Looking for opinions on my options for LPR install locations.

trapper

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I just went through the same process you are doing. I have a 2 story house. tried second level and just wasn't able to capture the plate at the right angle. settled on under the eves 8 ft up and capture zone is approx 150 ft. Daytime is excellent plate and vehicle pictures, nighttime is good most plates are readable still fine but at least the plates are readable. I was chasing the perfect night picture quality but too many variables. I went back to mostly default and making small changes.Your green line is very similar to my setup. My family got tired of driving around the block at night so I resorted to strapping a license plate to my bicycle. I would circle past the camera and than run back into the house and do play back make an adjustment and start all over again. Anyway try not to have to high of expectations for your night time quality. Any capture that is readable is great. Police don't care if its in color, black and white or rainbow as long as its readable.
 

Ri22o

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I just went through the same process you are doing. I have a 2 story house. tried second level and just wasn't able to capture the plate at the right angle. settled on under the eves 8 ft up and capture zone is approx 150 ft. Daytime is excellent plate and vehicle pictures, nighttime is good most plates are readable still fine but at least the plates are readable. I was chasing the perfect night picture quality but too many variables. I went back to mostly default and making small changes.Your green line is very similar to my setup. My family got tired of driving around the block at night so I resorted to strapping a license plate to my bicycle. I would circle past the camera and than run back into the house and do play back make an adjustment and start all over again. Anyway try not to have to high of expectations for your night time quality. Any capture that is readable is great. Police don't care if its in color, black and white or rainbow as long as its readable.
I'll keep the bike thing in mind, haha.
 

Vettester

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Anyway try not to have to high of expectations for your night time quality.
If you're having issues dialing in the nighttime quality you can use plate recognizer to enhance it a bit. The plate recognizer software works well even if plates are blurry or at an angle. I'm using the free version which allows 2500 API calls a month. I live in a high traffic area so I have plate recognizer setup to only run at night. Also, since it it is integrated with BI, the captured license number is added the thumbnail.

Screen Shot 2022-10-21 at 7.20.04 PM.png
 
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Ri22o

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If you're you're having issues dialing in the nighttime quality you can use plate recognizer to enhance it a bit. The plate recognizer software works well even if plates are blurry or at an angle. I'm using the free version which allows 2500 API calls a month. I live in a high traffic area so I have plate recognizer setup to only run at night. Also, since it it is integrated with BI, the captured license number is added the thumbnail.

View attachment 143443
Good to know. I will keep that in mind when I get through all the other hassles. I woke up this morning to one of the cameras having reset the zoom and focus... Now I get to mess with that all over again.
 

wittaj

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Are you using the utility?

Is the camera set to reboot?

Did it lose power?

Check the camera log and BI for lost signal
 

Ri22o

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Are you using the utility?

Is the camera set to reboot?

Did it lose power?

Check the camera log and BI for lost signal
Day/Night? No, I set it up through the BI PTZ scheduling this morning.
No, but it was acting fucky last night and I manually rebooted it.
I don't believe so.
 

wittaj

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OK that works as well.

When the camera reboots in the middle of the night, it can then lose the zoom/focus settings. That is why it is important that focus is set to manual so it doesn't try to focus on something at night.

Also make sure the zoom/focus is right for that camera - it can be easy to mess up the zoom/focus inputting it in BI or the utility.
 

Ri22o

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It was set to manual, which confuses me even more that it would have lost it's settings. I had plugged and unplugged it a handful of times while testing locations and installing and it kept zoom just fine.
 

wittaj

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The boot up sequence of these cameras don't necessarily take into account the unique situation that we use them for. For the majority it doesn't impact because the camera has enough light to still focus, but you can find threads here from many people that experienced an out of focus or zoom as a result of a camera rebooting in the middle of the night.

Some have gone the extra step of creating a Task Scheduler that sends the zoom/focus every X minutes in the event of a power disruption or reboot.
 

Ri22o

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The boot up sequence of these cameras don't necessarily take into account the unique situation that we use them for. For the majority it doesn't impact because the camera has enough light to still focus, but you can find threads here from many people that experienced an out of focus or zoom as a result of a camera rebooting in the middle of the night.

Some have gone the extra step of creating a Task Scheduler that sends the zoom/focus every X minutes in the event of a power disruption or reboot.
It seems to keep dropping signal. I'm going to pull it and check the connection. I may need to re-terminate the cable or punch it down into the patch panel again.
 

Ri22o

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I checked the cable and it seems fine. I plugged another camera into it and it hasn't dropped at all. I have the LPR plugged in next to me on my desk and it has already power-cycled by itself at least once... The only thing that is the same is the POE port on the switch. I'm going to wait for it to happen again and then move it to another port. If it happens again, what should I do? Default reset? Update firmware? Contact Andy?
 

wittaj

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I would next unhook all other cameras except this one to make sure you are not overloading the POE switch.

If it still happens then do a factory reset.
 

Ri22o

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I would next unhook all other cameras except this one to make sure you are not overloading the POE switch.

If it still happens then do a factory reset.
I am well under budget, but can give that a try. It seems to be stuck in a power cycle loop now.
 

Ri22o

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Camera is still power cycling even on it's own 8 port POE switch. Hopefully it can stay up long enough for me to hard reset it.
 

wittaj

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Oh wow. Try unpowering and then push and hold reset button in and then apply power and hold it for 3-5 IR filter clicks.
 

Ri22o

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Do you have an SD card installed? If so, remove it and see if that stops the issue.

I have had a 'bad' SD card cause random reboots.
Nope, no SD card.

I just reset it, hopefully that does it.
 

Ri22o

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I thought it was going to be fine, but I just came home to it sitting on my desk power cycling again. :idk:
 
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