IPC-HDW5442T-ZE New cam from Dahua :)

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Very happy with this so far, but any recommendations on other cams I may consider?
There is nothing wrong with that location. I take it that this is the varifocal? If so, zoom more in to the area of the car and walk it at night to see what the face shot looks like. You want to ID a face.
 

David L

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@David L - 10 feet for LPR is fine. Mine is on my 2nd story and my house sits above the street, so it is probably more like 3rd story height difference from cam to street. I have a worse angle than yours going out 165 feet and still get plates.

You will probably need this cam to get plates at your distance IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E. The big keys are shutter speed 1/2,000 and zoom in tight enough that all you really see is the car. This camera is for LPR only and not overview duty. That is the biggest mistake people make - trying to make it do both. At night the image will be completely black except for when a car comes by and all you will see is the head/tail light and license plate.

This following subforum has a ton of information for setting up LPR:

Perfect thank you...
 

David L

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You would have been smart to have just gotten the varifocal and used it on a test rig to decide what fixed lens to get for your back yard rather than hoping the 3.6mm will work.

The 5442 turret varifocal will never get you plates at 90-100 feet. As @wittaj stated you are going to need something with way more zoom, like the cam he suggested. But before you buy two, I suggest getting just one and use a test rig to see if you can get plates from where you expect to mount it. That is what I did. I also sent those caps to Platerecogniser to see if it would work. In my case it was not a problem so I bought the second cam.
Yeah, at the time I purchased the fixed 5442 the 4MP vari-focal was not available. I got one now though.
I was not going to use the 5442 for LPR but thinking/hoping I can place a LPR at 10-11 feet height and get plates at around 100 feet.
Thanks for the Platerecognizer info...Do you use the free 2,500 a month option and just use it to look certain individual plates? Is Make/Model/Color provided with free subscription?

So you have 2 LPRs?

Sorry guys, not trying to get off topic here. I appreciate everyone's help in placement of my vari-focal and fixed 5442s. You guys Rock!!! with your knowledge...
 
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So you have 2 LPRs?
Yes, once I finish the install. Having issues running cable from attic to the front porch. Have not decided on exactly how I will keep track of plates. I did a car count survey of my intersection for a month and I get about 300 vehicles a day, so the free 2500 would not work for me.
 

wittaj

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Yeah, at the time I purchased the fixed 5442 the 4MP vari-focal was not available. I got one now though.
I was not going to use the 5442 for LPR but thinking/hoping I can place a LPR at 10-11 feet height and get plates at around 100 feet.
Thanks for the Platerecognizer info...Do you use the free 2,500 a month option and just use it to look certain individual plates? Is Make/Model/Color provided with free subscription?

So you have 2 LPRs?

Sorry guys, not trying to get off topic here. I appreciate everyone's help in placement of my vari-focal and fixed 5442s. You guys Rock!!! with your knowledge...
With the Z12 model I mentioned above you would be fine at that distance. And more than likely you may add a 2nd LPR in time LOL. Especially if you are not on a dead end where a car could pass you only once and maybe be front plate only view and they don't have front plates. A lot of people end up getting two - one pointed in each direction.

With Plate Recognizer, you have two options - one option is that for any plates you want looked up, you go to their website and drop the photo in and it pulls it up, or since it is integrated into BI, you sign up for the free account and it will send every pic from your LPR to it for analysis - so it needs to be the zoomed in frame like I mentioned because if someone is walking by and the camera takes a picture, it counts towards that total. That total disappears real quick. Unless you live on a cul-de-sac, most hit that limit fast. I live in a 50ish home subdivision with no outlet and blew threw that in less than half a month.

Make/Model/Color is a separate subscription and in my opinion isn't really worth it. It analyzes the vehicle against a database of pictures of almost every make and model - works ok in daytime, but at nighttime with the shutter speed you need to run, all you see are head/tail lights and plate, so since it cannot see a car, you get nothing back... Many people run B/W 24/7 for LPR for focus reasons and then it comes back with every vehicle as white, grey, or black LOL.
 

Warptrooper

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So question, what about a LPR there? I know there needs to be a certain downward angle pointing to a fixed location on the street to capture license plates.
My problem is we have 10 foot ceilings in most of the house except they are 8 foot in the Garage and the front Dining Room (3 windows) & Laundry Room (far left window), so getting cable there is very difficult, well maybe not the Garage area either middle or right corner, think I can get to that area.
Depends on angle and how far away. Might be fine if zoomed in far away.
My current cams are mounted 11 feet high because soffit is high. Not working too well for ID purposes of potential car thief / vandalizer.
 

Wildcat_1

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As @wittaj and others mentioned, you can use this model for manual LPR or a form of ANPR through external platform such as Milestone, OpenALPR, Plate Recognizer etc (not on cam ANPR of course) given the right install location by which I meant distance, height and angle to target, lighting situation, FOV etc. You also need to take into account speed of target in the zone. With all that said though generally most of us that do any form of LPR or ANPR (personal or pro based projects) utilize with either the Z12 variants of the 5231/5241 or the 7442s-Z4's (for ANPR on cam). Of course on other projects I might use true traffic cams (mobile and fixed) but other than that these other cams I list are go to's for sure depending on your desired end result.

You mentioned the 2 LPR statement and the answer there is a resounding YES :) I use 2 x LPR and sometimes more depending on the location etc. 2 allows (depending on your location) the ability to capture front and back plates as well as multiple approach angles by having in different locations. Incredibly useful if you have a vehicle enter the location 1 way missing a front plate and therefore capture them on the exit LPR focused on rear plate and other location :) Increases your chances of successful plate captures day & night

HTH

Yeah, at the time I purchased the fixed 5442 the 4MP vari-focal was not available. I got one now though.
I was not going to use the 5442 for LPR but thinking/hoping I can place a LPR at 10-11 feet height and get plates at around 100 feet.
Thanks for the Platerecognizer info...Do you use the free 2,500 a month option and just use it to look certain individual plates? Is Make/Model/Color provided with free subscription?

So you have 2 LPRs?

Sorry guys, not trying to get off topic here. I appreciate everyone's help in placement of my vari-focal and fixed 5442s. You guys Rock!!! with your knowledge...
 

David L

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As @wittaj and others mentioned, you can use this model for manual LPR or a form of ANPR through external platform such as Milestone, OpenALPR, Plate Recognizer etc (not on cam ANPR of course) given the right install location by which I meant distance, height and angle to target, lighting situation, FOV etc. You also need to take into account speed of target in the zone. With all that said though generally most of us that do any form of LPR or ANPR (personal or pro based projects) utilize with either the Z12 variants of the 5231/5241 or the 7442s-Z4's (for ANPR on cam). Of course on other projects I might use true traffic cams (mobile and fixed) but other than that these other cams I list are go to's for sure depending on your desired end result.

You mentioned the 2 LPR statement and the answer there is a resounding YES :) I use 2 x LPR and sometimes more depending on the location etc. 2 allows (depending on your location) the ability to capture front and back plates as well as multiple approach angles by having in different locations. Incredibly useful if you have a vehicle enter the location 1 way missing a front plate and therefore capture them on the exit LPR focused on rear plate and other location :) Increases your chances of successful plate captures day & night

HTH
Perfect, thank you for taking the time to explain this. I was in one of your LPR Threads but quickly got lost and had to jump ship since I was drowning with way too much info that went way over my head :) I am slowly learning...This message helps me a lot in planning for LPR install(s), guess I need to add a second LPR to my list :). I will jump Thread to learn more about the Z12 variants or the Z4s you mentioned, Do have a question, you mentioned speed, so our street is 30MPH but some youngsters :) do 40+, so if the LPR is zoomed way out would it be easier or harder to cap plates? My thought is, video zoomed out makes objects seem slower.

Haha, just reread my jump ship statement, should of stayed in the ship to keep from drowning :)

Thank You and everyone for ya'lls help,
David
 
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David L

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With the Z12 model I mentioned above you would be fine at that distance. And more than likely you may add a 2nd LPR in time LOL. Especially if you are not on a dead end where a car could pass you only once and maybe be front plate only view and they don't have front plates. A lot of people end up getting two - one pointed in each direction.

With Plate Recognizer, you have two options - one option is that for any plates you want looked up, you go to their website and drop the photo in and it pulls it up, or since it is integrated into BI, you sign up for the free account and it will send every pic from your LPR to it for analysis - so it needs to be the zoomed in frame like I mentioned because if someone is walking by and the camera takes a picture, it counts towards that total. That total disappears real quick. Unless you live on a cul-de-sac, most hit that limit fast. I live in a 50ish home subdivision with no outlet and blew threw that in less than half a month.

Make/Model/Color is a separate subscription and in my opinion isn't really worth it. It analyzes the vehicle against a database of pictures of almost every make and model - works ok in daytime, but at nighttime with the shutter speed you need to run, all you see are head/tail lights and plate, so since it cannot see a car, you get nothing back... Many people run B/W 24/7 for LPR for focus reasons and then it comes back with every vehicle as white, grey, or black LOL.
Thank You for your reply, I am pretty sure I will quickly hit the free limit too on Plate Rec. being on a main street in our subdivision. It is not an Entrance/Exit street but it is a pass through street from/to other Entrance/Exit streets.
 

wittaj

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Zoomed out would make it harder to read plates because the plate will be smaller. The bigger you make the plate in the image, the better the chance of making it out. Don't worry, the camera shutter speed can catch the plate regardless of the speed. 1/2,000 will catch those speeds.

Yeah, in my no-outlet subdivision I blew threw the free Plate Recognizer in less than half a month LOL.
 

Wildcat_1

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All

Quick update. I will post in my night testing thread as well.

I concluded about 2 hours of capture testing tonight using the latest test FW (7/31). Unfortunately the IR on this is still too strong center of image on SmartIR/Auto IR even when using Auto Iris. I have passed the feedback and my suggested tweaks to IR to @EMPIRETECANDY and Dahua who continue to work on resolving this FW issue, THANK YOU !

I did want to share my results at 2 main exposures to help others if they want to dial in using Manual IR only (I show how to do this with IR, HLC and other combinations in my original night videos for reference but wanted to focus on IR only adjustments on this FW test here).

I did some testing with Manual IR so I could let you know what the IR strength needs to be at center of image with targets as close as 6ft to 8ft away. All testing was completed at full wide because at full zoom you are just benefiting from IR drop-off and distance of target to camera. Please bear in mind that as always your location may need little more tweaking but this should get you close. Here are those results:

  • When running exposure 1/60 and using 1 x 60w bulb to light the scene then the IR needs to be dialed down to strength 16 at 6-8ft
  • If you run this same exposure (1/60) with IR only then you can run between 26 and 40 maximum for IR strength

  • If you move to an exposure of 1/100 with IR and using 1 x 60w bulb to light the scene then you can run up to a max of 25 strength
  • If you run this same exposure (1/100) with IR only then you can increase to a maximum of 40 for IR strength. You could push this to 50 but then start to see a little too much washout for my liking at this distance
HTH. Will continue to test and report back
 

EMPIRETECANDY

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Hey guys

Just get this testing video from dahua with the latest new firmware(I haven't release it anywhere), they just show us this video. Looks Auto IR is back.
From my experience, dahua put the full color models on this firmware, make all IR cams too bright. So in the future we will use the firmware based on this version.
Thanks to all guys' support and help, we will ust this firmware on the new stocks. Will post it soon till i make further checking with Looney and wildcat.

Auto IR one

None Auto

 

David L

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Hey guys

Just get this testing video from dahua with the latest new firmware(I haven't release it anywhere), they just show us this video. Looks Auto IR is back.
From my experience, dahua put the full color models on this firmware, make all IR cams too bright. So in the future we will use the firmware based on this version.
Thanks to all guys' support and help, we will ust this firmware on the new stocks. Will post it soon till i make further checking with Looney and wildcat.

Auto IR one

None Auto

Looks good...
 

Arjun

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Thanks, will this be available for fixed lens 5442 model as well?

Hey guys

Just get this testing video from dahua with the latest new firmware(I haven't release it anywhere), they just show us this video. Looks Auto IR is back.
From my experience, dahua put the full color models on this firmware, make all IR cams too bright. So in the future we will use the firmware based on this version.
Thanks to all guys' support and help, we will ust this firmware on the new stocks. Will post it soon till i make further checking with Looney and wildcat.

Auto IR one

None Auto

 

ArnonZ

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thank you Andy,
the auto IR looks promising.
they didn't fix the bright light, they were focusing on the face and changed the exposure of the whole image accordingly.
it sure looks good but I also wonder what would hapen if there were more than one person showing in the frame.
 

moke

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Hi,

Would this camera pick up the occasional bear/fox/raccoon at night ? I do enjoy seeing the late night active wildlife.

Thanks,
 
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