Number plate camera

Leighbus

Leighbus

n3wb
Sep 22, 2021
14
11
Australia
Ok so I live on a roundabout and am constantly being woken up by hoons doing burnouts and drifting around the roundabout. I currently have a dahua 8mp camera pointed at the roundabout to catch them in the act so I can send footage to the police. While the 8mp camera gets excellent footage of the entire roundabout the quality isn't quite good enough to read the number plates.

I would like to have a seperate camera set up zoomed into a choke point that its sole purpose was to just record the number plates, it wouldn't have to have OCR capabilities just good enough quality that I could play back footage and read the number plate myself. But here's the catch I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars and I don't want a poe camera due to the hassle of running another cable through the roof and down the wall to my NVR. It wouldn't even need to be compatible with my current system, it could be a seperate stand alone camera that I could just access over wifi to review footage when needed.

It would need to have a pretty good zoom or at least modifiable to add a narrow angle lens, continuous recording with onboard storage and able to review recorded footage over wifi. I could just Power it from a nearby power outlet or a solar panel. Does anyone know of a camera out there that could do this job? Below is an image from the 8mp camera.
20210923115722.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: mat200
Regarding a camera for plates (LPR) - keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. It is why you cannot read them now with your current camera.

For LPR we need to zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

1632382740356.png

You probably will not find a wifi camera capable of setting the parameters necessary to read the plates. The zoom needed and the ability to truly set something like a fast shutter speed are not typical features of a wifi camera.

The go to camera for many of us here is the 5241E-Z12E sold by @EMPIRETECANDY here on his Amazon store.

You do not need to run another ethernet cable. This adapter works very well and many of us use this to add a camera to read plates next to our overview camera:


Another potential option IF that street is within 40 feet and your plates are as big as bumpers would be this camera:

 
As an Amazon Associate IPCamTalk earns from qualifying purchases.
  • Like
Reactions: sebastiantombs, SouthernYankee, mat200 and 1 other person
Another option for LPR are the following two Dahua cameras.

HFW-7442H-Z4 - 8 mm - 32 mm lens - 1/1.8 sensor 4 MP
HFW-7442H-Z - 2.7 mm - 12 mm lens - 1/1.8 sensor 4 MP

A review of the 7442

Review - Dahua IPC-HFW7442H-Z 4MP Ultra AI Varifocal Bullet Camera

All, thanks to Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY ) we have a new 4MP Ultra AI camera for testing. This camera has been provided by Andy in exchange for a fair and honest review. This is a varifocal bullet cam with a 2.7mm to 12mm optical zoom and Ultra AI feature set. Full specs below and will be adding...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com

ANPR - Vehicle attributes:
license plate, vehicle type, vehicle color,vehicle brand.

Other attributes:
sun visor, seat belt, smoking, phoning, in-car accessories, annual vehicle inspection mark

Price range of $450 to $500 - Ask Andy for availability and current price.
 

Attachments

Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: looney2ns, sebastiantombs and mat200
Update: ok so I have decided to add a second dahua camera as the LPR camera, so I currently have one dahua 8mp overview camera and one dahua 4mp LPR camera, both connected to a dahua PFT1300, then one cat5e cable going back to port6 on my dahua NVR.

Problem: only one of the cameras shows up on the NVR. I know both cameras are working because if I disconnect the dominant camera and reset the NVR then the other camera shows up, so probably not a connection issue.

Is there something I need to do on the NVR like change some settings to get both cameras?
 
Do you have enough "ports" to support the additional camera on that port? For example, if you have an 8 port NVR, but 9 cameras connected, then one isn't going to be seen in the NVR.

What is the total power being used by all your cameras and is it exceeded by adding two cameras to the same POE port?

Is there an IP address conflict on the two cameras - maybe the NVR is assigning the same IP address to each camera, so it only sees one?

You may need to only connect one camera and then manually assign it a port and IP address then connect the other.
 
wittaj said:
Do you have enough "ports" to support the additional camera on that port? For example, if you have an 8 port NVR, but 9 cameras connected, then one isn't going to be seen in the NVR.

What is the total power being used by all your cameras and is it exceeded by adding two cameras to the same POE port?

Is there an IP address conflict on the two cameras - maybe the NVR is assigning the same IP address to each camera, so it only sees one?

You may need to only connect one camera and then manually assign it a port and IP address then connect the other.
Click to expand...
Yes I have an 8 Port NVR with only 6 ports in use. Ok so say if I connected the LPR camera first could I then change that to port 7 in the settings then connect the overview and it will automatically show up on port 6?
 
That's not the place for that.
Do you have tracks where they can go to play? That has helped some over here, they have several categories
for daily drivers, grudge racing, and exhibition.
 
  • Like
Reactions: vandyman
Leighbus said:
Problem: only one of the cameras shows up on the NVR. I know both cameras are working because if I disconnect the dominant camera and reset the NVR then the other camera shows up, so probably not a connection issue.
Click to expand...

If you are using Smart PSS are all of your cameras listed in camera registration screen?

Smart-PSS-Cameras.jpg

Jim
 
Old Timer said:
That's not the place for that.
Do you have tracks where they can go to play? That has helped some over here, they have several categories
for daily drivers, grudge racing, and exhibition.
Click to expand...
There are a couple of tracks but not many, however I don't think that would stop this kind of stuff from happening, these people just have a blatant disregard for the law.
 
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: Griswalduk, looney2ns, sebastiantombs and 1 other person
Ok so i have logged onto the NVR via a computer and the seventh camera seems to show up on there however it seems to have the same ip address as the camera on port 4 for some reason, i tried changing the ip address but i keep getting an error saying "ip address does not match gateway".
 
I'd suggest a reset of that camera while it's plugged in to your splitter. That way the NVR will see it and configure the IP the way it wants it. NVRs can be very stubborn that way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: looney2ns and Mark_M
There should be a little reset button under the cover for the memory card access.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mark_M
Update: ok so I finally got it working, had to reset the camera first then plug it directly into unused port so the camera could be initialised then plug it back into the PFT1300, I could then go into camera registration menu search device then add the camera and it works perfectly.

Ok now what are the best settings for LPR?
 
  • Like
Reactions: sebastiantombs
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom