched around 10-15 minutes after sunset.

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One other bonus for me on the ZE model is the regional focus, lazy but it is great to select an area and let the camera take the guess work away. That combined with the IR power would make it harder for me to pick turrets going forward.

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Running zoom at 1700 is probably not helping, reduction in available light but quality in black and white is still superb. I will take a sharp black and white still over a mediocre colour. Just takes a bit of getting used to having one camera not in colour, bit like the old days! :lol:
 
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One thing I know for sure is my current 4TB drive is due for retirement - actually I may spread cameras across two drives. Going from 6 to 10 cameras, 4 of these now 4MP 5442's and not 2MP has hit storage pretty hard. Will get around to installing a 10TB drive in the next week along with new graphics card to assist with deepstack. Still running the 5442's in CBR at 12000 with favourable results, I figure somewhere between 10000-20000 at a given fps the cameras processor will wave the white flag :lmao: I'm running max 12fps in an attempt to give it the best chance. Sweet spot on the 5231's for me was somewhere around 15fps at 8192 CBR.
 
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I haven't set it up yet but how intensive a task is the likes of IVS or motion detecting on the camera cpu
 
I've had a bit more time with the 5442's in general and here are some initial observations:

  • Detail is great compared to 2MP 5231 series, not night and day but nice to have.
  • Night performance in B&W is good, better than the 5231 to my eyes.
  • Freezing motion requires higher shutter speed than the 5231 but detail is very good. With high bit rate (12000+) it is impressive even with vehicles moving cross frame.
  • The 5442 switches to night mode (IR filter/B&W) about an hour sooner than the 5231 with the same settings.
  • Turret 5442 fixed lens is very good for the money, ZE would probably be my choice unless wide angle required.
  • Smart motion is working well for me so far but early days testing.
  • Bit rate above 8192 certainly benefits still captures, in fact I see added detail even above 12000 which would make sense, assuming camera processing can cope.

A few things that bug me a bit:

  • Colour accuracy with fast shutter seems off somehow compared to 5231, just not as realistic even with some tuning.
  • Picture doesn't look as natural as the 5231 series but the detail trumps this. I have reduced both saturation, contrast and modified white balance for best results.
  • Kind of wish the low light colour was on par with the 5231 (without artificial light and like for like shutter speeds) - B&W gives more detail regardless so not a big deal.

All of the above refers to IR lighting only, no street lights or floods on my current 5442's. I will switch out at least one 5231 in due course for a 5442 which does have a bright LED flood so can report on that later. Just to expand on the detail levels when compared to 5231, if I digitally zoom four mouse clicks on 5442 playback freeze frame, the detail appears the same even compared to a 5231 which is closer to the target - that is quite impressive.

Early days still but there we go, 5231 is still a great series though.
 
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