Review: Dahua SD5A425XA-HNR 4MP 25x Starlight IR PTZ

handinpalm

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I want to install SD5A425XA-HNR in X spot. 5 meters hight, 3-4 meters from from low fence and public side walk/street.

How much this PTZ will be visible to people on side walk?

Is direction of optics visible from that height?

PS. Is there any other PTZ with AI and auto track which are less recognizable as PTZ (I don't have problems with installing more normals IPCs, but very recognizable PTZ can be a problem for neighbors or police)...

View attachment 77806
Here is a pic of mine at ~5 meters. I you look hard, you can tell where it is pointed. At ~ 10 meters it is very hard to tell where it is pointed.

PTZ Pic.jpg
 

tibimakai

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What if you would install it behind the wall, and stick out just the black part?
You could even paint most of the black part as well.
 

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pc750

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If you could find this style of camera to suit your requirements. That may solve the the visibility issue.
 

rahhazar

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Not sure why they don’t have the smaller ptz in white, I have a bigger ptz only surrounding lense is black.
It is less attentive but painting it white can help.
 

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tibimakai

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Yet, you still have 1, IPC-HDBW4231F-AS:)
Actually, I'm about to go out and replace it, with an older 5231R-Z. I have got two 5442 for the front, as Christmas present. That wedge is horrible in the porch, most of the image is badly pixelated(huge square ones).
Initially I have bought it for the entrance, but I have changed my mind about it, and installed a birdhouse 5442 instead.
 

tibimakai

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OK, wedge is gone, finally, it is a horrible camera. The image in the middle is nice and clear, and all around is pixelated. I don't understand why?
 

pc750

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Plastic domes degrade over time and become ever more opaque. They also suffer internal reflections. You don't want a dome outside.
I was referring to the recessed PTZ functionally to suit install requirements rather than the fact it is a dome. I have about 20 domes that are useless at night due to IR on dirty domes, not that I installed them, but I now have to deal with their inadequacy.
 

Wildcat_1

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Happy New Year All !

As promised, I’ve been testing this new version of the 5A425 FW and wanted to report back on my findings. Long story short, I wouldn’t overly recommend this FW update. Let me detail my findings below:
  • Tested across multiple units and found that Internet Explorer (IE) could not be used to successfully upgrade, many times would hang, not complete or result in a reboot resulting in an unsucessful FW update. Firefox worked without issue but again you would still want to use IE for primary setup and config changes
  • PTZ auto tracking (Alarm Track) response is a little better and the algorithm has been tweaked slightly to crispen the performance but not a huge change here in real-world testing. My reminder here is to always dial your tracking into your FOV, location and desired targets and that will lead to better success
  • SMD while not bad in current FW (6/08) was tweaked in a similar way to the feedback I provided (along with others) on the 5442 vari. Therefore in this case even more accurate SMD results now although I never saw too many issues with SMD on this PTZ anyway

So while those changes are OK why wouldn’t I recommend the update ? Well that depends on your use case and your thoughts based on my next update below.

Specifically, Video Metadata changes are NOT GOOD. As you may recall from earlier posts I mentioned and showed that this cam has the ability to do ANPR and certainly captures both vehicle details and license plate caps. However my findings in the latest release version (6/08) that I shared with Dahua were that although these plates were captured, the camera was not processing them into metadata and therefore would not a) identify the license plate itself in metadata even though clearly shown and b) would also not be able to be used for black/white listing on an attached NVR.

I provided this feedback to Dahua to ideally have them resolve this issue and allow the camera to process the metadata from these caps correctly BUT unfortunately it instead appears that they have removed the capability (or masked it) in this new FW release (11/23) which in my opinion is not a good move. Specifically you will notice that rather than your green video metadata box in GUI that tracks plates, it has been removed. With that said, the cam is still capturing plates BUT the new FW simply crops the image to remove the plate, in other words you literally end up with black/blank space around where the plate was at the bottom of the cap in AI Live etc. How do I know this is the approach thats been taken ? Well, when I look at code you can see this has been implemented locally i.e. for local cam caps, checking SD card also confirms the output. However, if still connected to an NVR, the NVR continues to receive the full image with plate attached BUT again no processing of the plate for metadata. In my opinion this is a step backwards, not forwards.

To me, this is not the right approach to take with this feature and instead should actually have focus on improving the FW to process the metadata rather than just mask details in cam to effectively remove the feature.

I am sharing this feedback again with @EMPIRETECANDY & Dahua in hopes to get this functionality re-instated and working as it should which is to process plates and post / tag metadata to the caps. Will continue to update on this as we move forward.

So, in summary, not a bad FW update for the other areas I addressed above (just remember to use Firefox for the update) BUT bear in mind if you like the ANPR feature (albeit not implemented in its full state yet) or solely rely on in cam caps (no NVR in the mix) then I would certainly consider staying on 6/08 for now.

HTH and as always, please let me know with any questions
 
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ajwitt

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@EMPIRETECANDY @Wildcat_1 any review of SD-49425XB-HNR yet?
It is the 4MP version of the camera being discussed here. Many of us have commented about the 4MP version within the thread...

 

EMPIRETECANDY

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@EMPIRETECANDY @Wildcat_1 any review of SD-49425XB-HNR yet?
2mp is good for low light place.(countryside/forest) Totally dark place can reach around 90m(around 300ft)
4mp is good for good light places. (Street/business/home place with GOOD light in the night)
Both 2 have the same autotracking capacity, WONDERFUL autotracking. :D
 

Parley

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2mp is good for low light place.(countryside/forest) Totally dark place can reach around 90m(around 300ft)
4mp is good for good light places. (Street/business/home place with GOOD light in the night)
Both 2 have the same autotracking capacity, WONDERFUL autotracking. :D
Andy, they need to stick the 1/1.8" sensor in that camera. ;) Maybe next year. :)
 

oneeyeopen

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Andy, they need to stick the 1/1.8" sensor in that camera. ;) Maybe next year. :)
I need to add 3 PTZ autotracking cams to my system. I am leaning towards the SD49225XA-HNR instead of the SD49425XB due to a low light situation.
Is there a different option that has the 1/1.8" sensor instead of these that have the 1.28"?

@EMPIRETECANDY any news/rumors on a 2021 update with the 1/1.8" sensor??
 

ajwitt

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I need to add 3 PTZ autotracking cams to my system. I am leaning towards the SD49225XA-HNR instead of the SD49425XB due to a low light situation.
Is there a different option that has the 1/1.8" sensor instead of these that have the 1.28"?

@EMPIRETECANDY any news/rumors on a 2021 update with the 1/1.8" sensor??
This one:

 
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