Installed a ColorVu turret

mech

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I had a old 5MP Bosch 5000 varifocal dome cam up on our third-floor porch. Problems:

1.
I can't rely on a couple of the residents to run their porch lights.
2. If they do turn their lights on, then a person facing the camera is backlighted.
3. the old Bosch had inherently poor night performance

So I wanted to replace the old Bosch camera with something that either has onboard IR, or onboard white light. The photo below is from the Bosch 5000, with some IR coming from its right from an old analog cam that's still up there. How am I supposed to identify cats with this? I can't even tell if it's that black one, or the fluffy cream-colored one :facepalm:

Bosch.jpg

The camera candidates were:

1. Dahua 5442AS-LED turret (white-light LEDs, full-time color). I have one of these already, so I'm familiar with it
2. Hikvision ColorVu turret (white-light LEDs, full-time color).
3. Dahua IPC-HDW5541H-AS-PV if I could get it in 6mm lens. This is a 4:3-format camera which would fit the shape of the scene. One white LED, one IR LED.
4. Dahua 5442 varifocal bullet, or 6mm 5442 turret could also work if I don't mind going with black/white using IR

Since the scene is small, the priority was something with either a 6mm lens or a varifocal. In the end, I went with the 6mm ColorVu from @EMPIRETECANDY. Here are a couple of items that it took a little while to discover:

1. Where's the LED control? I discovered it under Configuration > System Settings > External Device. The combination of settings below lets it control intensity automatically and go as high as 100%. The Sensitivity of 7 was necessary to get it to turn the lights on automatically despite facing the two porch lights.

01-08-2020@21_21_15.jpg

2. Where's the audio? Thanks to @alastairstevenson's review of the ColorVu, I learned that I can switch the audio on using the drop-down in Video/Audio. In my state, recording conversations requires explicit consent, so I dial down the audio to nearly zero. I just need at least one camera that can document gunshots (no joke, we have some bad people around here).

01-08-2020@21_22_34.jpg

From a raw pixel-density standpoint, the ColorVu is a step backwards from the 5MP varifocal Bosch, which packed more pixels into less space and was OK in the daytime. At night, with its lights allowed to run as high as 100%, the ColorVu is doing a decent job in full color where the Bosch was best off in B/W mode. Here's a sample video of me in my usual "test-pattern" jacket:


Settings used above:
1/250th-second minimum shutter speed
maximum gain limited to 40; @ 1/250th shutter, I can move Gain to 100 and the scene does not change, 40 is about what it wants
2D DNR at zero, 3D DNR at 50
Sharpness at 60, other Image settings at 50
bitrate at maximum, I used 30FPS for this demo but normally would use 15fps
all Backlight options turned off.

Disclaimer! The massive f1.0 aperture on the lens lets in extra light, but the downside of a large aperture is a shallow depth-of-field. I wanted maximum detail on a person at the top of that stairway, but the lens seemed to be dialed for best results about twice that distance. So I opened up the camera and easily rotated the lens to optimize the focus a bit closer. The video above reflects that. If you get one of these and you want to do this, you'll need a #2 Phillips screwdriver and a smaller Phillips, and some fingers. This is all the disassembly you need (below): get the shell open and don't damage the cables for the lights or the microphone.

01-08-2020@20_40_58.jpg

More tuning? If you're like me, you probably noticed that as I walk toward the camera, there's a zone where my face is pretty dark. From my 8MP DarkFighters, I know that reducing Contrast on my Hikvisions can have a WDR-like boost on dark areas without the expected WDR blur penalty. I'll see about doing some more tuning videos tomorrow night and try a low-contrast setup, as well as HLC/BLC, to see if there's more optimization to do.
 
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mech

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Reserved for more videos :) Also, while I was up there taking down the camera to adjust its focus, a known car thief came up the staircase to see if his pal in the third apartment was there... unfortunately I do have more than just the black cat and the fluffy cream-colored one to worry about :confused:
 

John Williamson

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Great post and video. I'm surprised at how good that looks as I've all but condemned mine. I couldn't find any decent demo video online for the ColorVu cameras and so bought one to try. It has temporarily replaced a Hikvision 2MP Darkfighter Turret at (DS-2CD2325FWD-I) at the rear of my garden. I tried it in that particular position as there is no lighting to interfere with it (once my garden lights go off around 10PM). There are a number of problems leading me to swap it back:

1- During the evening, other lights in the garden such as decking LED's, uplighters, LED tape are overly exposed and cause haze in the image. This is when the ColorVu LED is off. Not the end of the world but a clear monochrome image looks better from the previous camera.
2 - When the LED is on (had mine left on the default of 15) the reflection is incredible and leaves people looking "faceless" with no features visible when approaching the camera - it's nothing like your footage which looks great even though you walk toward yours face on.
3 - The intensity of the visible LED is such that I may as well just light the area. It's akin to having a small LED floodlight on without the even illumination. I can see that for some that the intense LED would be desirable where it's not practical to install lighting.

I tried it at your settings but I'm sure you must have more ambient light there. At 1/250 shutter, a gain setting of 40 gives an unusably dark image even though the LED is enough to light the area clearly to the human eye. I need to raise the gain on mine to around 70 before it seems to top out. This at 5:30AM

What would be perfect for me would be the ability in the Darkfighter cameras that I have to get the colour/mono change filter to 1 or 2 seconds rather than the minimum of 5. We had a prowler earlier in the year and once he triggered the security lighting, he was already out of view before the camera switched to colour.
 

mech

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Great post and video. I'm surprised at how good that looks as I've all but condemned mine. I couldn't find any decent demo video online for the ColorVu cameras and so bought one to try. It has temporarily replaced a Hikvision 2MP Darkfighter Turret at (DS-2CD2325FWD-I) at the rear of my garden. I tried it in that particular position as there is no lighting to interfere with it (once my garden lights go off around 10PM). There are a number of problems leading me to swap it back:

1- During the evening, other lights in the garden such as decking LED's, uplighters, LED tape are overly exposed and cause haze in the image. This is when the ColorVu LED is off. Not the end of the world but a clear monochrome image looks better from the previous camera.
2 - When the LED is on (had mine left on the default of 15) the reflection is incredible and leaves people looking "faceless" with no features visible when approaching the camera - it's nothing like your footage which looks great even though you walk toward yours face on.
3 - The intensity of the visible LED is such that I may as well just light the area. It's akin to having a small LED floodlight on without the even illumination. I can see that for some that the intense LED would be desirable where it's not practical to install lighting.

I tried it at your settings but I'm sure you must have more ambient light there. At 1/250 shutter, a gain setting of 40 gives an unusably dark image even though the LED is enough to light the area clearly to the human eye. I need to raise the gain on mine to around 70 before it seems to top out. This at 5:30AM

What would be perfect for me would be the ability in the Darkfighter cameras that I have to get the colour/mono change filter to 1 or 2 seconds rather than the minimum of 5. We had a prowler earlier in the year and once he triggered the security lighting, he was already out of view before the camera switched to colour.
I wonder if the haze around your garden lights is due to the super-wide f1.0 aperture on the lens. I have a 5231 Z12 bullet with an adjustable aperture, and the wider I open it, the worse that "bloom" effect gets around light sources and reflective objects like license plates.

My camera also is right up against an off-white soffit, and the camera's lights are bouncing off of it to provide a diffused fill-light effect in the foreground, so it may be a little different than a cam which is just looking out into darkness.

Given that mine is also monitoring a natural choke point where a person would slow down and be moving mainly toward/away from the camera (not laterally), I may benefit from allowing the shutter speed to go as slow as maybe 1/120th. I'll play with that too.
 

bigredfish

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Nicely done @mech, looking at trying one of thee myself...thanks

How DO you do that slo-mo walk? ;)
 

mech

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Nicely done @mech, looking at trying one of thee myself...thanks

How DO you do that slo-mo walk? ;)
I like to do the stop-and-zoom videos to see how much actual ID value I'm getting, so I have my Mage cast Impede. Your party members have to have the Amulet Of The Blue Iris and combine it with something called Windows 10 Game Bar for the screen-capture function. My party was able to purchase both items from merchants, thankfully they are Common and not Rare.
 

majaapis

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Any chance that you can compare colorvu footage with regular IR camera forced into day mode with 1/3 shutter and 100% gain ?
 

mech

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Any chance that you can compare colorvu footage with regular IR camera forced into day mode with 1/3 shutter and 100% gain ?
I can do that for you tonight. There is a Dahua 2MP low-light mini-PTZ camera next to the Colorvu, it will work for your test.
 

mech

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Sounds great, can't wait to see. Thank you
I can either have the ColorVu continue to run its lights, which compensates for the backlighting of the scene, or turn the ColorVu's lights off, depending which one is relevant to your own scene. Let me know if you have a preference.
 

aristobrat

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Any chance that you can compare colorvu footage with regular IR camera forced into day mode with 1/3 shutter and 100% gain ?
1/3 shutter's pretty slow and should blur motion a lot, right?
 

mech

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Above: Dahua 2MP starlight miniPTZ locked to 1/3-second shutter, with the Gain set to auto, 0 to 100 range. If I force 100 Gain (100 minimum, 100 maximum), I get a pure white scene. Even 50 gain is way too much for the 1/3s shutter speed, the entire center of the scene is like looking at the sun.

Below: ColorVu at 1/150th-second exposure, lights off.

 

mercer2

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how do you activate the led light on line crossing event, I have the same camera but don't see the option for it? thank you

as shown here?

 

Jono83

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Strongly considering getting a ColorVu cam after reviewing many forums/you tubes/etc. Not sure I understand the discussion in this particular thread.
  1. Is Mech saying he prefers the Dahua with starlight over the ColorVu?
  2. Also from this and other posts it appears the ColorVu is much more "automatic" in its settings than any of the other "powered by" "starlight" or "dark fighter". I get this "requires tuning" of the non ColorVu options might be a non-issue or even a plus for some, but clearly a negative for those who prefer a more "plug & play" approach. At the risk of touching some people's hot buttons is this an accurate observation of the ColorVu approach vs powered by starlight or dark fighter
thx
 

bigredfish

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I beleive comparing ColorVu to Starlight or Darkfighter isnt really a good apples to apples comparison. Those are general marketing terms for Low Light cameras they use.

Dahua also has a number of full color equivalents to ColorVu - ie. very low light with built in white light LED's
example: HDW5442TM-AS-LED
 

Jono83

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Thx bigred, excuse my ignorance but when you say "comparing ColorVu to Starlight or Darkfighter" is not an apples to apples comparison.
Now I am really confused. I am looking for a low light color night cam for a location with decent street lighting.
I thought these were the right types of cameras to compare. I get that the terms ColorVu/starlight/darkfighter are the marketing terms for low light capabilities, so wouldn't that mean that if low light color was the objective than those "types" of cameras are ones to consider? I must have missed something in your comment?
 
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