Noob - New Security System using EmpireTech Cams and NVR

H. Swanson

H. Swanson

Pulling my weight
Nov 3, 2023
169
127
Tennessee
I'm a total noob but have been reading a lot on Reddit and here about how best to do this. I ordered Reolink cams and NVR but I will now be returning them :).

Looking to deck out my property with a variation of these cameras (2.8 and 3.6 depending on use case / FOV needed)
empiretech01.com

EmpireTech 8MP 1/1.2" CMOS Full-color Fixed-focal Warm LED Turret Security Camera IPC-Color4K-T

Please note that the 2.8mm option for this camera does not support the Expedited Shipping Method. 8MP 1/1.2" CMOS image sensor Built-in warm light and the max. illumination distance is 50 m Supports max. 256 G Micro SD card Built-in Mic 12 VDC/PoE power supply ePoE, IP67 protection SMD 3.0
empiretech01.com empiretech01.com

I've tried finding a refurbished PC but it's hard to get ones with SATA bays internally, so I thought I should just get this EmpireTech NVR with Purple drives:
empiretech01.com

EmpireTech NVR8CH-8P-2AI 8 Channels 1U 8PoE 2HDD Network Video Recorde

Max. decoding capability: 32 × 1080p@30 fps or 8 × 8MP@30 fps. Max. 384/384/384 Mbps incoming/recording/outgoing bandwidth Supports IP cameras with a resolution up to 32 MP Supports AcuPick with up to 8 channels Supports N+M cluster, iSCSI AI by Recorder AI by Camera Supports EPTZ, and one-click...
empiretech01.com empiretech01.com

However, I hear great things about Blue Iris. Can I have the setup above and run BI on my primary PC with the videos stored on the NVR? My primary PC is a super powerful Lenovo gaming rig that I use for working at home, so I could run graphic intensive stuff on it. However, I don't want all of the video storage on my PC. Is this an option?

Feedback very welcome. Thanks!
 
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Welcome and glad to hear you learned about the Reolink mistake before you installed and/or missed the return window.

The 4K-T cameras are great, but do realize that unless every IDENTIFY for your use case is 15ish feet away or so, they won't be the right camera. Many find these are great overview cameras, but many of us here are not using them for IDENTIFY due to the small area of focus the 4K cameras have. They are not infinity focus.

AND you need to either have enough light or be willing to use the built-in white LED light of the camera (most of us don't use that) and the camera cannot see infrared so you cannot add it later.

See this thread for the most commonly recommended camera based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the best overall value in terms of price and performance day and night.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection


Many folks here run both an NVR and BI as a redundant system.

The question is if you are not using BI for its strength, then there is no real reason to use it. If you are only using it to display the cameras on the computer, you can do that with the NVR.

BI cannot pull and read the video stored on the NVR, so if BI is not recording, it really doesn't make much sense.

BI isn't graphic intensive if you optimize it. It can be ran on a 4th gen and many computers without graphic cards.

My humble i5-4590 still humming along with 30+ cams:

I see people posting about their i7-xxxx system bogging down with less than 10 cameras so I wanted to update my setup. I have ~33 cams running on my BI system: HP Elitedesk 800 G1 tower i5-4590 @ 3.3GHz 16GB ram 12TB total purple drives for storage 30+ total cams currently - 22 cams visible in...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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Thanks for the quick and thoughtful response. I'm not really looking to IDENTIFY beyond 15-20ft. In one case, I need a broader FOV but not much distance because I'm covering the space in front of my garage. In another case, I want a camera pointing down my driveway and into the cul de sac to see any activity in front of the house, so I'm good with a smaller FOV and better distance. Sorry if I'm not using the right terminology.

Sounds like I can just stick with the NVR for now for simplicity sake, and then see if I need more capability down the road. I just want to be sure I have good mobile access to video recordings and feeds on my phone. Does anyone know if the EmpireTech NVR provides good mobile access?

I also have the Ring security system indoors with indoor cams and the doorbell. It would be nice to integrate the outdoors cams if they're ONVIF capable, but not a requirement.
 
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EmpireTech is Dahua OEM. For the NVR fans out there, they say that it has good mobile access.

Ring is proprietary so it will only work with Ring.
 
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You said above that most of you on here don't use the white LED spotlight built into these types of cams. Why not?

I didn't realize these cams can't see IR illumination. I guess I'll have to test it at night first in the various spots around my house to see if there's enough light to provide good visibility.
 
Most of us don't use the built-in white LED because it screams "camera" to people going by because the light is coming from a place where you typically wouldn't see house lighting or accent lighting.

Further they are not much brighter than a mobile phone flashlight, so they look bright looking straight into it, but the light dispersion is not very far when using it for the camera. Go outside on a dark night and hold the camera close to your head and turn on the flashlight and see how far you can see out.

In addition, it can wreak havoc on the exposure having the light source so close.

Finally, it attracts bugs and you get white flashes all night long. To some, it is worse than what they see with infrared.

Keep in mind any camera can produce a nice static image. It is motion we are after.

So do not try it on default/auto settings because otherwise you will be WOW I can see everything and it is pitch black. But then motion is a complete blur.


In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.

Start with:

H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS
15 iframes

Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.

We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.

In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.

Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.

Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.
 
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Great details. Thanks.

So, I'm also reading I should get a varifocal camera first to test which fixed lens focal length I need in each location. This is what I'm thinking...will this work?
empiretech01.com

EmpireTech IPC-T58IR-ZE-S3 8MP IR 2.7mm–12mm Vari-focal Eyeball Networ

8-MP 1/1.8" CMOS image sensor Built-in IR LED, and the max. illumination distance is 40 m. With deep learning algorithm Supports max. 512 GB Micro SD card, built-in MIC. 12 VDC/PoE power supply; ePoE. IP67 protection. SMD 3.0.
empiretech01.com empiretech01.com

Also, why not just have this varifocal camera in every location so that adjustments can be made at any time?

I'm thinking EmpireTech's Smart IR Series turret cameras are what I'm leaning toward now. To your points, having a visible light doesn't seem the way I want to go.
 
No, that camera is 8MP shoved on a sensor designed for 4MP, so the 4MP will do better at night.

Your better bet is to get the 5442 (now the T54IR-ZE) as it is on the ideal MP/sensor ratio.

Many of us prefer to get varifocals as it allows us to dial it in to the area we want coverage for.

All things being equal, a fixed lens will perform slightly better (and a little cheaper) than a varifocal set to the same focal length (due to the f-stop), so it makes sense in some situations to have a fixed lens. Personally I would rather have the flexibility of the varifocal. I have a few fixed lens, but most of mine are varifocal.

But for most, once they get over the "wow I can see the whole neighborhood" with a 2.8mm fixed lens because they get burned by a perp that they couldn't IDENTIFY, then folks start looking at the varifocal.

The best way to IDENTIFY a perp is to make them as large as possible on the screen. But that comes at a cost of a narrow field of view. So you need a mix and use varifocals at pinch points.

Most that start with a varifocal set at say 4mm end up maxing out the varifocal at some point:

"I want 2.8mm cameras everywhere to see everything..." - This is why you need specific FOVs with purposeful focal lengths.

I am treating this as a living document and will update it with new captures, information, etc from time to time since the journey and knowledge gained never ends. Even though it was originally posted in May of 2023, it is still very much relevant. I have gained a lot of knowledge since I...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
Ah ok, that makes sense. So this is the one I can start with as sort of the "one size fits all" model for an average user like me:
empiretech01.com

EmpireTech IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 1/1.8" CMOS 4MP IR Starlight 2.7mm–12mm Var

4-MP 1/1.8" CMOS image sensor, low luminance, and high definition image. Outputs max. 4MP (2688×1520) @25/30 fps. Built-in IR LED, and the max. illumination distance is 40 m. ROI, SVC, AI H.264/H.265, encoding after filter, flexible coding, applicable to various bandwidth and storage...
empiretech01.com empiretech01.com

Turret, IR illuminator, starlight, varifocal, good MP:sensor ratio. Correct?
 
Yes, that is still considered the "gold standard" and in fact the S3 is the newest version of that model and is an incredible improvement over an already great camera.

Mini-Review - 5442-Z4E-S3 AKA B54IR-Z4E S3 - Replacement to the 5442-Z4E

As many of us are aware, Dahua decided to keep the same model numbers of some of their most popular models like the 5442-Z12E and the 5442 series cameras, but they have been updated with a newer GUI and specs that on paper show better than the previous version as was discussed in this thread...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
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