Feb. 13 2018, just before the start of Chinese New Year, I ordered one Dahua IPC-EW5431-ASW for about $127 from "Dahua Franchised Store" on aliexpressto be my new driveway overview camera.
The seller reminded me of the holiday and noted the camera would not ship for a few weeks as a result. March 1st I was given a tracking number, but it hadn't actually shipped yet. March 2nd the seller asked me to confirm it was okay that the camera has only Chinese firmware with no English option, and mentioned if I used Dahua's PC client software then I'd have English menus through that. I said that was fine. March 6th was the first tracking activity. It arrived in the USA around the 12th and was at my local post office today on the 20th. This is pretty typical for cheap shipping from China.
Indoor Camera
This is not an outdoor-rated camera, but I have it under an eave so it shouldn't get too wet.
Software Configuration
Conveniently, the seller informed me of the default password of this camera without my having to ask. It was "1234567a". User name "admin". I configured the camera using Pale Moon 32 bit with the addonS3.Translator to translate the Chinese menus to English. There was one little glitch - the Save button for saving changes to the text overlays was hiding behind the video preview box in Pale Moon. I ended up "clicking" the save button with JavaScript, though if I hadn't known how to do that I'm sure I could have gotten around it using some other browser or Dahua's PC client (smart PSS I think). Besides that, it was just like any other Dahua camera with Chinese menus. It even had NTSC firmware as far as I can tell (30 FPS limit, not 25 FPS).
The version information reported by the web interface is:
Video Streams
For the main stream, you can choose between H.264H and H.265, with or without Smart Codec. I keep Smart Codec off for compatibility reasons.
As with other 4MP Dahua cameras, there are 4 main stream resolutions. The first has a marginally larger field of view than the others, though it effectively only adds vertical FOV since in all cases the sides of the frame are beyond the edge of the lens.
The highest resolution has a slightly larger vertical field of view, though this is only beneficial vertically since in all cases the horizontal sides of the image are beyond the edge of the lens. The other 3 resolutions have an identical field of view. I am very happy with the field of view, though there is no resolution choice that doesn't crop the top and bottom off. For comparison, this is the camera I was replacing, a 3MP Hikvision turret with a 2.8mm lens.
The camera has two sub streams capable of H.264H, MJPEG, or H.265 encoding. The first sub stream is only capable of 704x480 and 352x240 resolutions. The second is also capable of 720p and 1080p, unless your main stream is 720p, in which case the 1080p substream option is gone.
Audio (built-in mic)
This camera has a built-in microphone of normal Dahua quality. The main and 2 sub streams can be configured independently to use G.711A, G.711Mu, G.726, or AAC codecs, with sample rates of 8000, 16000, 32000, 48000, or 64000hz, or of course you can disable audio for any or all streams. This camera also has line in and out functionality for external mics and speakers, though I did not test them.
This clip was captured with the camera streaming 48000hz AAC audio with the noise filter disabled:
Night performance
Exposure settings are on auto.
I have a lot of IR flooding this area already, so there is little difference if this camera's IR is on or off.
IR ON:
IR OFF:
The camera has three IR LEDs in a ring around the outside edge.
The seller reminded me of the holiday and noted the camera would not ship for a few weeks as a result. March 1st I was given a tracking number, but it hadn't actually shipped yet. March 2nd the seller asked me to confirm it was okay that the camera has only Chinese firmware with no English option, and mentioned if I used Dahua's PC client software then I'd have English menus through that. I said that was fine. March 6th was the first tracking activity. It arrived in the USA around the 12th and was at my local post office today on the 20th. This is pretty typical for cheap shipping from China.
Indoor Camera
This is not an outdoor-rated camera, but I have it under an eave so it shouldn't get too wet.
Software Configuration
Conveniently, the seller informed me of the default password of this camera without my having to ask. It was "1234567a". User name "admin". I configured the camera using Pale Moon 32 bit with the addonS3.Translator to translate the Chinese menus to English. There was one little glitch - the Save button for saving changes to the text overlays was hiding behind the video preview box in Pale Moon. I ended up "clicking" the save button with JavaScript, though if I hadn't known how to do that I'm sure I could have gotten around it using some other browser or Dahua's PC client (smart PSS I think). Besides that, it was just like any other Dahua camera with Chinese menus. It even had NTSC firmware as far as I can tell (30 FPS limit, not 25 FPS).
The version information reported by the web interface is:
Code:
Device type IPC-EW5431-ASW
System version 2.622.0000000.18.R, Build Date: 2017-11-10
WEB version 3.2.1.515090
ONVIF version 16.12 (V2.4.1.510971)
GB version V2.1.4.500306
Serial Number --------snip--------
Copyright 2017 All rights reserved.Video Streams
For the main stream, you can choose between H.264H and H.265, with or without Smart Codec. I keep Smart Codec off for compatibility reasons.
As with other 4MP Dahua cameras, there are 4 main stream resolutions. The first has a marginally larger field of view than the others, though it effectively only adds vertical FOV since in all cases the sides of the frame are beyond the edge of the lens.
| 2688 x 1520 | 2560 x 1440 | 1920 x 1080 | 1280 x 720 |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
The highest resolution has a slightly larger vertical field of view, though this is only beneficial vertically since in all cases the horizontal sides of the image are beyond the edge of the lens. The other 3 resolutions have an identical field of view. I am very happy with the field of view, though there is no resolution choice that doesn't crop the top and bottom off. For comparison, this is the camera I was replacing, a 3MP Hikvision turret with a 2.8mm lens.
The camera has two sub streams capable of H.264H, MJPEG, or H.265 encoding. The first sub stream is only capable of 704x480 and 352x240 resolutions. The second is also capable of 720p and 1080p, unless your main stream is 720p, in which case the 1080p substream option is gone.
Audio (built-in mic)
This camera has a built-in microphone of normal Dahua quality. The main and 2 sub streams can be configured independently to use G.711A, G.711Mu, G.726, or AAC codecs, with sample rates of 8000, 16000, 32000, 48000, or 64000hz, or of course you can disable audio for any or all streams. This camera also has line in and out functionality for external mics and speakers, though I did not test them.
This clip was captured with the camera streaming 48000hz AAC audio with the noise filter disabled:
Night performance
Exposure settings are on auto.
I have a lot of IR flooding this area already, so there is little difference if this camera's IR is on or off.
IR ON:
IR OFF:
The camera has three IR LEDs in a ring around the outside edge.
Last edited:
