Vigilant Solutions VSR-60-02MP1 IP Camera IPC262ER9-X10DU 24V, 1.5A, 50/60Hz.

[davej]

No, it's a color cam. The default settings are probably for LPR, so you need to change the exposure settings to suit your usage.

Okay, the "exposure mode" was set to "custom" and that gave me a monochrome image. The image still looks noisy.

 

[PeteJ]

Okay, the "exposure mode" was set to "custom" and that gave me a monochrome image. The image still looks noisy.

And changing that to something more suitable doesn't work? Have you tried auto? Have you tried day mode, or anything else? Or are you saying you've made changes to the settings and you are still getting a poor image?

 

[davej]

And changing that to something more suitable doesn't work? Have you tried auto? Have you tried day mode, or anything else? Or are you saying you've made changes to the settings and you are still getting a poor image?

No, I'm saying that the "custom" setting apparently was the reason it was monochrome. There are a lot of settings so I was hoping for some guidance. At times it seems to try to turn the IR on but then there is too much light and the image washes out and it cycles it on and off.

Edit-
I discovered that "Smart illumination>overexposure restrain" caused a cycling problem and that the manual setting prevented that issue. I don't understand how "Smart Illumination" is related to the "Exposure>Day/night mode."

 

[observant1]

This is just going thru my NVR. Looks like it's easy to set up a preset without messing with the cam gui.

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• I replied to a reguest for info on if there are presets. It does not have any ifo on the cam gui or anything else. I do egree most people that purchase this camera is for the optical zoom and trying to set it up to capture license plates. It's not good "IMHO" as an overview cam or alot of things. Probably why it's on sale for 35.00 on several sites.

The view is about mid range of the optical zoom. I could zoom much further in if needed. I'm happy with this cam but if you don't mind paying a bit more, you can get more. (this is not a complete set up) just 1st day of playing around. This is also not an ALPR cam. your millage may vary....

 

[TheWaterbug]

The view is about mid range of the optical zoom. I could zoom much further in if needed. I'm happy with this cam but if you don't mind paying a bit more, you can get more. (this is not a complete set up) just 1st day of playing around. This is also not an ALPR cam. your millage may vary....

I don't know (yet) how good it is at ALPR, but I dumped the config XML in my earlier post, and its contents show that it was definitely intended to be an ALPR cam.

I replied to a reguest for info on if there are presets. It does not have any ifo on the cam gui or anything else. I do egree most people that purchase this camera is for the optical zoom and trying to set it up to capture license plates. It's not good "IMHO" as an overview cam or alot of things. Probably why it's on sale for 35.00 on several sites.

I'm guessing that some company thought they were going to make it big selling ALPR services to 10,000 different cities, and commissioned a bazillion of these from Vigilant, then went bankrupt and got liquidated at auction. But that's just a guess.

 

[PeteJ]

I don't know (yet) how good it is at ALPR, but I dumped the config XML in my earlier post, and its contents show that it was definitely intended to be an ALPR cam.


I'm guessing that some company thought they were going to make it big selling ALPR services to 10,000 different cities, and commissioned a bazillion of these from Vigilant, then went bankrupt and got liquidated at auction. But that's just a guess.

I use the camera for ALPR and I think it works way better than expected. Here is an example from this morning, I have the $35 camera pointing north, and an actual ALPR pointing south, so the images are of the front plate (south facing) at around 140ft and rear plate (north facing) at around 90ft.

Actual ALPR camera:


$35 camera:



The $35 camera doesn't seem to do much image processing, and this is evident during dusk where the light tends to wash everything out. I was thinking about building an external luminosity sensor to trigger automation to set the exposure values to decrease brightness and max out contrast and saturation, and essentially use it as a bracket setting (when full spectrum light level is between X and Y, set camera values to Z). Adafruit TSL2591 High Dynamic Range Digital Light Sensor and a ESP32 would be all that's needed.

Here is the daytime performance, same 2 cameras, same vehicle, same time. It's not bad for ALPR work.




For comparison, the bigger brother of the $35 camera is the $800 PTZ. This thing is a monster. I know ppl say don't use PTZ for this, but I needed something to capture plates at a distance, and this thing delivers. At around 50% IR power, it can capture this at around 300-325ft.



Anyway, if you are using these cameras as general purpose cameras, I think they are ok--nothing special, and image quality is worse than $150 Reolink, but the 10x zoom gets you closer.

 

[Gimmons]

I found a firmware update and can confirm that it works. These are the same camera as a Uniview IPC_262ER9-X10DU. Mine had firmware from 2016, and I was able to upgrade to firmware from 12/2019. The latest firmware I could find is IPC_Q1201-B5029P12D1907. You can find firmware and release notes here:
Download center | Discomp

 

[TheWaterbug]

I found a firmware update and can confirm that it works. These are the same camera as a Uniview IPC_262ER9-X10DU. Mine had firmware from 2016, and I was able to upgrade to firmware from 12/2019. The latest firmware I could find is IPC_Q1201-B5029P12D1907. You can find firmware and release notes here:
Download center | Discomp

Interesting. I have 2 of the Vigilant units, so I installed IPC_Q1201-B5029P12D1907 on one of them. Mixed bag:

1. Firmware updated successfully, and the updated unit reports version IPC_Q1201-B5029P12D1907.
2. The camera did prompt me to enter a new password upon first boot.
   1. I can now use a shifted-number character in my password, but now I have to add a 9th character, so I still can't use my typical camera admin password ‍
3. But now I can no longer view the login screen on the camera from Safari or Chrome on my Mac. I just get a blank screen.
   1. I can log into my other unit, running IPC_Q1201-B5025P20D1806C17, just fine.
4. I can log in from Edge/Mac, but I have no live view, as it prompts me to load a plugin.
5. I canlogin and view live video from Firefox/Mac without a plugin:
   1. On my unit running the older IPC_Q1201-B5025P20D1806C17 firmware, I can view live video without a plugin only if the camera is outputting h.264. It does not support h.265.
   2. On my unit running the newer IPC_Q1201-B5029P12D1907, I can view live h.264 or h.265.
      1. This was the key feature that I was interested in, as the Release Notes say, "Functions without plugin: 1: Support H.265 video and G.711U audio without plugin.
   3. As it turns out, the key word in this note is the H.265 support. The previous version supported video without plugin, but only H.264. I didn't know this, and thought browser video was not possible at all, but I had never tried FF to manage this camera until today.
      1. I tend to use h.264 more anyway, so that addition of h.265 isn't that big a win, but at least the firmware update prompted me to try FF, which is a win!
6. And I can currently get this working only in Firefox, on either Mac or Windows
   1. Edge/Win prompts to load a plugin, and displays no video, on either camera.
   2. Chrome/Win does the same.
7. BlueIris doesn't care either way

 

[TheWaterbug]

Interesting. I have 2 of the Vigilant units, so I installed IPC_Q1201-B5029P12D1907 on one of them. Mixed bag:

1. Firmware updated successfully, and the updated unit reports version IPC_Q1201-B5029P12D1907.

More interesting-er: I clicked Cloud Upgrade: Detect, and now:



I didn't get a chance to confirm/cancel; it just said, "The upgrade will take a while. Please do not disconnect power."

I'll let it simmer for an hour and see if anything changes.

When I click Cloud Upgrade on my other unit running the older IPC_Q1201-B5025P20D1806C17 firmware, I get "No version detected for upgrade."

 

[TheWaterbug]

Actually, clicking Cloud Upgrade: Detect once doesn't actually execute anything. I just checks. Once it displays the above message, clicking Cloud Upgrade a second time results in:



I clicked OK, and after 5-10 minutes, I now have firmware version QIPC-R1201.30.42.220623 and a slightly different UI:



The version number has very different format, and suggests that it might be from 2023. Digging around now, to see what's different . . . .

 

[PeteJ]

Do these camera have a mic and does it work? I've never tried it since I use it for LPR.

 

[TheWaterbug]

Do these camera have a mic and does it work? I've never tried it since I use it for LPR.

Yes! The new firmware now includes a volume control on the Live view:

 

[TheWaterbug]

Actually, clicking Cloud Upgrade once Detect doesn't actually execute anything. I just checks. Once it displays the above message, clicking Cloud Upgrade a second time results in:

I clicked OK, and after 5-10 minutes, I now have firmware version QIPC-R1201.30.42.220623 and a slightly different UI:

The version number has very different format, and suggests that it might be from 2023. Digging around now, to see what's different . . . .

On QIPC-R1201.30.42.220623:

1. MacOS:
   1. Safari: Can log in again, and it attempts to display live video, but it doesn't work.
   2. Chrome: Can log in and display live video!
   3. FF: Can log in one of my two cameras, but not the other . But live video works on the one camera.
   4. Edge: Can't log in.
2. Windows 10:
   1. Edge: Can't log into either camera. One returns a 404; the other just has a blank page.
   2. Chrome: Can log in one of my two cameras, but not the other . But live video works on the one camera.
   3. FF: Can log in and display live video!
3. Both:
   1. Sometimes I need to go to
      1. http://192.168.1.64/?langinfo=1
4. 1. 1. in order to log in. Going to just:
      2. http://192.168.1.64
      3. shows a blank page
      4. And it's different for the cameras depending on the os/browser combo.
   2. Both cameras were unresponsive after each firmware update attempt, and required a hard restart (e.g. unplug/replug) before they'd respond to login requests.
      1. Oddly enough, the RTSP streams were live in BI, but I couldn't log in via the browser.
      2. I may attempt factory resets on both, if I can figure out how to import saved settings. I can export, but the Import button appears to have disappeared again.

The firmware giveth; the firmware taketh.