Neighborhood Entry

K

KCulver

Getting the hang of it
Jan 12, 2017
117
19
My neighborhood association needs security cameras to cover our front entrance for incoming and outgoing traffic. We currently have 2 Analog Lorex PTZ cameras which are not functioning correctly. They keep suddenly pointing down and have proven unreliable. I am thinking two Dahua Starlight PTZs with auto tracking would fit the bill. There is no internet in the small building where the cameras will be installed. License plate capture would be a plus but pockets are not deep.

Would appreciate recommendations. Thanks.
 
@KCulver

What is the ideal capture? Drivers face or the license plate or both? Second question would be how close can you mount the cameras to the traffic?

If you can get the cameras physically close to the vehicles you can use much cheaper cameras, as for the LPR nayr has a good explanation on setting up an LPR with a cheapish camera, on the forums.

Getting them setup really specifically to their usage for capture of what you want will save you the most money. Four well targeted fixed cameras, would probably get you the better footage than ptzs, for less money.

It is also possible to reasonably provide internet with the Ubiquiti offerings.
 
Thanks! Ideal capture would be face and license plate. The 4 camera solution makes sense. Did not consider that. We have a small entry building that we use for misc storage and aesthetics. Could mount 4 bullets at each corner. So that is definitely a consideration.
 
Would also mention that you want the cameras to be near the same plane as the thing you want to capture. So something targeting a license plate would ideally be down at that level looking horizontally. The diagonal angles down from a roof will generally make it harder to get clear images. Vandal proof can be a consideration at that point also.
 
Dahua just announced a great camera for Dedicated LPR use: IPC-HFW5431E-Z5 | Dahua Technology

Reading plates requires a camera dedicated to the job, at night the'll be setup so the only thing the'll see is plates.. someone can walk right infront of the camera and you'll never see it at such high shutter speeds in the dark.

MSRP should be ~$210 IIRC, Ive put in a request for one already.
 
nayr said:
Dahua just announced a great camera for Dedicated LPR use: IPC-HFW5431E-Z5 | Dahua Technology

Reading plates requires a camera dedicated to the job, at night the'll be setup so the only thing the'll see is plates.. someone can walk right infront of the camera and you'll never see it at such high shutter speeds in the dark.

MSRP should be ~$210 IIRC, Ive put in a request for one already.
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Looking forward to that review. Theoretically that will cover 27ft at 100ppf (both lanes of the road), and it can do that at up to 150 ft from the camera.
 
nayr said:
Dahua just announced a great camera for Dedicated LPR use: IPC-HFW5431E-Z5 | Dahua Technology

Reading plates requires a camera dedicated to the job, at night the'll be setup so the only thing the'll see is plates.. someone can walk right infront of the camera and you'll never see it at such high shutter speeds in the dark.

MSRP should be ~$210 IIRC, Ive put in a request for one already.
Click to expand...

Where did you preorder? I might consider getting one for review and demo to my neighborhood association. Looks like two bullets under the eaves, supplemented by two of these LPRs might be just what we need for reasonable entrance coverage. Just captured some video (yesterday) from an older Lorex PTZ of a hit n run vehicular Property Damage to our entry building! it was night so capture is not really of any value unless police forensics have the tools to unmask the IR reflection from tail lights...We should be able to put a cam like this 5431 low enough for good License Plate Capture and even some face recognition.

Just wondering about the Vandal exposure if we install them low...
 
@EMPIRETECANDY just booked a few of em yesterday; see this post

Unmask the plate? Nah, what you really need is uncrop



they are metal cameras and the bullets lock in place, takes tools to point them in another direction.. with the massive zoom you should be able to mount em out of reach.
 
openalpr
 
nayr said:
openalpr
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KCulver said:
My neighborhood association needs security cameras to cover our front entrance for incoming and outgoing traffic. We currently have 2 Analog Lorex PTZ cameras which are not functioning correctly. They keep suddenly pointing down and have proven unreliable. I am thinking two Dahua Starlight PTZs with auto tracking would fit the bill. There is no internet in the small building where the cameras will be installed. License plate capture would be a plus but pockets are not deep.

Would appreciate recommendations. Thanks.
Click to expand...

These are a couple shots of the entrance. As stated, very concerned about License plate capture at night, especially vehicle details like color, make, model etc. Would IR Lighting be good to include and if so, what would you recommend? Also I am to present a proposal to the association so would you give me your recommendations? There is no rush so I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks in advance.
Lakeover1.JPG Lakeover2.JPG
 
Color video is always better than IR. If you are concerned about vehicle color or other in color details you could focus a camera away from the guard house to capture when the vehicle is under the street light by the highway.

As for the License plate, it would be ideal to configure a camera to capture those specifically. At night you would use the guides mentioned above and purchase a camera with decent on board IR, and then configure it to only capture plates reflective properties. In that set up the plate would be the only thing visible on that camera. So you could support that with the second camera that is zoomed in to where the vehicle would be when it is under the street light.

If you got variable focus cameras you would be able to get them zoomed/configured to work from that soffet to capture License plate details.

Make sure to do research on cameras suited to capture moving LPs.

Looking at those pictures I still think 2 wider angle and 2 narrower angle cameras would do the job. A wider angle on the way in and one on the way out, and then a narrow angle aimed at plate level both in and out.

Make sure to use the light from the street lights if possible, and if not you could certainly get some IR spots to supplement.
 
I installed a similar system for my HOA entrance to catch criminals and gate crashers about 3 years ago. All Dahua and it's been reliable. I would like to move it to Starlite cameras when I get approval for more funding. We have two gates and I use four cameras at each gate. I have 3 older 3.6mm 2mp cams (running 720p) for wide angles (front, rear entry, rear exit) and I have a larger Dahua 25x PTZ that I use for plates with the settings tweaked for high shutter speeds. Cars are often going 20mph+ when trying beat the gate. I also use Ubiquiti Nanobeams on one gate to connect them back to where the NVRs live (about 0.3 miles away).

Here's video from a recent gate strike at 10pm showing what to expect at night.
 
jayson436 said:
I installed a similar system for my HOA entrance to catch criminals and gate crashers about 3 years ago. All Dahua and it's been reliable. I would like to move it to Starlite cameras when I get approval for more funding. We have two gates and I use four cameras at each gate. I have 3 older 3.6mm 2mp cams (running 720p) for wide angles (front, rear entry, rear exit) and I have a larger Dahua 25x PTZ that I use for plates with the settings tweaked for high shutter speeds. Cars are often going 20mph+ when trying beat the gate. I also use Ubiquiti Nanobeams on one gate to connect them back to where the NVRs live (about 0.3 miles away).

Here's video from a recent gate strike at 10pm showing what to expect at night.
Click to expand...


Thanks for sharing your insight. Proxy prohibits me from youtube so I'll look when I get home.
 
KCulver said:
Thanks for sharing your insight. Proxy prohibits me from youtube so I'll look when I get home.
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I watched the video. Will show it to a few our HOA board members. Looks like what we need. Just a matter of camera placement since we want to capture plates exiting and entering. Could you recommend any specific models? I'm leaning towards going all Dahua Cameras and NVR.
 
KCulver said:
Could you recommend any specific models? I'm leaning towards going all Dahua Cameras and NVR.
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If I were doing it again now, I'd go with the either the bullet or turret 2mp Starlight models that nayr has reviewed. Based on my experiences, low light performance and high FPS for catching cars trumps higher megapixel counts. Any Dahua NVR will be fine as long as it meets your storage and camera count needs. We have some of the larger rack mount models mounted in a secure building. In my case, everything is mounted on a tall square pole, so the bullets work nicely for my needs but since you have a small building the turrets would work well too and be harder to knock around since they will be lower to the ground. I'm also watching for nayr's reviews of his LPR experiments because I'd like to replace our PTZs used to read plates with something with fixed zoom lens and focus and repurpose the PTZ. The PTZ can drift on it's focus and it's caused me to miss some plates.
 
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