Which new Intel NUC?

[Corvus85]

At this point I am SUPREMELY PISSED OFF that nobody in this thread thought it would be worth telling me about this GLARING AND BAFFLINGLY INCOMPETENT design flaw of these cameras before I spent $1500 on them! You all railed ENDLESSLY about how superior these were to the Annke model I got - WHICH CAN AT LEAST SWITCH BETWEEN DAY/NIGHT FLAWLESSLY.

How is this HUGE ERROR not the FIRST THING you mention to someone when recommending these piles of trash? I have to find out when I pay for them, wait a month for shipping across the world, and the stumble onto it myself, only for someone to say 'lolz yeah that critical function is trash'? ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME??

Does nobody think that switching reliably from day/night is a simple goddamn basic request for a CCTV camera??? Does nobody here have outdoor lights????

I am BEYOND FURIOUS right now.

 

[wittaj]

Lot's of threads talking about how day/night function in the cameras do not work as we think. In most cameras, all it does is change settings from color to B/W based on the day settings...which isn't what you want either....

I assure you that your other cameras didn't work flawlessly or you wouldn't be changing them.

EVERY camera will suffer from BLOW OUT when you turn FREAKING flood lights on and do not account for it in your settings....

And if you played with the camera some more, you will see that for your night settings, you can have it switch between color and B/W based on the light conditions and that will be superior than using the DAY/NIGHT profile in the camera itself. Either use the schedule profile or the utility I posted a link to and it will work flawlessly...

These are not plug and play and you have to do tweaking to your individual field of view to get great results.

That is the whole purpose of setting shutter as a ms....when you set it 0 to 8.33ms....guess what....when there is more light, the shutter gets faster and you don't get overblown out images....

None of us suffer from this issue because we either leave the lights on all night or have tweaked the settings for that balance between motion lights on or off.

But you are "a long-time amateur photographer" so figure it out LOL (just kidding you a little....as you see surveillance cameras are not like DSLR cameras...).

The camera can do what you want and far better than Swann can...you have to in some ways forget what you know about DSLR and learn about the terminology and intent of settings on surveillance cameras...

 

[Corvus85]

EVERY camera will suffer from BLOW OUT when you turn FREAKING flood lights on and do not account for it in your settings....

How could you possibly 'account for it' when turning on outdoor lights is intermittent and occasional (for example, when visitors come over)? There is simply no way to accommodate for both of them using the same profile.

And if you played with the camera some more, you will see that for your night settings, you can have it switch between color and B/W based on the light conditions and that will be superior than using the DAY/NIGHT profile in the camera itself.

If you read my previous posts, you would know that it was rapidly switching from color and B&W during sunset when I had it set to the 'general' profile management. How is this 'superior'?

Either use the schedule profile or the utility I posted a link to and it will work flawlessly...

Again, scheduling the day/night change (whether manually, or through a utility) means that it will disable the camera's ability to switch automatically when the lights are turned on at night, right?? Am I understanding this correctly?

That is the whole purpose of setting shutter as a ms....when you set it 0 to 8.33ms....guess what....when there is more light, the shutter gets faster and you don't get overblown out images....

I've done this exactly as you described (I even increased it to 12, with a gain of 40), and it still switched constantly back and forth during sunset. How do I stop this without disabling its ability to switch automatically altogether?

None of us suffer from this issue because we either leave the lights on all night or have tweaked the settings for that balance between motion lights on or off.

Any 'balance' between both means getting a horrible picture in both circumstances. No 'balance' exists here.


I'm very interested to see what you have to say to each of my points above.

 

[wittaj]

Using one general profile to address day and night difference will result in the problems you are having. You need to have parameters set for daytime AND nighttime and then use the schedule profile or the utility.

You gotta remember these cameras are intended for the commercial market - we are not Dahua's intended market and that is their business decision. Most of us here know that the Dahua and Hikvisions of the world do not cater to the "consumer" market - their target audience is professional installers, so we are considered "prosumer" and we are fortunate to get our hands on these types of cameras and NVRs instead of consumer grade junk and not having to go thru professional installers to get quality gear. Now the downside is we get them at a discount and without manuals and Dahua support and thus are on our own to figure it out. And we are just fine with that! That is what a forum like this is for!

The Day/night of the camera works well in an commercial setting indoors where there is a lot of light and then the lights get turned off and you can use the same general settings for both. In a household environment, one profile to cover day and night does not work. It will rapidly switch between color/B/W at sunset because of this. I have given you the easy fix for this. We won't see Dahua change this because we are not their intended market.

Using the schedule or the utility will still allow the camera to switch between color and B/W based on light conditions and will do so much more reliably than the General profile and DAY/NIGHT schedule of the camera. Using the sunrise/sunset utility does not disable switching from color to B/W - you are mistaken in that understanding.

Using one profile to try to accommodate a bright day time and a dark night time is why you are experiencing the rapid switching from color to b/w. Setting up the parameters for daytime and trying to use them at night means as soon as it kicks into color the camera says "hey too dark" and then switches to B/W. Brightness, gain, etc. are all higher at night than daytime and using the general profile will not address that.

The easy fix is to just keep in in B/W at night, but you can tweak the settings to keep it in color and not BLOW OUT when the lights come on.

Many of us have found that balance to get great captures in both conditions. But it is tweaking based on your field of view.

 

[TVille]

In almost all things, there are two primary markets. Consumer and professional. Consumer is plug and play, turnkey. You get fancy-schmancey interfaces, not cutting edge technology, not best performance. Professional covers the range from basic to cutting edge, and you pay for the professionals time (and hence knowledge). Consumer level gets things that normally just work, no problems. Professional is tuned to your needs and wants, and you pay for it.

And then there are "pro-sumers". Folks who are not satisfied with consumer level, but don't have the money to bring in a professional to do the work. In many cases the professional may be hours away, so travel time alone gets expensive. These pro-sumer folks get bare bones pro level equipment, piece together solutions, and get it to work. Don't care if you are into cars, computers, solar power, what, it all works that way. You don't like the performance of your car, we can get more horsepower, better handling, better braking. Sifting through the BS claims about big brake kits and the return is YOUR problem. Figuring out that changing spark plugs won't get you another 25 hp and 10 mpg is YOUR problem. Thirty years ago magazines existed for these folks. Now it is online forums. But, if you want more power, better stopping, there are places that will tell you how to get it. I know, I did just that for years, taking cars to the track, upgrading brakes, suspension, etc.

The folks on are are clearly, soundly in the pro-sumer market (yes, I know we have pros on here who sell complete installs). We figure it out, take pieces and put together a top end system for a fraction of the price. It is NOT as user friendly as a Nest or Ring system, but the performance is way, way better. There are numerous stories on here about users here providing license plates, or clear, identifying photos to police when the neighbors cameras only showed movement. Video I have provided to police absolutely shocked them in regards to the quality it provided. And my setup is not nearly as good as others here.

So, if you want the upper end of surveillance cameras you either have to work for it, pay for it, or settle for less. Your choice.

 

[Corvus85]

Using one general profile to address day and night difference will result in the problems you are having. You need to have parameters set for daytime AND nighttime and then use the schedule profile or the utility.

I've got separate day and night profiles - and day is set to color only, and night is set to B&W only. Is this correct? Because this is the only way I've gotten it to switch reliably when switching the outdoor lights on and off.

Using one profile to try to accommodate a bright day time and a dark night time is why you are experiencing the rapid switching from color to b/w.

Since then I've adopted the separate profiles as I've described above. We'll see what happens in the morning.

Also another thing - My day profile can only select 'outdoor' under 'anti-flicker' - which is fine, because that's what you've suggested - however, since that's the profile that activates when the lights are turned on at night, it STILL flickers.
I've noticed that I can fix this by reducing the exposure comp, however I've already adjusted this profile to get things the way I want during daytime viewing, this will inevitably make viewing conditions MUCH darker during the day and result in shadows with crushed blacks, like I described earlier.

You keep saying that a 'balance' can be reached, but there's no point if this balance results in unacceptable footage in BOTH conditions.

How do I fix this?

 

[Corvus85]

So, if you want the upper end of surveillance cameras you either have to work for it, pay for it, or settle for less. Your choice.

Um no, sorry buddy. Firstly, I'm a tinkerer. I've tinkered with everything I own, and I know them inside and out. I'm VERY into the DIY space, I've built computers, servers, home networks, repaired TVs, phone and appliances. I LOVE tinkering. Secondly, I don't care how much you appeal to the 'prosumer' market as a coping mechanism. We're not talking about some niche feature here that doesn't apply in commercial settings. LOTS of storefronts and commercial applications involve sensor-activated floodlights, or outdoor applications transitioning to and from day/night. It's simply unacceptable to make ANY CCTV camera that doesn't reliably switch between dark and light conditions. You're making excuses for a company that should know better, and it just sounds really sad.

 

[TVille]

Um no, sorry buddy. I don't care how much you appeal to the 'prosumer' market as a coping mechanism. We're not talking about some niche feature here that doesn't apply in commercial settings. LOTS of storefronts and commercial applications involve sensor-activated floodlights, or outdoor applications transitioning to and from day/night. It's simply unacceptable to make ANY CCTV camera that doesn't reliably switch between dark and light conditions. You're making excuses for a company that should know better, and it just sounds really sad.

Then I suggest you go back to Nest, Ring and Reollink. All get FANTASTIC reviews, far better than Dahua and Amcrest, and provide a seamless experience. Enjoy!!

 

[Corvus85]

Then I suggest you go back to Nest, Ring and Reollink. All get FANTASTIC reviews, far better than Dahua and Amcrest, and provide a seamless experience. Enjoy!!

Are you going to buy $1500 of cameras back from me?

If not, then I'd suggest you lay off the coping rhetoric and either help me navigate this obvious design deficiency that nobody informed me of, or don't say anything at all. What pisses me off is that I wasn't informed of this frankly HUGE issue when everyone here was trying to sell me on these cameras. I'm happy to listen to people who have genuine helpful suggestions, but I have zero tolerance for fanbois who purposely dress up design flaws as 'prosumer features' just because they want to defend their purchases.

 

[wittaj]

I've got separate day and night profiles - and day is set to color only, and night is set to B&W only. Is this correct? Because this is the only way I've gotten it to switch reliably when switching the outdoor lights on and off.

Since then I've adopted the separate profiles as I've described above. We'll see what happens in the morning.

Also another thing - My day profile can only select 'outdoor' under 'anti-flicker' - which is fine, because that's what you've suggested - however, since that's the profile that activates when the lights are turned on at night, it STILL flickers.
I've noticed that I can fix this by reducing the exposure comp, however I've already adjusted this profile to get things the way I want during daytime viewing, this will inevitably make viewing conditions MUCH darker during the day and result in shadows with crushed blacks, like I described earlier.

You keep saying that a 'balance' can be reached, but there's no point if this balance results in unacceptable footage in BOTH conditions.

How do I fix this?

Obviously your tinkering skills aren't what you think LOL. It isn't design errors or deficiencies in the camera, it is we are taking a camera not intended for this setting and making it work. Quite well once you set it up.

For example, we had a big door checker event last night. Despite many in my neighborhood with cameras, none of them got useful video or pics. Except for me.... They either have crappy consumer grade gear or good gear set on auto. My neighbor with his Andy cam like mine had a big BLOW OUT right when his floodlight came on, which is what you get if you don't take the time to calibrate it to your setting. I have offered to help him many times, but he has declined. He would have had a great money shot.

Your day profile has sunlight. Night profile deals with nighttime and artificial light. WTF are you changing exposure comp for the daytime profile to deal with a nighttime issue??? Leave the daytime profile TF alone once you have that set up and now tweak your nighttime settings when it is nighttime...As I mentioned, the flickering is a result of shutter speed and frequency of the lights causing an issue.

So instead of running 0ms to 8.33ms or 12 or whatever you are at, try changing 0 to 1ms as an example. You just need to get your shutter speed to not conflict with the lights. So you either run antiflicker that give you what a max shutter of 1/100 and you lose a lot of parameter settings, or you find the shutter range that doesn't interfere with your lights....or change lights LOL.

The fix and the balance that can be reached is by quit looking at static images. When you are setting up the night profile - send a kid, buddy, spouse, someone outside and walk and run around while you change your settings. No two cameras will result in the same settings.

The way you are doing it is setting it for either lights on or lights off. You have to now take those two parameter sets and marry them together to get that balance. I assure you it can be done. Most of us here have done that. Mine work flawlessly without washout, unlike any consumer grade crap I had prior to these cameras...

Or the easy fix like I mentioned earlier is just leave it in B/W at night.

 

[TVille]

Are you going to buy $1500 of cameras back from me?

If not, then I'd suggest you lay off the coping rhetoric and either help me navigate this obvious design deficiency that nobody informed me of, or don't say anything at all. I have zero tolerance for fanbois who purposely dress up design flaws as 'prosumer features' just because they want to defend their purchases.

Well, you apparently didn't do your research before you went and bought $1,500 worth of cameras. One of the most recommended approaches to laying out cameras, on here, is to buy ONE and test it out. It is pointed out, in every single thread about cameras and settings, and that every site is different. Sorry that it "SUPREMELY PISSED" you off that no one on here read your mind about your installation and pointed out that this well known issue would jack up your blood pressure so much.

@wittaj is among the best, most patient, on here for helping folks get cameras setup. He knows far more about the intricacies of getting them as good as they can be than I. By a LONG shot. To achieve the best, I suggest you follow his guidance. Do not worry about things which you cannot control, that will only upset you and slow you down. Focus on what you can control, what settings you have, and go from there.

Personally, with cameras set to 0-20 ms custom exposure times (or 40, depending on camera), they handle my 1,000 watts of halogen floods coming on over the driveway just fine. I have three cameras covering this driveway, and they flare out when the lights come on, and quickly settle back down, in a second or two. But, and this cannot be expressed enough, each situation is different. I have identical cameras with significantly different settings due to different lighting conditions.

 

[Corvus85]

Your day profile has sunlight. Night profile deals with nighttime and artificial light. WTF are you changing exposure comp for the daytime profile to deal with a nighttime issue??? Leave the daytime profile TF alone once you have that set up and now tweak your nighttime settings when it is nighttime...

Because when the lights turn on, the camera switches to the DAY profile because literally the entire area is saturated with light. What other profile would I change to deal with the lights after they've switched on??
Am I not understanding something here?

The fix and the balance that can be reached is by quit looking at static images. When you are setting up the night profile - send a kid, buddy, spouse, someone outside and walk and run around while you change your settings. No two cameras will result in the same settings.

I spent about 2 hours outside in view of the camera with my laptop just tweaking settings and walking across its field of view every time I changed something.

 

[wittaj]

Under Night profile, go to the Day & Night setting (bad name for it) and select what you want

Color = it will stay in color regardless of light
B/W = it will stay in B/W regardless of light
Auto = will switch to color or B/W based on available light and the sensitivity you set it to. So lights come on and it switches to color and then the lights go off and it goes back to B/W.

Even though this is called day and night, it really is color or B/W setting. It will use the settings for the profile this is in. So at night, the shutter cannot go as fast as the daytime with a lot of light. This allows you to get color if you want, recognizing that you will have a slower shutter then.

 

[Corvus85]

Personally, with cameras set to 0-20 ms custom exposure times (or 40, depending on camera), they handle my 1,000 watts of halogen floods coming on over the driveway just fine.

What do you mean by 'handle'? What happens when this occurs? Do the cameras switch from B&W night profile to color day profile? If so, do they switch back as soon as the lights turn off?

 

[Corvus85]

Under Night profile, go to the Day & Night setting (bad name for it) and select what you want

Color = it will stay in color regardless of light
B/W = it will stay in B/W regardless of light
Auto = will switch to color or B/W based on available light and the sensitivity you set it to.

Even though this is called day and night, it really is color or B/W setting. It will use the settings for the profile this is in.

I know all this. Like I've said before, my day profile is set to 'color' and my night profile is set to B&W. It switches to day profile when lights are turned on, and that's when they flicker, even though on the day profile, anti-flicker is set to 'outdoor'.

Ideas?

 

[wittaj]

I know all this. Like I've said before, my day profile is set to 'color' and my night profile is set to B&W.

So, do you want your nighttime to kick into color when the lights come on?

If so, then don't TF use B/W, use auto under the night profile.

Or do you want it in B/W all night? If so, then what is the issue? The range of ms for shutter will address the lights coming off and on.

 

[Corvus85]

So, do you want your nighttime to kick into color when the lights come on?

Yes. Since there is more than enough available light, and leaving it on IR will make it too bright to even see anything.

If so, then don't TF use B/W, use auto under the night profile.

But if I do that, then how will it change to the 'day' profile when I have the profile management set to 'day/night'? In that case, I'd be stuck on 'night' profile 24/7. Isn't the trigger for this the IR sensor in the camera, based on how much/how little light it receives?

 

[wittaj]

You DO NOT want it kicking into DAY profile at night....there is not enough light for the shutter speed that the DAY profile has unless you have a real slow shutter (but why do that)....

You set up the shutter ms properly for night time and the range accounts for the available light - more light, faster shutter, less light, slower shutter.

 

[TVille]

What do you mean by 'handle'? What happens when this occurs? Do the cameras switch from B&W night profile to color day profile? If so, do they switch back as soon as the lights turn off?

They stay in night profile as @wittaj has explained. One stays in BW, another switches. Both provide very good pictures, but not optimized for color with a flood light. But, they work, very well for security cameras, to be able to identify people and vehicles, not shoot a movie. One is an overview camera 35' above the driveway, set to see the drive and over 100' away. Tweaked settings make both work with IR on or floods on.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

 

[wittaj]

This is my image the moment the Floodlights kick on. All in the night profile settings. When the floodlights go off, it goes back to B/W with infrared.