I've got motion detection and Deepstack setup (and seemingly working). Within minutes of turning the cameras on,
Blue Iris missed a groundhog under the apple tree, but I lowered the min. object size and min contrast to 150/25, so we'll see. We caught some deer a couple nights ago (at 74% confidence). Also, caught several leafy branches detected as people and birds lol (at 70-72% confidence). The first night, the tree of the apple trunk was detected as a deer (at 62% confidence). After thinking the tree trunk was a deer I upped DS's minimum confidence to 70%. I would probably go higher, but since the actual deer were only at 74% I'm afraid it'll miss stuff.
A question on camera settings. I've read
@wittaj's very informative posts on manual shutter speed vs exposure. But I'm wondering if it even applies to my trail cams, since that advise is geared toward IDENTIFYing cameras.
I want good looking static images of animals (as well as Hollywood quality video clips hahah (so I upped it to 30fps)). I realize the difference being able to freeze motion for good, clear images. Quality is very important to me but, I think I would prefer brighter images vs being able to IDENTIFY a bear (in the context of a police lineup lol). That being said I've read over and over how the default settings are trash, so I guess at some point I'm going to need to dive into the nitty and gritty details and have someone walk around to test any changes.
Awesome - you are well on your way. Hope you ran extra cables cause these thing multiply like the wildlife LOL.
Keep in mind Deepstack is good, but it isn't perfect, so smaller things like groundhogs will be more difficult. Just recognize that it won't ID everything correctly.
Your statement "
I want good looking static images of animals (as well as Hollywood quality video clips hahah (so I upped it to 30fps)). I realize the difference being able to freeze motion for good, clear images." Shows that you still have some to learn LOL.
What gets you the good looking static images is the shutter speed (thus my post about shutter speed you reference above), not the FPS. FPS does NOTHING for being able to freeze motion for good, clear images. It is the shutter speed. I will take 2FPS with the proper shutter speed over 30FPS on default settings all night long LOL.
What the FPS gets you is smooth video, but each frame can be a complete blur if the shutter speed isn't fast enough.
Let me give an extreme example. To capture plates at night, you need a fast shutter to capture the plate. The faster the shutter, the darker the image. So our image will be black except for the headlights and the reflective properties of the plate. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night with a 1/2,000 shutter and
8 FPS of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my Z12E that is on the 2nd story soffit, Camera is 35 feet above street at this location.
If I ran it 30FPS on default settings, then it would be blur city.
So in your case, if you don't want IDENTIFY, but you still want some usable video, you still want it off of default. Default for some of these cameras at night may go down to 1/3s or 1/12s shutter speed to make the static image look good, but motion will be complete blur. Try 1/30s and it might be the compromise between the brightness you want on the screen and enough detail to RECOGNIZE it is a bear instead of a person LOL.
Keep in mind that these type of cameras, although are spec'd and capable of these various parameters, real world testing by many of us shows if you try to run these units at higher FPS and higher bitrates than needed that you will max out the CPU in the unit and then it bugs out just long enough that you miss something or video is choppy or pixelated or you get lost signals. My car is rated for 6,000RPM redline, but I am not gonna run it in 3rd gear on the highway at 6,000RPM...same with these types of units - gotta keep them under rated capacity. Some may do better than others, but trying to use the rated "spec" of every option available is usually not going to work well, either with a car or a camera or NVR.
Look at all the threads where people came here with a jitter in the video or video dropping signal or IVS missing motion or the SD card doesn't overwrite and they were running 30FPS or higher and when people tell them to drop the FPS and they dropped the FPS to 15FPS the camera became stable and they could actual freeze frame the image to get a clean capture. The goal of these cameras are to capture a moving object, not capture smooth motion. When we see the news, are they showing the video or a freeze frame screen shot? Nobody cares if it isn't butter smooth...getting the features to make an ID is the important factor. As always, YMMV...
Further, these types of cameras are not GoPro or Hollywood type cameras that offer slow-mo capabilities and other features. They "offer" 30FPS and 60FPS to appease the general public that thinks that is what they need, but you will not find many of us here running more than 15 FPS; and movies are shot at 24 FPS, so anything above that is a waste of storage space for what these cameras are used for. If 24 FPS works for the big screen, I think 15 FPS is more than enough for phones and tablets and most monitors LOL. Many of my cameras are running at 12FPS.
In fact, many times if a CPU is maxing out, if it doesn't drop signal, then it will adhere to the FPS but then slow the shutter down to try to not max the CPU or cut bitrate or be slow to detect an object, etc, which then produces a smooth blurry image..that is the video my neighbor gets who insists on running 60FPS. He gets smooth walking people watching the video real time, but you can't freeze frame it cause every frame is a blur, meanwhile my 12FPS gets the clean freeze frame. Shutter speed is more important the FPS. We both run the same shutter speed by the way, but his camera CPU is maxing out and something gotta give when you push it that hard.
Sure 30FPS can provide a smoother video but no police officer has said "wow that person really is running smooth". They want the ability to freeze frame and get a clean image. So be it if the video is a little choppy....and at 10-15FPS it won't be appreciable. My neighbor runs his at 60FPS, so the person or car goes by looking smooth, but it is a blur when trying to freeze frame it because the camera can't keep up. Meanwhile my camera at 15FPS with the proper shutter speed gets the clean shots.
So a few of my cams have a system status screen, and they call it a CPU, so that is why I am calling it a CPU, but this shows this camera running at 8192 bitrate, H264, CBR, and 12 FPS is hitting the camera processor at 47% and jumps to 70% with motion. If I up the camera to 30 FPS, the usage is in the high 90% range, but then with motion, it maxes out and would get unstable.
Or if I keep it at 12 FPS and use the camera motion detection, the CPU in the camera goes to 60% idle.
This would be nice if all cams had this so we could see how our settings impact the performance of the camera. I think running these cams close to capacity is probably harder to overcome than a computer spike at 100% CPU.
At the end of the day, if the consumer wants cameras that can do 30FPS, they will not look at any cameras that do not have that rated spec, so some companies will throw that in to appease the person looking for that. Unfortunately, that is marketing. It takes someone with experience in the industry to know for sure if it is really capable of what marketing says.
And in a few scenarios maybe you can squeak 30FPS out of these cameras - maybe without using IVS or motion detection and just watching a simple feed. But maybe when two users log in, it can't handle it for example. The more features you use, the less likely it will work as one expects.
And if the complaints get bad enough, we have seen firmware updates to popular models that do just that - cut FPS or some other feature...
Watch these, for most of us, it isn't annoying until below 10FPS
If funds allow how about the 5442's acting as spotter cams for a PTZ with auto tracking?
