Review-Dahua/EmpireTech Dual lens IPC-HDBW5441F-AS-E2 (The Boobie Cam Upgrade)

[bjohnrini]

Anyone have pictures of this camera actually mounted? Trying to get some ideas..

 

[flynreelow]

Anyone have pictures of this camera actually mounted? Trying to get some ideas..

think some were posted in the OG Boobie Cam thread.

 

[wittaj]

The original boobie cam is the same size and there are pics there:

Review-Dahua IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M Dual Starlight Cam

@fenderman first mentioned this cam back in March here: Seeing double - New Dahua dual Starlight IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M/M12 Courtesy of @EMPIRETECANDY we have the, as my wife has dubbed it, the "boobie" cam IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M to checkout. ;) I have received this cam in exchange for a fair and...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[railcam]

Here are a couple on our test rig and one once our social media team got a view lol

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Attention:
There has some guys use some other brands like reolink, swann, or some other brands NVR will not make the 2nd channel work well, so if you are not use our NVR, dahua NVR, or Blue Iris, we don't recommend you to buy this if you use it with 3rd party NVR or software.

 

[TallPaul]

Just got mine, your shipping was superfast and easy as always Andy
(Bue Iris here so no problem)

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Any guys use 3rd party NVR can get the 2nd channel watching, please share your experience here.
Right now BI and the dahua NVR can full working.

 

[gigo979]

Hi Andy, I'm looking forward to receiving it too. Is my order for Italy also being shipped?

 

[sggieja]

Anyone have pictures of this camera actually mounted? Trying to get some ideas..

I've painted the cam black. The dual lens is handy to me since I can check two sides of the house now.

As far as the firmware is concerned: I'm on "V2.840.15OG004.0.R, Build Date: 2021-10-27" (IPC-HDBW5441F-AS-E2 Dual Lens Smart IR FW.), but I have a problem getting the motion detection to work as I would like: I enabled 'Smart Motion Detection' for channel 1, but did not enable if for channel 2, but I get event notifications for both cameras. Now, next to being unable to have motion detection events for one of the 2 cameras only, I also don't get motion detection to work reliably, whatever I try I get mostly incorrect events: most of the time there is no human in sight when an event is shown.

 

[Sybertiger]

Anyone have pictures of this camera actually mounted? Trying to get some ideas..

Both installs mounted on ceiling of front porches:

Boobie cam install

I hope the title wasn't misleading and you aren't disappointed... :p ...it's really a Dahua IPC-HDBW4231F-E2-M 3.6mm (aka boobie cam) install. I wanted a cam that would show items left on the front porch such as packages, doorknob hangers, business cards...effectively "package cam". And, while...

ipcamtalk.com

Newly installed cams and Blue Iris system

I did a new Blue Iris installation for my parents recently. It's a start and probably needs 3 more cams to provide adequate coverage. BI server is an i5-8500 Dell Optiplex. Currently have Deepstack server installed and have OpenVPN setup so I can tweak it remotely from 500 miles away. Ran 500...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[wittaj]

Any guys use 3rd party NVR can get the 2nd channel watching, please share your experience here.
Right now BI and the dahua NVR can full working.

I pulled mine down and took over to my neighbor with a Lorex NVR (which should work since it is Dahua OEM) and it works.

People need to remember that this camera counts as two cameras (channels) in an NVR. So even though they are plugging in to one port, they cannot exceed the total channels the NVR is rated for. You will end up having an empty port on the NVR when using this camera.

I think many think it only counts for 1 camera, so they think if they have 7 cameras used on an 8 channel NVR, that this camera will work - it will only work for one camera.

My neighbor has an 8 channel Lorex NVR. We unplugged his Camera 7 and Camera 8 and plugged this camera into Camera 7 port.

Camera 1 of the camera came up.

We took note of the IP address the NVR assigned to this camera.

Then we did a manual add and it had a channel No. option and a channel option - Channel No. option is if the camera has two cameras so we selected number 2 and then made the Channel a #8 and both cameras came up.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Thanks @wittaj

 

[bjohnrini]

@wittaj
During nighttime, how much of this applies if you a streetlight in front of your house.

Awesome - you will love it!

You need to dial the camera in to your field of view. Staying on auto/default will never result in acceptable performance, especially at night. Ghost and blur is common with auto/default settings.

In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important 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.

But first, run H264, smart codec off, CBR, and 8192 bitrate to start.

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 0-30 (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.

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 image results in Casper during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

So 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.

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.

 

[wittaj]

It all still applies. The sensors are tiny and can use as much light as possible.

In fact it is even more critical because a streetlight can cause a backlit condition so more effort might be needed to get clean captures.

 

[TheDonIsHere]

Is this still the latest for Firmware?

IPC-HDBW5441F-AS-E2 Dual Lens Smart IR FW.

Hey guys Here is the Smart IR FW for this model is done now. It'a a bit good 4MP Dual lens compare which support AI. This firmware is a special one for EmpireTech IPC-HDBW5441F-AS-E2 only. Product Link...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[plop55]

I went to the Dahua January '22 firmware and then back to the one Andy provided. A reboot doesn't impact the IVS settings with the Dahua
one, however Andy pointed out there are other bugs. For now I'm back to the one he provided and deal with the problem in two ways.
First, reloading the saved config right after a reboot works for be and brings IVS back.
In case of an unexpected reboot I built a safety net using Blue Iris. I setup similar IVS areas with it's motion detection. Works well as far
as I can tell after a few days.

I’m having the same issues, with reboots, config reloads or re-flashing not working… IVS works only on channel 1 and I can’t modify it at all - save fails + can’t add to channel 2

 

[Scott Ritchey]

Feedback on my experience. I previously had the 2K dual (boobie) cam ( HDBW4231F-E2-M) on the front of my house for a 180 degree surveillance overview. It worked quite well with default settings until I nearly destroyed it. It turned out that I only blistered the lens coating, as @wittaj explained and it worked OK after I removed all of the blistered coating. But before wittaj dset me straight, I already ordered the 4K version (HDBW5441F-AS-E2). So I mounted both cams side by side for evaluation. The 2K cam was fine with default settings. The 4K cam night images were very dark until I manually increased brightness (a lot) and contrast (a little) to get images comparable to the 2K cam, but sharper. Bottom line (IMO) is the new camera is better if you tweak it.

 

[walkjp1]

Feedback on my experience. I previously had the 2K dual (boobie) cam ( HDBW4231F-E2-M) on the front of my house for a 180 degree surveillance overview. It worked quite well with default settings until I nearly destroyed it. It turned out that I only blistered the lens coating, as @wittaj explained and it worked OK after I removed all of the blistered coating. But before wittaj dset me straight, I already ordered the 4K version (HDBW5441F-AS-E2). So I mounted both cams side by side for evaluation. The 2K cam was fine with default settings. The 4K cam night images were very dark until I manually increased brightness (a lot) and contrast (a little) to get images comparable to the 2K cam, but sharper. Bottom line (IMO) is the new camera is better if you tweak it.

How do these changes affect your daylight images if any? Would you mind sharing more details about your settings? WDR, Etc.

Thank You

 

[Scott Ritchey]

The profile is set to Day/Night so daytime imagery (still default/WDR) is not effected.

For night, I have Brightness at 80 and Contrast at 70, Backlight at WDR, and Illuminator off. All else default.

I have some IR illumination from nearby T5442 cameras (and I plan to add a dedicated illuminator). Using the built-in IR illumination from these dome cameras just seems to make the picture worse. So I just turn the IR illumination off.

Except for mounting (two vs one) and cost, two T5442s would have been better and their integral IR illumination would have worked fine. But the dual camera is less obvious, which is desirable in this particular case.

By the way, the I Cam POE Combiner, recommended by @wittaj, worked great for comparing the 2K and 4K cams without running another ethernet cable under the house.

 

[walkjp1]

The profile is set to Day/Night so daytime imagery (still default/WDR) is not effected.

For night, I have Brightness at 80 and Contrast at 70, Backlight at WDR, and Illuminator off. All else default.

I have some IR illumination from nearby T5442 cameras (and I plan to add a dedicated illuminator). Using the built-in IR illumination from these dome cameras just seems to make the picture worse. So I just turn the IR illumination off.

Except for mounting (two vs one) and cost, two T5442s would have been better and their integral IR illumination would have worked fine. But the dual camera is less obvious, which is desirable in this particular case.

By the way, the I Cam POE Combiner, recommended by @wittaj, worked great for comparing the 2K and 4K cams without running another ethernet cable under the house.

Thank you again for the info. Will try adjusting mine some.