SD8C845FG-HNF 8MP 45x 1/1.2'' CMOS Dual Light Fusion Electronic Defog Network PTZ Camera

prsmith777

Getting comfortable
Joined
Dec 23, 2019
Messages
268
Reaction score
379
Location
Colorado
Was thinking about this new PTZ for covering front street.

IR range is limited around 250 meters but I think I’m good. Street is max 300 feet distance.

What I find odd is the white light illuminator. Wouldnt it shine down like a spotlight ? Not sure I would like that but maybe. Maybe there is a way to use it only when tracking. That might be interesting.

I do like the 1/1.2” sensor on 8MP.

 

kobebeef

Pulling my weight
Joined
Mar 13, 2016
Messages
207
Reaction score
229
I only have the previous generation COMS1/1.8" IMX334 PTZ.
Pure white light fill light distance can reach 120m.
Whether the fill light automatically judges the range light or spotlight according to the current magnification zoom.

Turn off light.
120m1.png

Turn on light.
120m2.png
 

prsmith777

Getting comfortable
Joined
Dec 23, 2019
Messages
268
Reaction score
379
Location
Colorado
I would be shocked if it shined like a spotlight given the small size, especially at any distance, but I guess you need to get one and let us know LOL.
Above pics look alot like a spotlight. I'm OK with that. For whatever reason, Dahua shortened the range of the white light illuminator on the new camera. Camera only has a max range of 80 meters.

Here is a pic where this PTZ might be going from the color 4K-X 2.8 mm at night on a new moon. Im assuming its the same sensor as the PTZ.

1671387259498.jpeg

If I want color I am going to need the illuminator. Distance to road is max 250 feet on the far right of the FOV. The road on the left and up front is about 100 feet.

I'm leaning to purchase at this time but still undecided.
 

prsmith777

Getting comfortable
Joined
Dec 23, 2019
Messages
268
Reaction score
379
Location
Colorado
So I did get this PTZ. It is my first so I am just learning. Right now I have settings on auto and just figued out how to enable auto tracking. Here are a couple of clips from daytime. I havent had opportunity to do night testing yet... had a snow storm which obscured everything.


 

prsmith777

Getting comfortable
Joined
Dec 23, 2019
Messages
268
Reaction score
379
Location
Colorado
I changed the daytime setting to those outlined by @wittaj in various posts.

I have manual exposure with shutter 0-4 ms and gain 0-50. I knocked down NR both 2D and 3D to 25. Results are improved.

Balcony PTZ 2023-01-01 09.32.47.525 AM.jpg

Above pic is on auto settings. Below pic is on manual. I can almost read the license plate on the manual settings.

Balcony PTZ 2023-01-01 10.08.01.517 AM.jpg

This PTZ is running on webserver 5.0 and has lots of settings Im not familiar with. It has Iris setting ranging from 0-100. I also can't find anywhere to set Profile Management to Full Time. It has 8 different profiles to choose from including Day, Night, General, Front Light, Backlight, Strong Backlight, Low Illuminance, Custom 1 and Custom 2. I haven't experimented yet with switching profiles using http commands but I suspect the default settings for most cams will not work.
 

JDreaming

Getting comfortable
Joined
Jul 21, 2020
Messages
689
Reaction score
2,014
Location
East
Simply gorgeous picture perfect video quality. I will love to buy one if not for the size of the ptz just doesn't fit my need. But it sure is a joy
just watching the videos and capture of this amazing ptz. :love:
 

prsmith777

Getting comfortable
Joined
Dec 23, 2019
Messages
268
Reaction score
379
Location
Colorado
See if you can get some night time video.
I'm working on getting them. I believe we are getting more snow tonight, so that won't work.

I'm also having trouble getting the correct night settings for this cam. I tried doing manual exposure with shutter 0-8 ms and gain at 50 and image is black. I dont see hardly anything at all until I go way up on the shutter time and increase gain alot.

Not sure what to do about the iris setting and the auto exposure setting. I have soft white fill light and IR on zoom priority.

Also the autotracking isn't picking up much at night for cars. I havent walked down there to test people yet.
 

looney2ns

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Sep 25, 2016
Messages
15,521
Reaction score
22,657
Location
Evansville, In. USA
I'm working on getting them. I believe we are getting more snow tonight, so that won't work.

I'm also having trouble getting the correct night settings for this cam. I tried doing manual exposure with shutter 0-8 ms and gain at 50 and image is black. I dont see hardly anything at all until I go way up on the shutter time and increase gain alot.

Not sure what to do about the iris setting and the auto exposure setting. I have soft white fill light and IR on zoom priority.

Also the autotracking isn't picking up much at night for cars. I havent walked down there to test people yet.
Start with a shutter from 0-16ms, then slowly up the brightness some, along with upping the contrast. Usually want to keep the contrast set higher by 5-8 points than the brightness.
If you have plenty of brightness in the pic, then lower the shutter from 0-15ms, and test. Leave the gain at 50, don't mess with it until the last resort.
 

wittaj

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Apr 28, 2019
Messages
24,428
Reaction score
47,541
Location
USA
If your images at night are too dark, I have also found that you can run the shutter a little slower with a PTZ and still get great captures. Since the camera is following along with the subject, it ends up being the background that is blurry but the object is clear. So you could try 20 or 25ms. I wouldn't go much past 30ms though based on my testing.
 

prsmith777

Getting comfortable
Joined
Dec 23, 2019
Messages
268
Reaction score
379
Location
Colorado
I have a couple of night clips for review. It took a while to figure out how to get night and day profiles to change correctly (more on that later)

I have the following settings for night:

settings1.jpg
settings2.jpg
settings3.jpg
settings4.jpg

settings5.jpg



In the clip with the teens walking down the street in the middle of the night, seems like there should be a way to improve the tracking. It loses focus and tracking on the first set of kids. It misses the second set entirely and does pretty well on the third set. The trees are a problem, but I plan to mount the PTZ a couple of feet higher when I can get someone with a 30 ft ladder to install it.
 

wittaj

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Apr 28, 2019
Messages
24,428
Reaction score
47,541
Location
USA
A couple of things I noticed.

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

Second is dialing this in with snow on the ground will result in completely different settings and tracking than when there is no snow on the ground. So if you dial it in now, it will probably miss when snow isn't on the ground, so you will be going thru this again.

I set the General profile up for snow and the night profile for no snow. This has the newer web GUI, so you have a lot more profiles and could do even more for different times of the year. This is something @bigredfish probably doesn't have to deal with LOL.

Agree about trying it with the PFA off at night.

Iris at 100 is way too high. These images are all digital processed and need to stay within certain ranges. It is rare to use a setting other than IR at the full extreme. Some settings you can push beyond 70, some you can push to 80, but 100 will result in issues.

The Zoom once it starts tracking is another that shouldn't be at 100 - try changing to 80 or 85.

Because of the snow, to the object algorithm, it struggles. You notice that it wasn't until the last set of kids where someone was in darker clothes than the other sets, it had a much better time tracking.

My snow profile has a contrast swing of 20 higher than brightness to try to combat that. During non-snow, the contrast is about 8 higher than brightness. You have brightness higher than contrast.

You need to adjust gamma and the others as well.

I am glad to see you followed some of my other posts as a starting point, now just some dialing in and with a PTZ, it takes longer than a fixed camera.

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 is 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, as can a tripwire to far on the left or right.

These captures didn't do it, but sometimes the initial track will wonder off to nowhere. The reason it starts looking upward or left or right is usually because the intrusion box is too big or the tripwire isn't close to the center 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 using default/auto settings or with fields of view that do not give it a chance will be problematic.
 
Top