Review: IPC-LPR237B-IR / Equivalent of Dahua ITC237-PW6M-IRLZF1050-B - ANPR, Traffic & Access Control Camera

All

As promised, here is the menu walk through for V3.0 of the ITC camera for those interested. I go through each screen and show the areas of focus for configuration etc. Some points I wanted to make all aware of for clarity on this cam to identify some extra features and to point out what can and cannot be done in current FW:

  • As expected, no 'general' IVS rules as this (like I mentioned above) is a traffic / ANPR / access cam rather than general security
  • No time based profiles or profile management options. The cam will detect 'scene's from day/night/dawn & dusk and apply settings you configured for those BUT no option to manually use time based scene switching
  • Exposure is set as a constant, i.e. if setting your exposure manually then that range is set for ALL scene's / ALL times of day. This means you need to set an appropriate range just wide enough for successful capture through day and night
  • Alerts can be set for 'No Plate' which is great for specifically searching and identifying either those that could not be recognized or be alerted to those with no plates in an area
  • Fuzzy searches are ** EXCELLENT ** for trying to identify 'repeat visitors' to an area where you may have only visually identified a few numbers/digits. Also great when working with LEO's and searching your caps for a partial match

  1. CRITICAL NOTE: Only plate and vehicle picture caps are held on the cam, video is offloaded to the end platform such as NVR, SmartPSS, other recording platforms. So as I demonstrated, the camera can process all ANPR / Access Control on cam along with Allow and Block lists without the need for a backend NVR or platform. The captures are meta-tagged beautifully (thanks to the on-board camera processing) so all plate, vehicle, logo, driver face data is available. However picture capture / review is available on camera, NVR or both BUT video playback is only available on an NVR

    In a Traffic Cam deployment this is generally not an issue as you are processing all caps (pic and video) through centralized servers anyway BUT for those deploying with no back end NVR/platform I wanted everyone to understand what to expect on cam itself vs NVR. Do not expect to be able to playback video of a cap on the cam directly BUT you can view pics and of course watch live processing as I've demonstrated through its Live menu in the OBS caps

  2. CRITICAL NOTE: The data on the SD card is proprietary to the ITC line of cams so if you try and place the SD card in another computer or even another (non ITC) Dahua cam, the results cannot be viewed. This is primarily for security and watermarking / digital fingerprinting that you want to ensure is intact in a traffic camera from an data integrity perspective. Especially critical for evidential presentation

Video Link

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I'll also add the video only up in the original video post for reference there too. As always, let me know with any questions
 
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So what is the cost of this model?
Does it work for U.S. plates?
Can it tie into local law enforcement hot lists to notify them if it detects a plate they are searching for, (stolen, crime, amber alert) like the newer lease business model turn-key setups can do, (Flock Falcon cam, Motorola L5Q)?
Why are these still only 2MP when 4mp 1/1.8 and better sensors are out there for what should be even better night capture?
 
nbstl68 said:
So what is the cost of this model?
Does it work for U.S. plates?
Can it tie into local law enforcement hot lists to notify them if it detects a plate they are searching for, (stolen, crime, amber alert) like the newer lease business model turn-key setups can do, (Flock Falcon cam, Motorola L5Q)?
Why are these still only 2MP when 4mp 1/1.8 and better sensors are out there for what should be even better night capture?
Click to expand...

Answers to your questions:

  1. This is approx $580 - $600 USD as I mention above from @EMPIRETECANDY shipped which is about $200 USD (on average) cheaper than other resellers but as much as $500 cheaper than others
  2. Yes works on US plates as you can see from my video's in this review (post 2 HERE) and is 1 of the few cams with truly embedded plate algorithms for import cams that works on US plate recognition since this is a full blown Traffic / ANPR / Access Cam
  3. This is a 2MP 1/1.8" sensor pairing (usually 2MP's are paired with 1/2.8" so an improvement on this cam) that gives excellent night time plate and vehicle capture in 1. Most cams have to be set for 1/1000 or higher and depending on location force you to choose plate or vehicle details but not both. This also limits the ability for non-plate embedded cams to recognize a vehicle then process for a plate. Therefore the MP to sensor pairing of this unit is more on point than some of the 4MP offerings (that cram more MP's on the same size sensor therefore degrading quality somewhat and adding noise) PLUS it keeps cost for the user down (check out my 8442 review for an ANPR capable, non plate embedded mode that is approx double the price). The 8442 can certainly handle low light, fast shutter, vehicle + plate in shot as I show in that review BUT remember that is ANPR AI not plate embedded + again is approx double the cost or more. As I show in my videos this cam has more than enough resolution to accurately recognize plates even under ridiculous angles and lighting conditions.
  4. Lastly with regards to interaction with LEO. You can certainly have this cam 'watch' for specific vehicle models, types, plates, partial plates (fuzzy search I mention above), color OR combination of some or all of the above attributes and automatically alert out (email notifications etc) to your endpoint of choice. If you wanted to use a 3rd party platform then you can also always send a stream from this cam to something like OpenALPR, Milestone etc etc. Therefore you have the options here to identify hotlist vehicles with a wide array of details (or not as the case may be) like I said above using fuzzy matching for partial plate rundowns in an area or 'on the lookout for' vehicle type and color which you can not only alert by but query by in the DB is incredibly useful both for home, business and LEO applications
HTH, check the videos and the other info I posted in this review and any other questions, feel free to reach out.
 
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I'm going to wait for additional folks to buy it, upload pictures of their setup then go from there :p
 
Arjun said:
I'm going to wait for additional folks to buy it, upload pictures of their setup then go from there :p
Click to expand...

Its an incredibly capable camera for ANPR. I tested quickly against a 7442-Z4 (and you know I like the 7x42 series as great cams anyway) but since there is no plate embedded algorithm's in the 7x42's, for ANPR specifically, the ITC237 performs at a different level both in terms of speed of recognition and accuracy. The 7x42's absolutely have their place and they hold that place very well as I've mentioned before. Obviously the ITC range have their place too as I mentioned in the intro and leave 'general' security to other cams (like the 7x42's, 5x42's and PTZ brethren) but for what the ITC's do, they really do blow it out the park. I even did a crazy, highly not recommended test of putting the ITC behind glass to see if I really could fool it into failing and with a target 86 feet out, it still successfully and accurately captured the plate ! Not many other cams able to do that in an ANPR role :)

Yes larger cam than a standard but nowhere near as big as the 8442 behemoth :). If you can find a place for this cam, it will quite happily process any ANPR or access tasks you throw at it (maybe thats a line for my summary :)) even in crazy FOV's as I purposefully have tested against.
 
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Is it possible to get a USA version of firmware you tested? I got a
ITC237-PW6M-IRLZF from BH, with
2.623.0000000.0.R, Build Date: 2020-04-07. It captures pretty legible plates on image but says no plates. Strange if US company sell cam with firmware not suitable for US. I did check dahua us website and looks like 2.623.0000000.0.R, Build Date: 2020-04-07 is the latest.
Thanks.
 
dimammx said:
Is it possible to get a USA version of firmware you tested? I got a
ITC237-PW6M-IRLZF from BH, with
2.623.0000000.0.R, Build Date: 2020-04-07. It captures pretty legible plates on image but says no plates. Strange if US company sell cam with firmware not suitable for US. I did check dahua us website and looks like 2.623.0000000.0.R, Build Date: 2020-04-07 is the latest.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

The latest North American (USA) FW available for this cam from resellers would be 2.623 with build date 2020-06-30.
 
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Wildcat_1 said:
The latest North American (USA) FW available for this cam from resellers would be 2.623 with build date 2020-06-30.
Click to expand...
Thanks, reinstalling same version firmware fixed the issue, perhaps someone put wrong region firmware on it.
 
The only 625 version i was able to find was General_ITC215(237)-PW6M-XXX_Eng_PN_Oversea_ITCPUSH_AreaPack_V2.625.0000000.0.R.201105.bin.
Not sure if it is for US plates, it was from dahua.support site and looked Polish.
 
So you really need to ask yourself, why am I updating? If it is just for kicks, then stay with what is working.

A common theme around here is don't fix what ain't broke. If the unit is working and meets your needs, in many instances an update breaks what you had working and provides you with something you didn't need. A Dahua Z12E that someone updated and then constantly reboots comes to mind; a certain Dahua PTZ that loses autotracking with an update come to mind, a camera that loses nightvision with a firmware update; a Hikvision ANPR camera losing half the FPS and loses the ability to read US plates - those are big deals to have happen. Don't do it unless it is fixing a problem you are experiencing or adds a feature you really need. In many instances, the camera cannot be rolled back as the person with Hikvision ANPR was finding out. Now he has an ANPR camera in the US that cannot read US plates....

Further, it is best to obtain any firmware updates from the vendor you purchased it from so that you do not run into issues. Any firmware you find here or elsewhere is obviously proceed at your own risk. We have many threads here where someone tried an update with a firmware they found on the internet and bricked their unit.

Many units being sold are Chinese hacked units that will either brick or go into Chinese upon updating. Some vendors will be upfront and tell consumers that as part of their website, but many do not or the consumer forgets...here is one such example....


1614546148413.png
 
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wittaj said:
So you really need to ask yourself, why am I updating? If it is just for kicks, then stay with what is working.

A common theme around here is don't fix what ain't broke. If the unit is working and meets your needs, in many instances an update breaks what you had working and provides you with something you didn't need. A Dahua Z12E that someone updated and then constantly reboots comes to mind; a certain Dahua PTZ that loses autotracking with an update come to mind, a camera that loses nightvision with a firmware update; a Hikvision ANPR camera losing half the FPS and loses the ability to read US plates - those are big deals to have happen. Don't do it unless it is fixing a problem you are experiencing or adds a feature you really need. In many instances, the camera cannot be rolled back as the person with Hikvision ANPR was finding out. Now he has an ANPR camera in the US that cannot read US plates....

Further, it is best to obtain any firmware updates from the vendor you purchased it from so that you do not run into issues. Any firmware you find here or elsewhere is obviously proceed at your own risk. We have many threads here where someone tried an update with a firmware they found on the internet and bricked their unit.

Many units being sold are Chinese hacked units that will either brick or go into Chinese upon updating. Some vendors will be upfront and tell consumers that as part of their website, but many do not or the consumer forgets...here is one such example....


1614546148413.png
Click to expand...
Yes The main reason behind upgrade was the fact that camera captured legible plate picture every time yet returned no plates result every time. So i thought it needed an update to latest version . But what fixed it was just reinstall of the same firmware version from dahua us website. I assumed somehow non us firmware was installed on it.
 
dimammx said:
Yes The main reason behind upgrade was the fact that camera captured legible plate picture every time yet returned no plates result every time. So i thought it needed an update to latest version . But what fixed it was just reinstall of the same firmware version from dahua us website. I assumed somehow non us firmware was installed on it.
Click to expand...

Remember defaulting (sometimes as many as 5 times) the cam after an upgrade / reinstall fixes a lot. Definitely becomes a friend in your toolbox ;)
 
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dimammx said:
The only 625 version i was able to find was General_ITC215(237)-PW6M-XXX_Eng_PN_Oversea_ITCPUSH_AreaPack_V2.625.0000000.0.R.201105.bin.
Not sure if it is for US plates, it was from dahua.support site and looked Polish.
Click to expand...
What was indicated is the 625 firmware revision 0. And I was talking about the firmware revision 1. There is a US region when choosing a recognition algorithm.
 
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