Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+

[essjay]

Also, any idea why the €10ish difference between this and the IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED? Are the white LED's really €10 cheaper than the IR emitters?

Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (white LED) - €134.33
Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS (IR) - €143.28
Hikvision IPC-T2347G-LU (white LED) - €143.85

 

[aristobrat]

Any idea why the €10ish difference between this and the IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED? Are the white LED's really €10 cheaper than the IR emitters?

Not sure if (or how much) this might contribute to the price difference, but there's also no mechanical IR cut filter in the LED unit either.

I've got both the IR and LED model. The LED model was a review unit. I don't have any areas around my house where I need a bright LED light shining all night, so it was harder to find a spot where this camera could be useful (i.e. enough ambient light to keep it happy; disable the LEDs from coming on). Even though the Dahua LED model is marketed as "Full Color", it switches to B/W when the ambient light gets low enough.

My guess is that most folks would be best served with the IR model unless they have a dark area like a porch, driveway, etc that they want visibility illuminated at night, then the LED model might make more sense.

 

[essjay]

Mmmm, in my case I have a number (5) half lantern type lights at the front of my house, each with a 20w LED 2400 lumen bulbs and I'm trying to go full colour. The cheaper model should tick that box....

 

[sebastiantombs]

I have a T5445TS set up and running for about a week and really like it. As soon as I got it I updated to the 11-18-2019 firmware. The video is excellent quality, both day and night, and I can leave it in color mode at night with just the ambient light from a street light about 200 feet away. I have experienced a few, minor, glitches though and wonder if anyone else has seen any of these. Understand that I am not knocking Dahua, it is a fairly new product with some more advanced features, I just want to know if I'm just "lucky".

I set the bit rate to CBR at 8192 to eliminated compression artifacts. On its own the camera reverted that back to 6192 but did maintain the CBR setting. That only happened once.

I normally only use BI for motion detection but this camera is so sensitive, as a function of resolution I guess, to headlight glare and shadows created by headlights that I want to use IVS as well. This is my first time using ONVIF triggers and everything was working fine after I created some rules. Then it went nuts and would trigger every time a car went down the street which is far from where any rules would trigger it. Long story short, the video detection was on, so I shut it off and saved that setting. Everything was fine for a while, then the same thing again. When I checked video detection was turned on again. This went on for a few days. Long story short, I cleared the detection zones and now it doesn't matter if motion detection turns on or not. For the heck of it I just checked and it's turned on, yet again.

The camera is not set to auto reboot and is on a separate VLAN that has no internet access. I'm scratching my head so any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[looney2ns]

I have a T5445TS set up and running for about a week and really like it. As soon as I got it I updated to the 11-18-2019 firmware. The video is excellent quality, both day and night, and I can leave it in color mode at night with just the ambient light from a street light about 200 feet away. I have experienced a few, minor, glitches though and wonder if anyone else has seen any of these. Understand that I am not knocking Dahua, it is a fairly new product with some more advanced features, I just want to know if I'm just "lucky".

I set the bit rate to CBR at 8192 to eliminated compression artifacts. On its own the camera reverted that back to 6192 but did maintain the CBR setting. That only happened once.

I normally only use BI for motion detection but this camera is so sensitive, as a function of resolution I guess, to headlight glare and shadows created by headlights that I want to use IVS as well. This is my first time using ONVIF triggers and everything was working fine after I created some rules. Then it went nuts and would trigger every time a car went down the street which is far from where any rules would trigger it. Long story short, the video detection was on, so I shut it off and saved that setting. Everything was fine for a while, then the same thing again. When I checked video detection was turned on again. This went on for a few days. Long story short, I cleared the detection zones and now it doesn't matter if motion detection turns on or not. For the heck of it I just checked and it's turned on, yet again.

The camera is not set to auto reboot and is on a separate VLAN that has no internet access. I'm scratching my head so any thoughts are appreciated.

If you are talking about "motion detection" being turned on, yes this happens and the solution is to do what you've done.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Glad to know I'm not the only one, but have to wonder what's going on in the mind of Dahua with this. Off should be off and stay that way. Maybe they'll fix it in a later firmware update. Being my first venture into IVS it kind of surprised and befuddled (easy to do now a days) me.

 

[Sybertiger]

If you are talking about "motion detection" being turned on, yes this happens and the solution is to do what you've done.

Is motion detection being reenabled only if the camera loses power then reboots? Or is there something else causes the motion detection box getting checked again. I wasn't paying attention but one time one of mine which didn't have motion detection enable somehow enabled it in during the night and in the morning I had a ba-gillion alerts, one for each time a car drived by the house. I never figured out how that happened but at the time I suspected that when the schedule switched from night to day it enabled it or maybe I had two different profiles...night had motion detection off but day had it on or something like that. That's why I'm asking to more precisely understand when it happens and under what conditions. Maybe my bad maybe Dahua firmware's bad.

 

[aristobrat]

Or is there something else causes the motion detection box getting checked again.

On my Dahua cameras it seems to happen when anything connects to the camera and subscribes to PullPoint. So any time the Blue Iris service restarts, or I edit a cameras settings and it does those "color bars" for a second a two, Motion Detection gets enabled (assuming BI is configured to use the cameras PullPoint subscription). Same thing happens if I use the ONVIF Device Manager program to connect to a Dahua camera.

This was a PITA for my 1831C-PIR because the PIR alarm and Motion Detection share the same detection zones. So if you blank out the Motion Detection zone, then the PIR zone is also blank and doesn't work. To work around this, I had to use a Blue Iris Alert action to run the CURL tool with an http command that disables Motion Detection without blanking out the zone. Ugh.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I don't use pullpoint subscriptions for anything so that isn't it. The camera was not powered down or rebooted by power, or by software. For that matter, BI just runs continuously other than updates or if I reboot the machine for some reason which is rare. I did trace it down to sort of a specific time of around 15:00-15:30 EDT so it doesn't seem related to profile changes, either. I just checked again, 15:35, and it's still off since I shut it off, again, earlier this morning. Still scratching my pate.

 

[aristobrat]

Your BI is able to detect Dahua IVS events and that camera doesn’t have the option for PullPoint enabled?

 

[sebastiantombs]

OK, ya got me. You're right pullpoint is enabled. Like I've said this is my first foray into using IVS, or any ONVIF, to trigger BI. So it is getting pullpoint communications but, again, BI is not rebooting/reconnecting for the motion detection to get enabled. Even if it were rebooting/reconnecting, I don't see why there would be any connection at all with pullpoint.

 

[Sybertiger]

If you are talking about "motion detection" being turned on, yes this happens and the solution is to do what you've done.

It happened again early this morning. I currently have two of these units up and running. Somehow the "Motion Detection" was enabled on only one of the two this morning. I believe it happened at exactly when the cam's IR circuit switched from night mode to color. You can see from the footage it goes from B&W to Color and at that same time a car with headlights on (which may have helped it to color mode) triggers a motion alert as it drives in front of the house. From then on I get constant motion alerts from cars the rest of the morning until I deactivate this setting. This happened at 6:49:11am which was early twilight as sunrise is 7:18am. I note on the other cam of this same model switched from B&W to Color 25 seconds later (pointing in a darker area) but did not enable the motion detection setting. I guess I'll need to go through the setting one by one and see if there's a difference between the two.

 

[jaegerschnitzel]

I'm thinking about purchasing one IPC-T5442TM-AS. Only thing that makes me think about it is the fixed aperture type. As far as I can see the 5231 has a variable aperture. Is this a big difference, especially if the sun is shining directly towards the cam (could happen in my mounting location in some months)?

Nobody?

 

[sebastiantombs]

@jaegerschnitzel IF you know what focal length will work for your, specific, application the T5442TM-AS is a pretty decent camera. Just be sure to clear the motion detection area completely if you're not going to use it.

Edited to add that I have a 3.6mm facing west, actually WNW, and have no problems with sun glare. It is under a soffet which helps a lot. It does "false" trigger in its own motion detection from car headlights but it's easy to not use that feature and use IVS instead.

 

[Sybertiger]

Nobody?

I've not had a problem with a camera facing west. But it's possible to get glare but the varifocal has nothing to do with it. With this cam you are going to have to decide on 2.8mm or 3.6mm. With the 2MP varifocal you can adjust the FOV over a wide range.

 

[looney2ns]

I've not had a problem with a camera facing west. But it's possible to get glare but the varifocal has nothing to do with it. With this cam you are going to have to decide on 2.8mm or 3.6mm. With the 2MP varifocal you can adjust the FOV over a wide range.

Also available in 6mm.

 

[jaegerschnitzel]

I've not had a problem with a camera facing west. But it's possible to get glare but the varifocal has nothing to do with it. With this cam you are going to have to decide on 2.8mm or 3.6mm. With the 2MP varifocal you can adjust the FOV over a wide range.

That's not the point. I'm not talking about lens type, I'm talking about aperture. Photo cameras can close the aperture when the sun is shining to reduce the amount of light and increase the depth of field at the same time.
According to the specs 5231 can also do this. IPC-T5442T not because there is a fixed aperture. Is this fixed aperture a real disadvantage in real world use or not?

 

[ANTH040]

This has a 1/8 image sensor Compared to IPC-T5241H-AS-PV which has a 2/8. The 1/8 in the review is larger making it better at low light is that correct? Best low light for this cost?

Also field of view is better on this because of angle of view or and mega pixel? Unsure what I shouldbe looking at on the description to work out the field of view.

Looking at ipvm its a 7 meters to identify on dori for the 3.6 lens my car is exactly 7 meters away from the camera position and 13 meters beyond my car to the opposite side of the road.

 

[bigredfish]

That's not the point. I'm not talking about lens type, I'm talking about aperture. Photo cameras can close the aperture when the sun is shining to reduce the amount of light and increase the depth of field at the same time.
According to the specs 5231 can also do this. IPC-T5442T not because there is a fixed aperture. Is this fixed aperture a real disadvantage in real world use or not?

Bright direct sunlight flares out my 5231 varifocals the same as it does my 5442 fixed.

That said it hasn’t been a problem for me and I quit trying to get the sun to quit moving

 

[Holbs]

I have 13 cams so far. Ordered 2 more. 2 x T5442tm-AS. Will replace a couple front yard cams. Geez... this gets spendy month after month I remember when I thought 4 would suffice.
Still hoping for a quality workable no fuss POE hardwired Dahua doorbell camera someday....