Intro

Sep 27, 2020
4
6
USA
Hello World.

Increase of crime in local area, so I snagged a 4K setup... Being a tech guy, thought I'd join up and see what can be done outside the box with a new Lorex System.
 
Hello, welcome to the forum.
 
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:welcome:
Test your cameras at night with motion. Have a "BAD" guy wearing a hoodie check your car doors or come to your front door. Can you identify him ? If not you have the cameras mounted incorrectly or you have the wrong cameras, or not enough light.

Read study before spending money.

More megapixel is not necessarily better.
use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2
If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 7ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened.
Camera Sensor size, bigger is general better Sensor Size Chart

test do not guess
 
:welcome:
Test your cameras at night with motion. Have a "BAD" guy wearing a hoodie check your car doors or come to your front door. Can you identify him ? If not you have the cameras mounted incorrectly or you have the wrong cameras, or not enough light.

Read study before spending money.

More megapixel is not necessarily better.
use a test mount to verify the camera mount location. My test rig: rev.2
If you want to be able to ID faces, don't mount cams higher than 7ft. You want to know who did it, not just what happened.
Camera Sensor size, bigger is general better Sensor Size Chart

test do not guess
Good Info. I've been testing for over a week with the Lorex N881A63B and some LNB9232S-C, pre final install.

As of right now, not very impressed with the low light color mode. After various settings / positions / light conditions etc, still very blurry motion (5ft - 30ft away). Would never be able to ID a person or Plate. Additionally, the system is supposed to record at 30FPS, however it drops to 25 using WDR. I will say, the IR night mode is on par.

So, I was hoping that I could flash both the NVR and cameras with the latest Dahua factory firmware and get a little more out of the system... Or return within the 30days and go another route... in the 1200-1600.00 range.
 
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Return them, get a single varifocal from the Dahua 5442 series, bullet or dome, and test out each location using it. From that you'll be able to determine the right lens, focal length, for each location. Andy, EMPIRETECANDY here on the forum, can get you great pricing on cameras and an NVR.
 
Good Info. I've been testing for over a week with the Lorex N881A63B and some LNB9232S-C, pre final install.

As of right now, not very impressed with the low light color mode. After various settings / positions / light conditions etc, still very blurry motion (5ft - 30ft away). Would never be able to ID a person or Plate. Additionally, the system is supposed to record at 30FPS, however it drops to 25 using WDR. I will say, the IR night mode is on par.

So, I was hoping that I could flash both the NVR and cameras with the latest Dahua factory firmware and get a little more out of the system... Or return within the 30days and go another route... in the 1200-1600.00 range.

Hi @Xtreme_Liberty

NVR definitely should be able to flash with Dahua OEM firmware, so far do not recall seeing reports on lorex cameras being successfully flashed.

That noted, I do like the specs of those particular cameras as they have the 1/1.8" sensors.
 
It may be necessary to set exposure limits. Lots of cameras in auto mode will go to about 1/30 second exposures (about 33 milliseconds) at night which can be too long. 1/120 or around 8 milliseconds is a lot better if that doesn't make your video too dark. High WDR and high 3D Noise Reduction settings can also introduce artifacts that look a lot like motion blur, so you might play with those as well.
 
You are not shooting a Hollywood movie, for Surveillance 15 FPS is more than enough.

The best camera out there for home use have a 1/1.8 Sensor. The dahua is the 5442.
If possible use a turret camera , bullet collect spiders, dome collect dirt and reflect light (IR).
Use Dahua starlight cameras or Hikvision darkfighter cameras if you need good low light cameras.
Your first camera should be a good variable focus camera to check camera placement and the correct lens. Buy only one camera and check the lens and camera placement.

Color at night is over rated. You want to get the guys face, color is not going to get a lot on face ID.


IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED . Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+) - 4MP starlight
.................... Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED review
IPC-T5442TM-AS ..... Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+ - 4MP starlight+
IPC-HDW5442t-ZE .... Dahua IPC-HDW5442T-ZE 4MP Varifocal Turret - Night Perfomance testing -- variable focus 4 MP Starlight
IPC-B5442E-ZE ...... Review - OEM IPC-B5442E-ZE 4MP AI Varifocal Bullet Camera With Starlight+
 
Unfortunately, we all seem to learn the hard way. Welcome to the club!
 
Good Info. I've been testing for over a week with the Lorex N881A63B and some LNB9232S-C, pre final install.

As of right now, not very impressed with the low light color mode. After various settings / positions / light conditions etc, still very blurry motion (5ft - 30ft away). Would never be able to ID a person or Plate. Additionally, the system is supposed to record at 30FPS, however it drops to 25 using WDR. I will say, the IR night mode is on par.

So, I was hoping that I could flash both the NVR and cameras with the latest Dahua factory firmware and get a little more out of the system... Or return within the 30days and go another route... in the 1200-1600.00 range.

Hi @Xtreme_Liberty

1) Current kit you are evaluating: Lorex N881A63B and LNB9232S-C:

The NVR listed looks like one of the better Lorex NVR in terms of through put ( 320Mbps ) so should be similar to the Dahua OEM NVR5215-16P.. series. Thus I do believe flashing it to Dahua OEM firmware should work. ( This should give you IVS support )

The Camera appears to be similar to the Lorex ones which iirc have the 1/1.8" sensors, however I was unable to confirm this.
As noted, so far I have seen few reports of successful firmware updates to a Dahua OEM firmware ( to get IVS support )

2) a 8MP 1/1.8" sensor cameras are fairly new, and should out perform 8MP cameras currently with smaller sensors out now. ( given all else is about the same ).

Naturally a 4MP on a similar 1/1.8" sensor will out perform the 8MP 1/1.8" in low light conditions.
( do watch out, as there are 4MP 1/3" sensor models out also.. )

3) Good ambient light is still needed for the low light cameras most of us are willing to pay for right now.


Considerations:
A) If you got this kit at a deal, you can augment it with Dahua OEM 4MP 1/1.8" cameras ( see Andy for what he has available ).
note - you can paint cameras... so don't worry too much about color..

The 8MP cameras will perform well in good lighting conditions.

Do note, with a wider FOV many 8MP "4K" cameras have about 20 feet ID distance ( too the 100ppf market, should be able to read a plate straight on in the day further out.. for night time plate reading see the LPR section - you will need a separate camera for that as you need to tune the parameters to read plates at night.. )

ID distance equation is in the cliff notes, you'll need H FOV specs, H Res specs.

B) If you paid too much, see what Andy would charge for a setup.

C) If you decide to return the NVR, many members like separate PoE switches and Business Class PCs w/Blue Iris.



Ref: info
( FYI - I like to include some reference info in case websites remove info .. which does happen frequently enough as they drop or change models, and Lorex has sometimes swapped out NVRs from a better NVR to a cheaper one in particular kits )

4K Ultra HD 16-Channel Security NVR with Lorex Cloud Connectivity and 3TB Hard Drive
N881A63B-W

Network Bit Rate 320Mbps total

1601232680479.png




NVR Spec Sheet:

4K Ultra HD Resolution 8MP Outdoor IP Camera with Real-Time 30FPS Recording Rate, Color Night Vision and Listen-In Audio
LNB9232-Series



1601232854644.png

I was unable to find a spec sheet on this model, and only found this posted. Note - no sensor size listed.

1601233008055.png[/HR]
 
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