Sub $1000 PTZs

[ilmrfd]

Just wondering if anyone could give some recommendations on sub $1000 PTZ's that can zoom/track motion targets autonomously, and will work with Milestone Xprotect.

Thanks

 

[networkcameracritic]

That depends on your needs. There's two I reviewed recently at networkcameracritic.com, the ACTi B95 and the Dahua SD59230S-HN, both under $1,000, both are fantastic, but work in different ways. One is more discrete, vandal proof, uses standard PoE and 10X zoom. The other has IR LED's, bigger, 30X zoom. I've used both with Milestone XProtect and they record & display fine like any other camera.

In-camera motion tracking for the most part is worthless. I've tried this on a $3,500 PTZ camera from Axis and it got fixated on blowing leaves on a tree and I had to reboot the camera to get it off that. What you can experiment with is iSpy software, open source, free and can do PTZ tracking and works for some people. I have not tested it myself. You don't need the NVR software to do the tracking, can be done by external software.

 

[bp2008]

Hah thats funny because the manufacturer videos of auto tracking always makes it look like a professional movie cameraman was following the subject.

 

[bp2008]

By the way I think I can explain the twitchy manual controls in your PTZ review. The little 12x mini I got has the same problem. I determined that high frame rate / high bit rate video uses too much of the camera's CPU time and it doesn't have the time remaining to efficiently respond to the PTZ control web requests. My request times were bouncing between something like 80 and 600 ms typically. Sometimes longer. So when the stop command gets delayed this long, it will manifest itself as having the camera continue to move longer than it should have for the click you gave it. When I reduced the frame rate and bit rate to about half their original values, the response times got much more stable and the twitchy, jerky behavior went away.

FYI the 30x PTZ I bought from vector18 (a big white model, not the black model you reviewed), responds to these requests in more like 10 ms even with high bit rate and frame rate, so I think Dahua just skimped on the CPU in the newer, more efficient models.

 

[networkcameracritic]

It's not the delay as you described, it's that sometimes you click once and it moves 2-3 degrees, sometimes you click once and it moves 20-30 degrees, so unpredictable, not slow and that's what I meant by twitchy is you can go back and forth and not get what you want, but drawing a box around the suspect zooms in on that location and that's a better way to handle that camera. I would think they would fix this with a firmware update, hopefully they read my review.

You have to realize, this camera, first shown at ISC West back in mid-April and wasn't even available back then, is fairly new. When I reviewed the Axis Q60 it had been out for several months and it was still buggy to the point I was not even going to do the review and spent a month with their engineers trying to fix basic issues.

In contrast, the ACTi PTZ functionality is amazing. It's the only camera I've seen that can PTZ all at once, where the Hikvision and Dahua's I've used do each function serially. But there's no IR, so depends on needs.

As for this Dahua vs. the all white one, my customer has replaced all of those for this one and has re-ordered, so he must like them, mostly because of the -15 degree tilt.

 

[bp2008]

You see when you click the left/right/up/down buttons it sends a "start moving" command and a "stop moving" command. This is to enable you to click and hold and have it keep moving continuously until you release. Anyway If the start command finishes in 80 ms and the stop command finishes in 80 ms, then the camera moves for about 80 ms. But if the stop command takes 600 ms to respond because the camera's CPU is overloaded, then the camera moves for about ~500 ms instead. At one point my 12x Dahua was so bad at this (and the PTZ so fast) that it would go more than 180 degrees around from a single click. It was maddening until I dug into it and discovered it was simply not handling the commands in a timely fashion. When I reduced the CPU load by reducing the FPS and bit rate, the response time stabilized like I said and the problem went away. If you still have that camera installed, just try it and see. Set it to ~10 FPS and 2-4 Mbps and see if the controls behave the way they should.

Also I'm not sure what you mean about Dahua cams not doing PTZ all at once. Every Dahua I've had (4 models so far) is able to pan, tilt, and zoom all at the same time.

-15 degree tilt would be awesome. But -10 isn't too shabby!

 

[networkcameracritic]

Maybe yours can, but the Hikvision and Dahua PTZ's I've used will pan/tilt first, then zoom. Maybe I'm not saying it clearly, yes, the Dahua will PTZ in one step, but it pan/tilts first to the location, then zooms in, maybe so quick you don't notice it.

It's very clear in my video, at least to me it is -

 

[bp2008]

I think it just starts the actions in slightly delayed sequence, and zooming is the slowest part so it feels as though it is only just starting when the pan and tilt is done. I had to test relatively large ranges of motion to really be certain that it was zooming and panning and tilting all at once.

 

[networkcameracritic]

I lowered frame rate in half to 15 and it does respond a lot quicker and can now pan continuously until I let go of the arrow and it stops, so you may be onto to something there, but hopefully it's a firmware issue they can resolve for your 12x as well as the 30x. Will have to agree to disagree on the PTZ sequence.

 

[bp2008]

lol, yeah, I'm not going to go to the trouble of making a video to prove it

I hope they can resolve that for the 12x too! We shouldn't have to reduce quality to improve responsiveness.

 

[Shockwave199]

Which camera is that in your video? That's actually pretty close to ptz in one shot. Nice movement. Another setting to use is freeze. That cuts out all the movement in between presets in a tour. But it can also accentuate the zoom movement being a separate move. Also keep zoom at fastest setting. But freeze is worth using.

 

[soundkite]

I agree that in camera motion tracking is mostly worthless, except for very specific scenes where there is no ambiguous background movement for distraction. Also, iSpy motion tracking does a better job with my cheap Foscam F19821v2 than the in camera motion tracking of my more expensive Hikvision 20x ptz. iSpy allows me to restrict the motion tracking to horizontal panning only... great for tracking motion on a road without the distraction from trees, birds, etc... I suggest you post a photo of the scene you plan to surveil (is that a word?) to get a more useful recommendation.

 

[networkcameracritic]

Does anyone have the PTZ xml for iSpy to work with a Dahua PTZ? I have the SD59230S working with iSpy, just need to get the PTZ working for tracking to work. Just doing this as an experiment for the sake of the forum members if it can help people that want auto-tracking with a relatively inexpensive PTZ.

 

[ilmrfd]

I agree that in camera motion tracking is mostly worthless, except for very specific scenes where there is no ambiguous background movement for distraction. Also, iSpy motion tracking does a better job with my cheap Foscam F19821v2 than the in camera motion tracking of my more expensive Hikvision 20x ptz. iSpy allows me to restrict the motion tracking to horizontal panning only... great for tracking motion on a road without the distraction from trees, birds, etc... I suggest you post a photo of the scene you plan to surveil (is that a word?) to get a more useful recommendation.

All these cameras would be mounted onto a building at roughly the top of the 3rd floor. Two of them cover a meandering drive, the third would be covering a parking area. I'm wondering if multiple fixed cameras for the parking lot would be better, as long as I can ensure decent enough quality for facial information to be passed to law enforcement. The following is a rough perspective for the parking lot camera, the current camera is mounted on the roof above from where this picture was taken.

EDIT: The current camera is not a PTZ that I am aware of, just a fixed camera pointing toward the parking lot.

 

[ilmrfd]

Here's a picture showing what is being covered by this camera currently.

View attachment 716

 

[networkcameracritic]

With fixed cameras get an overview of the parking lot with one or two fixed cameras, then place cameras at various choke points that people have to drive/walk through to enter/exit the lots for close-ups of their car, face, license plates. That would be way more effective than PTZ. Get an aerial view of the building/campus and use camera placement software to figure out what lenses, types of cameras you need. ACTi has one on a trial basis you can use for the planning and I believe Axis has one too.