Replace my Lorex 4K (lnb8005) with a starlight (IPC-HDW5231R-ZE)

Fourier

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Figured I’d share my experience with my first starlight (IPC-HDW5231R-ZE) which is replacing a Lorex 4K (lnb8005), from the 6 cam kit I bought at Costco. We have zero lighting in our neighborhood and recently have weekly door handle checkers, so I wanted better performance at night to watch the cars. Thanks @EMPIRETECANDY for the quick, friendly, and fast service. I’m definitely happy I used him and will again when I buy more.

I got the camera via DHL in about a week. It looks like the package was opened, maybe from customs? Either way, I wasn’t worried, tested it and it worked. I was happy.

IMG_1142.JPG IMG_1140.JPG IMG_1141.JPG

I basically gutted the house and have been really busy with all kinds of remodeling, so short of getting the cameras installed, I haven’t messed with the settings much. Also, as far as placement, i basically placed the cameras where I thought they should go, opened the app to see the view, then mounted them. I would have went lower on this cam, but had to go above the ceiling of the garage.

I didn’t have time to run a second cable for a side by side comparison but the environmental conditions at night were similar between the two camera comparison. Anyhow, here are some pics. The Lorex lnb8005 is basically on default settings in the first photo and then wdr @ 50 in the second photo. Followed by the IPC-HDW5231R-ZE in the third photo, wdr @ 15 based on another thread I came across. One day I’ll get around to tweaking them...

The daytime photos, I only have the Lorex with wdr off and clearly the starlight cam can use some adjusting. I did leave the lens at the widest angle on the starlight just so I could see as close to the garage door and capture a second car parked at the end of the driveway.


Lorex 4K - default
20180401032031.jpg
Lorex 4K - wdr @ 5020180401032138.jpg
IPC-HDW5231R-ZE - wdr @ 1520180401032917.jpg

Lorex 4K - default
20180401174851.jpg
Lorex 4K - default20180401175527.jpg
IPC-HDW5231R-ZE - wdr @ 1520180401175344.jpg


I took the pictures in the iDMSS app in high resolution. I wasn’t sure if they were the same quality as pulling off the nvr or not. The iDMSS app real-time and playback look way better then my old, 1080p monitor for some reason, especially looking at the starlight feed at night.

Feel free to share feed back. And for the record I’m driving the truck until it dies, which should be any day now, so don’t mind the paint :p
 

mat200

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Hi Fourier,

Feel free to share what you needed to do to configure the Dahua OEM starlight to function with the Lorex NVR.

Thank You
 

ulikeme

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Nice truck BTW. Never needs waxing. I too, would like to know the particulars with how you ultimately configured the Dahua to function with the Lorex NVR. I just purchased a Lorex system. While functional, I have already caught the upgrade/improvement fever. Low light performance is always a good thing.

Thanks
 
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Did you have any issues adding the IPC-HDW5231R-ZE to the Lorex system? I installed the same system for my parents and added a IPC-HDW5231R-Z model to it and have had a couple issues.
The first being that on the NVR monitor, the live view for the starlight just displays black on anything smaller than the 2x2 view.
The second issue is that it struggles to return to day mode after switching to night mode unless I go in and force it to, then it stays on.
 

trucams

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I have both cameras as well. In daylight hours I find the 4K outperforms when zooming in at a distance for details. You can set the verifocal zoomed in but you then lose the width. Your mailbox, street and neighbor’s are examples. With the starlight set as you have it, compare a digital zoom versus the 4K on a digital zoom of the same thing. I can read plates and get clearer daylight identification with my 4K cams at distance. At night, the starlight clearly provides more details. Perhaps they both can be worked into the setup as offsets?
 

Fourier

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@Dane Zellers yes, I had similar issues for a while. 1080p monitor and nvr set to dispatch 1080p but it kept going black in the small view (9 view) and but would show up sometimes when I went to single. I origanlly set it to h265 like the Lorex (not default) but changed just the starlight to 264 and I believe it started displaying again. I made those changes in the nvr itself. Occasionally, I noticed some settings wouldn’t retain but they all seem to be good now.

When I first connected the camera I had the option for 50fps in 1080p but at some point it only gave me the option of 25fps in 1080p, which is what I have it set on now. I disconnected the camera a few times and reset the nvr. As for the switching to night/day, i will have to go back and look because I don’t remember if there was a sensitivity setting. I left the settings on default and it’s been behaving well, even when my 5k lumens floodlights turn on (my neighbors probably hate me). The only setting I changed was the time it waits to switch after it detects it needs to go into night mode or vice versus, the default was 6sec and I changed it to 2sec.


@trucams I agree completely, I really like the 4K, but definitely glad I picked up this starlight. Especially for watching the cars at night.

@mat200 @ulikeme if I recall correctly, I believe the starlight has the static up of 192.168.1.100 (or similair) the nvr is set to dhcp on the 10.10.x.x I just plugged my laptop into one of the Ethernet ports and tried to connect to the starlight’s static IP address but I don’t think that worked. Next I tried looking at the “remote device” page on the nvr, there I saw the camera as well as a 10.10.x.x IP address assigned to it. I used that address to connect to the camera. I was promoted to create a new password and the. I could connect to the camera using the laptop. Once I logged into the camera, I switched it from static to dhcp under the network>tcp/ip tab. From there I tried to match the Lorex settings because to be honest I don’t know what half the stuff means. Under the “port” tab i updated to the same values as the Lorex cameras ( Lorex default was 35000 and the starlight was 37777 or 37000). Once that was complete, I went to remote device again, I could still see the camera and I connected to it using the new password.
 

AndyR

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I’m contemplating buying sorry jumping on the Costco Lorex bandwagon and interested in hearing if the cameras switch as suggested above with no issues.
 

mat200

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I’m contemplating buying sorry jumping on the Costco Lorex bandwagon and interested in hearing if the cameras switch as suggested above with no issues.
Hi Andy, Welcome to ipct

With regards to the lorex kit from Costco I've seen no one reporting about issues with the camera switching from day to night modes w/the cameras included in the kit.

Dane's reference above is to the Dahua OEM starlight camera - which since both are Dahua OEM products imho once configured to communicate with the NVR should work well also ( as long as the light sensor and firmware works on the camera ). Fourier describes what you should expect to need to do to configure a Dahua OEM starlight camera to work with the Lorex NVR in that kit.

There's more to read about the Lorex Kit from Costco here:
FYI - Some local Costco B&M have a Lorex / Dahua OEM 4K 6x camera kit and 8 port NVR for $800

@CPO also did a good video on it, so those are also worth viewing.

Note - recently there was an additional $100 off on the kit from Costco - and I would expect that deal to return one day again.
 

PointLookout247

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Also got that Costco kit... Wondering if to try starlight 5321r and lnb8005 or both starlight.... Gonna do test mount first so I can swap out if needed.
 

Yollie

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I have 3 dahuas connected to my Lorex kit and one is via powerline adapter. Works good. My only issue is in grid view one might not show up but when I click on it, it's there recording.
 

PointLookout247

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do you mix the areas and cams? for example, the front and back of the house do you have a mixture of dahua and lorex cams or all one brand? I was going to have both starlights at the front of the house, as thats where most of my traffic is and leave the lorex for sides and back...
 

trucams

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I have both cameras. The 4K cameras do provide more detail at a distance, in daylight. If you need/want to digitally zoom in, the 4K is sharper farther out. Night time, the starlight does draw more light and provide better viewing. Don't expect either to provide a sharp picture at distance at night. In combination, they work well one for day use one for night use, I have both on the front of the house for this reason. You can optically zoom the starlight if it is a varifocal. You will loose width though. Everything has a trade-off.
 

junky123

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I have 3 dahuas connected to my Lorex kit and one is via powerline adapter. Works good. My only issue is in grid view one might not show up but when I click on it, it's there recording.
Same exact issue with Starlight not display on Lorex NVR although it records just fine and my PC desktop has no issue with the display.
 

Fourier

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Same exact issue with Starlight not display on Lorex NVR although it records just fine and my PC desktop has no issue with the display.
What encoding are you using? H264 or h265? In the recording options how many frames per second does it let you choose?

I had this issue, like you said, recording worked but display on monitor was just black. I don’t have the exact answer but when I switched the camera from h265 back to h264 it starting displaying again. Also, I initially had the option of 1-50fps but once it started displaying I noticed the options changed to only allowing 1 to 25 frames per second to choose from for recording.
 

Fourier

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H264 and 15fps butI don't see any options of more then 15fps.
Here are my settings for mainstream for the IPC-HDW5231R-ZE (just for reference the Costco nvr I have is lnr6100)

PNG image.png

I haven’t spent much time tweaking it, other then getting it to setup to display and record 24/7. I honk my nvr has firmware 0015 and says up to date,I think Flir sends updates automatically from my understanding, but again I’m new to IP cameras and have limited networking knowledge.

Maybe some else can chime in, but does the monitor use the sub stream or the mainstream for the display? I’m using an old 1080p Samsung but notice the images even in full screen look far inferior to the iDMSS app (using main stream for playback/live feed).
 

mat200

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..
Maybe some else can chime in, but does the monitor use the sub stream or the mainstream for the display? I’m using an old 1080p Samsung but notice the images even in full screen look far inferior to the iDMSS app (using main stream for playback/live feed).
Hi Fourier,

The NVR should be using substreams when viewing multiple views for the 8mp/"4K" streams as attempting to decode all 8mp full sized streams is a significant processing job and all the NVRs are designed to be lower power / more affordable systems than full processing CPUs PC systems.

If you attempt to view the 8mp full streams on the NVR - sooner or later you will hit a decode limit as you add more and more streams.

H264 and 15fps butI don't see any options of more then 15fps.
For the "4K"/8mp cameras they are able to only do 15fps - thus why I use "4K" here

Still 15fps works well for security cameras as we really do not need more fps in most situations, and at 15fps we save some storage space compared to 30fps.
 

junky123

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Perhaps a firmware in the future will help this black screen issue. I am not sure filing a ticket with Lorex will do any good.
 

onetimejc

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Hello, can anyone help me?

1. I ran cat 6 and installed the Lorex kit from Costco. The six cameras from the kit run fine...plug and play.

2. I also installed two Dahua HDW5231R-Z cameras that I bought from Andy and connected to my NVR.
I get an error message of "conf. login error no-18"

3. I was told by Andy to activate the Onvif and use IP address of 192.168.1.108. However, when I plug in the Dahua cameras directly to my router and type in 192.168.1.108 on my desktop, I don't see anything pop up. My network starts with a 10.x.x.x. Does that matter?

Can anyone help guide me to be able to use these two Dahua cameras? It was rather disappointing to not be able to see them work.

Thank you so much!
 
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