Should I ditch Amcrest and go Empiretech?

Aug 20, 2022
15
3
Reading, PA
So I have been setting up new cameras and getting rid of my legacy Lorex setup. I tested Reolink about a year ago and was trash so I sent them back. I am now testing Amcrest and was initially impressed until going back and looking at footage and seeing smearing and pixelation on movement.
I was considering getting Empiretech cameras, but I would feel terrible if they do no live up to the hype and I would have to send them back as well.


I am not sure if there are camera settings I can change, or just if this is just the quality difference from a mid tier consumer camera vs expectations of a higher end camera?
Cameras taking this footage are

IP8M-DLB2998EW-AI​

So the main question is, does more money = more quality?
 

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Thanks for the pics. This looks amazing!
Do you have any pics or vids of people moving during the day or night? I am finding my cameras are a bit hit or miss with movement at times. i really wanted to do 180* cameras if I could to overall observe and then more specific cameras to identify
 
To a point, yes.

Are there cameras more expensive than EmpireTech - yes. Are they worth the price, to many here the answer is no.

You have a camera on the less than ideal MP/sensor ratio.

Ideally, you should have cameras in green.

1730644202629.png


See this thread for the commonly recommended cameras (along with Amazon links) based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the overall best value in terms of price and performance day and night.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection
 
Thanks for the pics. This looks amazing!
Do you have any pics or vids of people moving during the day or night? I am finding my cameras are a bit hit or miss with movement at times. i really wanted to do 180* cameras if I could to overall observe and then more specific cameras to identify

human & faces detection:

VMD humans.png
VMD faces.png

ps. You must understand that I choose here camera with TELEPHOTO lens / zoom (5442-Z4E, 3-9x optical zoom, 45 - 15 degree horizontal FoV) DESIGNED to capture people/vehicles at some distance. This is NOT a 90-110 or even 180 degrees OVERVIEW camera (as You have now). And I have good knowledge how to configure those cameras to my needs & location situation.
 
To a point, yes.

Are there cameras more expensive than EmpireTech - yes. Are they worth the price, to many here the answer is no.

You have a camera on the less than ideal MP/sensor ratio.

Ideally, you should have cameras in green.

View attachment 206299


See this thread for the commonly recommended cameras (along with Amazon links) based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the overall best value in terms of price and performance day and night.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection
So here is the question I have about varifocal cameras. . .
If I have them fully zoomed out normally and I catch something after the fact on recording, these are better for zooming and identifying within their given range? Or is this just to zoom in to change your frame for main time viewing/recording?
 
Digital zoom only works in Hollywood.

You may get away with a little, but you want optical zoom for clean capture.

Varifocal is a set a focal length and leave it there. No zooming in and out after the fact.
 
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Digital zoom only works in Hollywood.

You may get away with a little, but you want optical zoom for clean capture.

Varifocal is a set a focal length and leave it there. No zooming in and out after the fact.
ok, so I just want something with a good optical zoom then vs varifocal I think.
That’s what I thought, but documents and videos really don’t seem to go over this all that well
 
Optical zoom and varifocal is one in the same.

There is a fixed lens camera. Focal length is set.

Varifocal has adjustable focal lengths.

PTZ is adjustable focal lengths and ability to move the camera view around.
 
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Optical zoom and varifocal is one in the same.

There is a fixed lens camera. Focal length is set.

Varifocal has adjustable focal lengths.

PTZ is adjustable focal lengths and ability to move the camera view around.
Thanks!
So EmpireTech 180* cam seems to have multiple functions in that it can zoom and focus on multiple sections for playback.
 
No, that is digital zoom. No different than any other camera.

You will struggle with IDENTIFY much beyond 15ish feet at night.

Most here do not use the 180 for IDENTIFY but rather for OVERVIEW.
 
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I am not sure if there are camera settings I can change, or just if this is just the quality difference from a mid tier consumer camera vs expectations of a higher end camera?
Cameras taking this footage are

IP8M-DLB2998EW-AI​

So the main question is, does more money = more quality?

Do you know that there are roughly 30-35 different settings (and at least a hundred or more combinations) that affect the image quality on any given camera? Have you experimented with any of them? Do you have a basic understanding of Exposure settings? Gain, Bitrate, 3DNR? Let alone placement, ambient light, focal lengths, DOF, ?

Shopping for a camera that will automagically adjust itself perfectly using all of those 30+ controls, and do it Twice, as many of them must be set differently for night vs day, is just throwing money away.
No offense, but the Dahua cameras wont be any better than what you have if you dont first learn the basics of how they work. There are a lot of Dahua models, not all are great. There are ok ones, better ones, and great ones. Yes price is one factor. Spend some time on the forum reading and learning before you buy.

The first 2 images, daytime, arent too bad. The rest could use some help and on the others the camera is simply placed to high with too wide of a lens to be of any real value other than basic Overview.


Do you know what the exposure settings are in those snaps? How about the bitrate being recorded?
The sensor on that camera (1/2.7") is too small to be of great quality in low light on 4MP.
 
+1 above!!! Try below first with what you have.

In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.

Start with:

H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS
15 iframes

Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.

We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.

In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.

Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.

Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.
 
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Yup, based on the screenshots you provided in the first post, the main problem I see is the bit rate is too low. I would even try to go higher than the 8192 Kbps bit rate that @wittaj recommended, especially if using a short iframe interval that matches the frame rate. I'd try 12000 or 16000 Kbps if the camera allows it. And yes, CBR mode for sure since you don't want to compromise on quality for the main stream.

There's also some motion blur in low light which you could reduce by shortening the shutter speed at night, at the cost of making everything darker. Your driveway cam in particular looks like it would benefit from a shorter shutter speed. I don't think I would worry about it for the side cam -- there's not as much light there and the cam is so high up and so far away (given its wide angle) that it would not be very useful for identification purposes anyway even if you had more light and a faster shutter speed for it.
 
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Ok, sounds like I have some homework to do before whipping out the credit card again.
I will start googling or looking for some basic setup steps aside from what was posted above. I would deff like to not have to do this all again for sure.

Is there any way to do all this stuff natively within BI? I only found how to do it in the camera. I have not found camera settings in BI yet.

PS: I am a total NOOB and coming from a problematic Lorex system that was older. I was tired of having camera feed problems and figured I would spend a little more money this time and try to get a usable system.
 
Actually, I just found the camera settings in BI. I actually have an Amcrest varifocal camera I was testing as well. Man, it kind of sucks to be missing part of that view, but yea the optical zoom helps tremendously.
So I have to play more, but I am thinking if I use what I have sitting here:

  • Use my IP8M-VB2696EW-AI (varifocal) as the driveway camera
  • Use both my IP8M-DLB2998EW-AI (180* cams) as side of the house cameras
  • Use one of my IP8M-2779EW-AI (general cams) as a porch camera
  • Use the other IP8M-2779EW-AI (general cams) I am not sure yet. Maybe another view of the driveway

What I have so far. . . .
 

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Digital zoom only works in Hollywood.

You may get away with a little, but you want optical zoom for clean capture.

I've had a few cases where the digital zoom works well. Nothing close to hollywood level, but very useful.

When I replaced one particular 5231 (2 MP) with a 5442 (4 MP) I left them side-by-side for a while. I went with a much wider angle 5442, and when digital zoomed to the FOV of the 5231 the image was actually a little bit better. So I got about double the field of view with a slight resolution gain after doubling the MPs. In another case I was monitoring a couple of water pressure gauges about 10 feet away. The image from the 5842 was much sharper than from a 5442, the difference between reading and not reading the numbers on the gauges. Thirdly, my 3.6 mm 4k-x kicks butt over the 5442s for resolution, and focuses hundreds of feet out. Not seeing IR is of course a downside.