Need Help tweaking HFW5231E-Z12 for night @ 240ft

wittaj

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So you would have to run simple motion detection for the camera in this scenario, but even then that can be tricky, so you need to run Blue Iris motion detection instead of camera IVS.

What does your motion setting look like for the LPR cam at night? I have the min size just smaller than half a plate and the make time of 0 seconds and I get them all.

I found this to be the setup that worked best for me. This one zone approach at this location allowed me to catch the front plate of the cars going right to left and the back plate of the cars going left to right. Occasionally I would get a large truck or a very fast vehicle that was missed, but I also run this continuous motion in the event that happens or it missed the motion. And then at night I simply make the object size box a lot smaller like the size of the plate. As you can see from the alert clips to the left that it captures all the cars in the middle of the frame. My nighttime is the same as well. If you are running a 1/2000 shutter then it should take out a lot of the headlight bounce that would come from the street and cause it to trigger early.

If you are only interested in the back plate, then make another zone that is to the left of this and tell it to only trigger for motion from the zones going left to right.

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bigredfish

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Ok definitely seeing some serious progress. Knocked the sharpness and gamma down. Hard to get a good read on "good" because I'm hand holding a plate, but it's looking better for sure. Need some live action to test this thing.

On an unrelated note. This is the only camera I don't have doing continuous recording. Does motion detection/triggering work well for you? I feel like the plate is quite small.
Im too dumb for BI and run a Dahua NVR, but I find continous plus motion to be best. I want as many frames as possible to give me the best chance at a good read.
 

blazin912

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Remember that it is the shutter speed that gets the plate, so whether you are holding it by hand or it is a parked car, if you get a clean image, then it should be good with motion.
Ok perfect
 

blazin912

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Do you have the resources to run continous record?
You will have to adjust your "pre-trigger video buffer" for your unique situation.
I start out with 11 sec when I have a new cam....until I get around to tweaking it...
then at least If it's late on the capture, the 11 sec will be part of the " clip"
View attachment 142133
It's the one cam I run at 30 fps. I could just keep the footage more disposable unless there's an alert, but I'd prefer to have the LPR just be a series of 10 second clips of motion rather than hours of nothing. I live at the end of a dead end, not extremely busy
 

wittaj

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I run mine at 8FPS and catch them all.

I also set my pre-record to 0.2 seconds and post-recording to 0.2 seconds because I want a thumbnail alert for EVERY car that comes past and 10 seconds could allow a few cars to squeeze in and not be in a thumbnail.

I run continuous just for the sake of what if the motion detection missed it.

You could certainly throw the LPR in an AUX folder in BI that has a different storage schedule than the rest.

As with everything YMMV
 

sebastiantombs

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I'm not thee great one, but post trigger time is at the bottom of the trigger tab in the camera config. Pre trigger time is in the record tab of the camera config.
 

wittaj

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Lol recording=trigger in this case lol
 

Bitslizer

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I finally caved and bought the BI18 and installed it yesterday. I tweaked my settings a bit and I can tell the light has made a huge difference, but not sure what to adjust to fix the noise. I confirmed hand carrying and jogging by I get the same noise, no way I'll catch a 20+ mph car if my slow ass causing the same motion noise.. @bigredfish

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1) BI18 with 90 degree lens is probably way too wide... How FAR is the target area?
2) per earlier, i ended up going with LASER infrared.... 7 degree lens.

I brought from here
 

Bitslizer

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the little bright dot is a piece of retroreflective safety plate. its my sanity check that the camera is indeed still aimed correctly and still working this isi with the laser IR 7 degree spot light.

If i crank down the shutter speed, you see in the top left my neighbor's house is blocking some of the IR laser and casting an IR shadow.
 

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blazin912

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1) BI18 with 90 degree lens is probably way too wide... How FAR is the target area?
2) per earlier, i ended up going with LASER infrared.... 7 degree lens.

I brought from here
@Bitslizer its ~150-160 ft. The other issue is I've got the BI18 significantly off axis rather than near my camera. ~40 feet away.
 

blazin912

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@wittaj Getting there, this was picked up with 83% confidence and was accurate on plate recognizer. That's a rear shot. You can see it's still a bit blurry and not super bright.
1665446192359.png

This was with the following:

1665446357880.png1665446374672.png
 

Flintstone61

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@Bitslizer I think I see a Dahua menu in your post...Weren't you the guy who had a Funky Hik OEM PTZ you were trying do LPR with? I think we had the same/similar 2MP Jidetech or something.
 

blazin912

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Just had another car pass. Plate isn't reflecting enough light back. Could my off axis light be the issue? Should the light come from nearer the camera? Like I said before my light is on the corner of my house nearest the street, but this was too steep an angle for LPR so the camera itself is in another spot that gives better "head on". Camera placement is still not ideal, but not sure if the light angle matters for this application.
 
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