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

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My picture is the same as your 'ridiculous' picture. Problem is I am so lazy to fiddle with the cams after I set them up
Similar problem, I hurriedly installed it last time I was in Illinois, and didn't realize the IR reflection was going to be bad until night time shots. Now I'm 1000 miles away until whenever I get back. So just have to live with it until I can take it down and clean dome/reseat the rubber gasket.
 

pmcross

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One of the many pitfalls with domes.
@looney2ns I’m considering buying one of these cams to mount on the side of my house with one lens pointing to the right to capture people walking towards my front porch and the other lens pointing left to capture a blind spot towards the back of my house. Others mentioned IR reflection, just wondering if this only occurs when the lens are pointing towards each other than in opposite directions. Not sure if you still have this cam or if you tested this configuration.


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Check some posts indicate that if you clean the inside of the dome very well it might fix it. I simply haven't gotten back to my remote site to check if that works.
 

Roger

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@looney2ns I’m considering buying one of these cams to mount on the side of my house with one lens pointing to the right to capture people walking towards my front porch and the other lens pointing left to capture a blind spot towards the back of my house. Others mentioned IR reflection, just wondering if this only occurs when the lens are pointing towards each other than in opposite directions. Not sure if you still have this cam or if you tested this configuration.


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I have a setup similar to your proposed setup and I get no IR reflections. Looking at the Dahua catalog that was posted a few weeks back, this camera appears to have been discontinued. At least I didn't see it there.
 

looney2ns

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@looney2ns I’m considering buying one of these cams to mount on the side of my house with one lens pointing to the right to capture people walking towards my front porch and the other lens pointing left to capture a blind spot towards the back of my house. Others mentioned IR reflection, just wondering if this only occurs when the lens are pointing towards each other than in opposite directions. Not sure if you still have this cam or if you tested this configuration.


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Cam is still available. It depends, other light in the area can sometime cause reflections in the dome. It's always best to temporarily test a location before permanent mounting.
I have the cam on the back of my house, as long as I keep the domes clean, I have no problem. Otherwise I get this:
SunroomWalk 2020-02-04 01.01.21.657 AM.jpg
 

nbstl68

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I have not read all 30 pages through so I fear repeating this question but I thought I saw somewhere a discussion about how you can only do motion detection on one of the two cameras? Is that correct or can you set both \ either combination of motion detect and\or 24/7 recording using Dahua NVR or BI?
 

pmcross

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Cam is still available. It depends, other light in the area can sometime cause reflections in the dome. It's always best to temporarily test a location before permanent mounting.
I have the cam on the back of my house, as long as I keep the domes clean, I have no problem. Otherwise I get this:
View attachment 55115
Thanks for this. This is what I was concerned about since it is a dome camera-that rain and dirt would form on the dome(s) causing blind spots. I'm also worried because this camera would have no protection from the elements since it would be mounted to the side of my house and about 5-6 feet high. I'd rather go with turret style, but I don't believe that a dual turret style exists. Just out of curiosity, is yours under an eve and how often do you have to clean the dome(s)?
 
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I have not read all 30 pages through so I fear repeating this question but I thought I saw somewhere a discussion about how you can only do motion detection on one of the two cameras? Is that correct or can you set both \ either combination of motion detect and\or 24/7 recording using Dahua NVR or BI?
Weird but I have each camera separately in Blue Iris interface and I believe (doubting myself now) that motion detection works fine on both?
 

looney2ns

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Thanks for this. This is what I was concerned about since it is a dome camera-that rain and dirt would form on the dome(s) causing blind spots. I'm also worried because this camera would have no protection from the elements since it would be mounted to the side of my house and about 5-6 feet high. I'd rather go with turret style, but I don't believe that a dual turret style exists. Just out of curiosity, is yours under an eve and how often do you have to clean the dome(s)?
No dual turret exists.
It's under an eve, about 6" from the face of the fascia.
I clean about 6 weeks or so.
 

Sybertiger

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@looney2ns I’m considering buying one of these cams to mount on the side of my house with one lens pointing to the right to capture people walking towards my front porch and the other lens pointing left to capture a blind spot towards the back of my house. Others mentioned IR reflection, just wondering if this only occurs when the lens are pointing towards each other than in opposite directions. Not sure if you still have this cam or if you tested this configuration.


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I haven't notice any IR reflections. The "package cam" is always in color mode day and night. The "walkway cam" is IR mode at night. Note that I have uplighting that automagically turns on/off it it's causing some reflection as seen on the walkway at night. With the uplighting turned off I haven't notice any IR reflections in the dome and as pointed out earlier it'd be important to keep the dome clean including the inside.


Untitled.jpg
 

Arjun

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If they make an AI version of this camera, that would be epic :D
 

Arjun

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What's the latest firmware for this model?
 

wittaj

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So I have two of these cams and they work really well in the right location.

About a week ago I noticed I lost the live feed in the GUI. I went round and round with Explorer changing settings to and following every option I could find to get live view working but to no avail.

I then remembered awhile back I changed the decoding to H.265, so I switched it back to H.264 and then live feed returned.

Can anyone else see live feed as H265 in Explorer?

Not a huge deal as I just switch back to BI to see the changes to settings, but it would be nice to have them in the GUI.
 

pozzello

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works for me... I set all 4 channels to H265 and had no issues in Explorer (v11.778 on 32-bit win 10)

snapshots from when i had only channel 1 main stream on H265.

Maybe compare your firmware and web versions to mine (never updated since new).

Id' suggest uninstalling and re-installing the active-x plugin from the cam, if I knew how... :)

boobie-cam-live.PNGboobie-cam-video.PNGboobie-cam-version.PNG
 

pozzello

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now that I think about it. , I may have newer a version of the web plug in for IE (than came on the cam originally),
as i have other Dahua's on newer FW...

plugin.PNG
 
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wittaj

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@pozzello - yep I am running the same firmware and somehow figured out how to reinstall the plugin but no dice.

I have newer dahua too, let me see if maybe a wipe of the plugin and opening the first newest one will take care of it.

edit:
I have the following plugins active and still no go:
3.3.60333.0
3.3.16431.0
3.1.0.0

and I get a No signal for H265, but H264 shows the live view.

1587480773481.png
 
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