Review - Dahua SD49225XA-HNR 2MP 25x Starlight + IR PTZ AI Camera with Deep IVS & SMD Plus

Any recommended adjustments to improve tracking based on this clip? Autotracking is working much better on all moving objects fast or slow, but it doesn't hold for long. You can see in this clip tracking breaks after the person walks by the sign pole.

Tracking target size is down to 23 and starting to feel too zoomed out but.

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Do not run default/auto settings. It looks like you are basically at that.

It is a matter of getting the brightness/contrast and target ratio settings correct, and these can change during different seasons for some FoVs.

I always knew that you shouldn't chase a bright picture - it looks nice and people migrate towards a brighter TV for example, but upon closer examination, most images need to be toned down in order to get all the details. You will be surprised how much changing a parameter like gamma could impact tracking. For example, if you have a pesky tree or something in the middle of the view during an autotrack, just by changing some image parameters you can get autotrack to pass it. Making the image a little darker at night actually helped with tracking someone across the street, which was opposite of what I thought you would think to do. So add some contrast to your image and see if it improves.

I have a yard lamp post that more times than not autotrack would get stuck on it as someone was walking and the autotrack would only go so far. Because my image has soo much contrast (bright white concrete a third, blacktop road a third, grass a third), knocking down the gamma made the lamp post not be so "trackable" lol, and along with that I turned of PFA and that gave it just enough time to retrack the person walking past the lamp post. The camera may still autotrack the lamp post when a small kid goes by, but an adult it was autotracking past the lamp post. Most see better results if the contrast number is 8-10 higher than the brightness number.

Ideally for an intrusion box or tripwires, you should have the initial field of view be such that the camera doesn't have to initially pan too much up/down or left/right to get the object in the center of the screen to start tracking. The closer the object is to the center of the image, the better the chance that it will track correctly. An entire Field of View intrusion box can cause it to latch on to the wrong item.

The reason it starts looking upward or left or right is usually because the intrusion box is too big so the camera identifies the object before it is in the center of the field of view and then sometimes something else matches the "algorithm signature" of the initial object and then starts trying to track something that isn't there. Adjusting the field of view and the locations of the IVS rules to be closer to the center can fix that.

Autotracking PTZs are great, but they have limitations like everything else. Installed in a wrong location or with fields of view that do not give it a chance will be problematic.
 
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Thank you Wittaj. I'll slowly adjust the different condition settings starting with lowering brightness as you mentioned.

I have PFA off based on your previous post. I tried to adjust the primary area of motion for the driveway entrance and this is an improvement from where it was, but will take that into consideration as well.
 
Hi - I have a fairly long run & am using the Amazon Microseven mic that was suggested. It would be pretty difficult to run another wire for powering an external mic.

I did swap my 30 watt POE for a 90 watt (or something) POE hoping that it would make the mic work but that didnt happen. Is there anything I can do to get the microphone working over the existing cat6?

Thanks,
Rich

I would purchase a GOOD quality 12vdc power supply, such as this 12vdc power supply and run a cable 16awg gauge two conductor, copper wire from the location of the power supply to the PTZ.
Cut off the cigarette lighter plug, and connect directly to the cable by soldering and heat shrink tubing. Leave ferrite core on the cable, it helps reduce noise.
Then at the camera end, use the 2 conductor wire to power both the camera and the microphone.
You no longer will need to send POE on the ethernet cable.
As always, bench test everything first.
 
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Hi - I have a fairly long run & am using the Amazon Microseven mic that was suggested. It would be pretty difficult to run another wire for powering an external mic.

I did swap my 30 watt POE for a 90 watt (or something) POE hoping that it would make the mic work but that didnt happen. Is there anything I can do to get the microphone working over the existing cat6?

Thanks,
Rich
How long of run? Exactly How are you powering the camera now?
 
Can anyone with a well tuned 49225 share their camera's picture settings? I know it's specific to the camera placement and unique conditions, but I'm curious which adjustments helped the most. It would be really helpful if you could share what the default setting image looks like compared to after adjustment. Here is my before and after.
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Mine showed up today. Build date 8/21, firmware from 3/12/20.
Have it hung up in my basement just to check things out.

Everything looks to be working good. Very quiet, etc...
Probably won't be able to hang it up until this weekend, or next week. Have several other things that are on the "honey do list". lol..
 
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Do not update the firmware from Dahua, you will lose auto tracking.
 
Can anyone with a well tuned 49225 share their camera's picture settings? I know it's specific to the camera placement and unique conditions, but I'm curious which adjustments helped the most. It would be really helpful if you could share what the default setting image looks like compared to after adjustment. Here is my before and after.
View attachment 132017
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No offense intended, but I think your tweaked settings look a lot worse than the stock settings. The contrast is much higher in your "tweaked" example (you loose detail in the woods across the road for example) and the colors are oversaturated. You rarely want to turn sharpness up (in fact most of us turn it way down) because it simply adds contrast and artifacts to the image to make the object's edges appear higher in contrast which tricks our eye into thinking it is "sharper". It doesn't actually "sharpen" the image and actually has the opposite effect because it degrades the image to do this.

Take this image as an example of what the "sharpening" setting does to an image.
Usm-unsharp-mask.png
 
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No offense intended, but I think your tweaked settings look a lot worse than the stock settings. The contrast is much higher in your "tweaked" example (you loose detail in the woods across the road for example) and the colors are oversaturated. You rarely want to turn sharpness up (in fact most of us turn it way down) because it simply adds contrast and artifacts to the image to make the object's edges appear higher in contrast which tricks our eye into thinking it is "sharper". It doesn't actually "sharpen" the image and actually has the opposite effect because it degrades the image to do this.

Take this image as an example of what the "sharpening" setting does to an image.
Usm-unsharp-mask.png
None taken at all. I really appreciate all suggestions here. I'll try tweaking the options you mentioned. Your pointers are exactly what I was hoping. Thank you
 
The SD49225XA-HNR S1 with Autotracking will be end of stocks soon, so we will have the None Autotracking version after the stock use up, will sell the S2 version. The 4MP SD49425XB-HNR will go on selling for a while.
There has lots of version for 49225, here are the main difference, the S2 version will be the best. Here are the details for you!

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So should I pull the trigger on sd49225xa-hnr or continue to wait until I know my wife won't be to upset and get sd49425xb-hnr if 49225 happens to no longer have Autotracking?
Pull the trigger now. The 49425 model is the 4mp model, but because it is using the same sensor as the 2mp model, the low/no light performance is noticeably worse. Don't let the 2mp resolution of the 49225 fool you. Because it is a PTZ, you can zoom in and usually mitigate any "low resolution" issues. Certainly the low/no light performance on the 49225 model is more desirable.