IPC-HDBW8232E-Z in low light

[VictorP]

I am trying to set up IPC-HDBW8232E-Z outdoor.
I meant to order the bullet, but made a mistake. Now I am trying to make it work.
At first I used IR, but at the tilt angle I need it gets reflected into the lens, so I gave up on it.

The camera is very sensitive, so with slow shutter and wide open iris, moon light provides sufficient lighting.
I am configuring the night profile. If I set shutter to 1/10 and FPS to 10, it all works but the picture is too dark.
If I set shutter to 1/3 (which is slower than 10 FPS frame rate), it starts skipping frames.
The time jumps by couple of seconds at a time. I guess that is not surprising.

But if I set shutter to 1/3 and FPS to 3 or even 1, it skips even more frames.
In fact even at 1/10 shutter and 3 FPS it skips some frames.
It seems that the only logical way to get slow shutter to work is to set low FPS, but low FPS just does not work well.
So how do I get it to work at night?

 

[VictorP]

Maybe someone who has a similar camera can verify that it is not just my camera that has that problem. Attached are my settings. When I look at video through camera's web page, the time jumps multiple seconds at a time.

 

[bigredfish]

I have its sister cam, the 8231 bullet. Not quite as good in low light, but pretty close.

Not certain what you're trying to accomplish. Based on those settings, I wouldnt expect a very good picture.

First Id try to get a baseline at more normal or even high settings, and dial back from there.

Try
H.264 or H.264H
FPS 15
Iframe 15
Bitrate type CBR
Bitrate 6144-8192 (4096 minimum)
Exposure Auto
3DNR 50


Here's a sample of my 8231
Settings:
H.264H
25fps
iframe 25
Bitrate 8192 CBR
Exp Auto
3DNR55
HLC60

60ft to the center of the circle
(Dont forget to switch the youtube player to 1080p)

 

[VictorP]

At night I have very little light in the picture.
Auto exposure does not go to the slower shutter speeds and I get almost completely black frame.
With manual shutter at 1/3 I tried to capture as much light as possible.

 

[bigredfish]

Slow shutter will give you more light because the shutter is open much longer than normal for video. BUT it will give you motion blur bigtime. You need to think about what you want to capture, a well lit static picture or motion video? I can set the camera to slow shutter speed and tweek other settings and make 3am look like 3pm, but anything that moves will be a blurry blob. Walk around in front of your camera and see what you record..

As I've learned, its HARD to get good nighttime color video footage with moving objects. (which is kinda the purpose of a video camera)

It sounds as if you simply dont have near enough white light to do this. Switch the camera to Schedule, set a day and night profile, and let it naturally go to black and white at night and make use of the onboard IR which is quite good.

 

[VictorP]

That is how I started. I switched to Schedule, wrote a little python script to adjust dusk/dawn times to the current date and tried to use onboard IR.
Setting up IR on dome is very different from bullet. It seems to work only under some ideal conditions.
If the tilt angle is too high IR reflects off dome into the lens.
I mounted it on pitched block to reduce the tilt angle, still got IR fog over the frame.
Some sites suggest adjusting the gasket around lens that blocks off IR. I could not move it.

Doing all that was not much fun. The location is a bit hard to get to and every time I had to unscrew the dome, adjust the camera and screw it back on,
while making sure I don't scratch the glass or leave fingerprints on it.

At that point I gave up and tried to make it work without IR.
I also have IPC-HFW4231S. That spot where it is installed has enough light, so auto exposure works fine, but if I set shutter to 1/3, the video stream does not stutter.
@bigredfish, could you please set FPS to 1/10 , shutter to 1/3 and enable time overlay. Does the time tick every second or starts jumping randomly?
Maybe I am just unlucky with the camera.

This weekend I'll try using external IR.

 

[bigredfish]

Sure, I'll try some different settings and post some clips tonight.

 

[Dxue]

i have the IPC-HDBW8232EP-Z version, not sure what the difference is. it is not yet up on the wall and i am not familiar with all the settings yet, but i can also check some things out if you point me in the right direction (maybe some screenshots with where the options are)

 

[bigredfish]

I wasnt able to duplicate your problem @VictorP . At 1/3 shutter I did get more blur as expected, but no jumpy frames

 

[VictorP]

I realized I am powering the camera with POE instead of required POE+. I am going to replace the POE injector and see if that affects anything.

 

[Dave Lonsdale]

Hello VictorP
Surely 'jumping frames' occur when there aren't enough bits per frame to encode all the pixel changes (including the time overlay). I would think this also happens with a high frame rate but the missing pixels (including the time overlay) are filled in quickly enough for this to be imperceptible. So, where bandwidth/storage space/CPU load are important factors, for my money it's best to reduce the frame rate far enough to allow you to choose the highest bitrate setting available in the camera for that frame rate (with the highest compression) - you're not going to miss any CCTV events with 3-5 fps.

This must be exasperated when I frames are sent, so its difficult for me to find a valid reason for not increasing this interval. I've never found this to be a problem when searching through recorded clips.

And is there an expert out there who can tell me specifically what the the quality setting 1-6 changes. Does a low number allow more pixel changes before they are encoded into the bit stream and if so, what happens in the I frame?

 

[Dave Lonsdale]

Oh and using PoE+ isn't going to make any difference

 

[Dave Lonsdale]

No reply to my post. Are there no forum members who know what parameters are changed when changing the VBR video quality setting from 1 through 6?