Reducing Daytime noise (DS-2CD2432F-IW 2.8mm)

[davidm]

Hardware: DS-2CD2432F-IW V5.3.0 build 150513 (2.8mm lens)

Hello does anyone have any tips for reducing the daytime noise I am seeing with my Hikvision camera. I have it on the highest resolution and frankly it has been a bit of a disappointment due to the noise (movement type noise where it looks like the pixels are moving when they are not). It is especially prominent when zooming in 2x+.

As for placement it is inside a 2nd story window looking out at the street in front of the house. The sidewalk is maybe 25-30 feet away (including height). At this distance to be honest the visual quality as far as making out faces is almost equal to my other much cheaper D-link 480p camera (~4mm)! The resolution is 2048x1536 so I expected a bit better than I am seeing.

I'm using Day and night profiles and I've tried playing around with various settings.

Right now I have:

Resolution: 2048*1536
Bitrate type: Constant
Video Quality: Higher (greyed out - unchangeable)
Framerate: 10 fps
Max biterate: 12288 kbps (highest setting)
I frame interval: 20
SVC: OFF
Smoothing: 10

Day settings:

Exposure time: 1/250
Gain: 0 (brightness seems fine like this in day, I set low to try to reduce noise)

Backlight settings:

WDR: ON
Wide Dynamic Level: 70 (at times the camera sees the sun directly in the top view but the area I want is below and has a shadow due to a tree)
White Balance: Natural Light (the camera is inside in the window but the field of vision is outside)

Digital Noise Reduction: ON
Noise reduction Level: 25 (I tried setting this higher up to 100 but it didn't help a lot with the "motion pixel noise" I see and IMO seemed to reduce some of the resolution to pixelate it more.

My main goal is to be able see faces well in the daylight from the sidewalk to the house - That is within about 30 feet easily. In theory with the 2k resolution and broad daylight I think I should be able to achieve this, no?

Please suggest any setting changes to try. Thank you!

 

[Kawboy12R]

Turn WDR off or down.

 

[davidm]

Thanks for the response. I just turned WDR off both with Digital Noise Reduction ON at current level 25 and 100. Doing that with WDR OFF and DNR level 100 seems to help a bit but I still see a lot of "motion type noise" when zooming in 2x and even a bit at actual resolution. The best way to describe it is that upon zooming on say the pavement or the grass it isn't steady but instead all the pixels are constantly moving back and forth. I think the Digital Noise Reduction helps a bit with it but it still struggles with it to the point where it is highly visible.

I'll try to make a video showing it later on.

I also suspect a 3.8mm or 4mm focal length would have been a better choice for my application and would have improved my ability to make out more details like faces.

 

[klasipca]

Someone came up with a term "pulsating pixels", try different gain choices, but I see the same thing.

 

[davidm]

Someone came up with a term "pulsating pixels", try different gain choices, but I see the same thing.

Thanks for introducing me to the term. I found this rather entertaining thread:

https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/6854-Hikvision-Noise-Quality-Problem-50-Reward!

Which seems to probably be near what I am seeing (he deleted the video so I cannot be sure). I haven't read the whole thing yet but I did see a suggestion to play with the I frame/key frame settings. I currently have it set to 20 with a frame rate of 10 (so essentially every 2 seconds from what I understand). I may experiment with I-frames at 5 or maybe even 1 or 2 just to test it out. From what I understand if this is related to the issue this should make the flicker less noticeable.

Regarding power I am not using PoE as he was but a DC adapter I had laying around. However the electrical system here is quite old so it is a possibility that it could be related to noisy power or some sort of fault.

In the interest of science I will try to post a video later tonight.

 

[davidm]

Hmmm. Tried I-frame interval 2 and 50. Frame rate unchanged at 10fps. No difference for me with the "pulsating pixels".

 

[digger11]

Hardware: DS-2CD2432F-IW V5.3.0 build 150513 (2.8mm lens)

My main goal is to be able see faces well in the daylight from the sidewalk to the house - That is within about 30 feet easily. In theory with the 2k resolution and broad daylight I think I should be able to achieve this, no?

At 3MP with 2.8mm lens and a distance of 30 feet, you are going to get ~30 pixel's per foot.
http://ipvm.com/calculator



From what I've read, 40 pixels per foot is pretty much considered the minimum resolution that will allow a face to be recognized in the best of situations, and 80 to 100 ppf is what it would take to recognize a face under more challenging situations, such as at night under IR illumination.

 

[Kawboy12R]

I'm reasonably happy with a 2mp camera using a 4mm lens at 30 feet in daytime but 4mp and 6mm lens is much better. 60 feet with 4mp and 6mm lens is verrry marginal for even a half decent face in daytime. Night time performance might be roughly half the distance of a decent day shot but basically depends completely on lighting, movment, and camera quality at night. Some cams in many conditions won't give a good night face shot at all on a constantly moving target so luck can a bigger factor than anything without good lighting and camera/lens selection. 2.8 is good only if the person is coming very close to the camera and preferably stopping for a door, particularly at night unless you've got lots of light. Good for ID on folks that come to a door that the camera is mounted above and probably on the same porch, but performance particularly at night after maybe 10 feet or so isn't good. They're great for watching a whole yard and telling what's going on but often disappoint when someone needs ID. Lighting, camera and lens choice, and camera settings matter most at night. Megapixels aren't nearly as important when they're lost in blur or grain.

 

[davidm]

Yep I've learned a lot since making my first purchase and reading around here. At first I thought the resolution was the main thing that mattered! Now I'm seeing that, no, there is a lot more to it than that. Thankfully at least the 2.8 mm gives me a very wide field of view and I'll take that as a consolation.

As for the pulsating it isn't that bad but at times in between it happening I can see things pretty well so I think by somehow eliminating I would be far more happy. Perhaps part of the issue here too has to do with going through an old pane of glass? I imagine there are lots of imperfections and irregularities with that and how light reflects off of it, etc.

 

[pghcamman]

First open the window and see if the issue remains?

this is an indoor cube camera where the best application is to use it to monitor an indoor area not pointed out a window. to be honest you are expecting too much from camera that is not meant to do what you want. Best solution is to purchase outdoor camera and mount it outside looking at the area you want to view.

 

[davidm]

First open the window and see if the issue remains?

this is an indoor cube camera where the best application is to use it to monitor an indoor area not pointed out a window. to be honest you are expecting too much from camera that is not meant to do what you want. Best solution is to purchase outdoor camera and mount it outside looking at the area you want to view.

You're probably right but it is decent enough to be used for monitoring. When subjects come closer to the house it's also good enough to see faces during the day. That isn't the case for the sidewalk but oh well.

It's just a rental so mounting outside cameras unfortunately isn't possible or desirable. I'm hesitant to move the camera at the moment as I have it placed perfectly with a defined zone for monitoring via zoneminder. But the next time I feel like moving it I will try to place it out an open window to see if the noise/pulsating persists.