IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E lost settings?

[Kutalon]

Hi!
I've placed IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E from @EMPIRETECANDY for some test with LPR. Capture distance is around 30m so it's not zoomed in all the way in. I've set up day and night profiles and used built in day/night switch:


Night pictures are fine but I think those could be even better:

Day pictures are kind of blurry but readable:


But the real issue is that around 1 AM camera decided to change the settings and it washed out the picture:

When I woke up it was still in night mode, both profiles shutter speed changed to 1/25 and backlight changed to off so the picture was just 100% white. Some sort of firmware bug? By the way, what should I change to make the pictures even better?

 

[bickford]

Hello
What is the firmware used on this camera ?
With the new firmware you can block the focus " manual mode "

Try to have better bitrate the best for LPR is CBR 15 fps gov 30 and bitrate 6000 Kbs or more.

you can try with gain 0 to 25/30 contrast 55/60



Try with manual shutter speed 0 to 1 ms

Settings for day



Settings for night




Distance camera VS car about 85 meters.

BICK

 

[Kutalon]

Firmware version is: 2.800.15OG006.0.R, Build Date: 2020-11-19, quite old but it says that it's the newest one.
I've changed the focus to manual now, although it was some settings problem, after I manually changed the shutter speed from 1/25 back to 1/2000 it was fine.
I use 25 FPS because peaople are doing 100 km/h here, I use CBR but max bit rate I can choose from the menu is 4096, should I manually type in higher value?

 

[bickford]

Last firmware is : DH_IPC-HX5XXX-Volt_MultiLang_PN_Stream3_V2.820.0000000.5.R.210705 ( 05 juillet 2021 )
but with your firmware you have manual focus , no need to upgrade.
no need to use 25 fps ! you can use 10 fps for LPR , 15 fps is good , only shutter speed will affect the result.

You can choose manual bitrate ...



BICK

 

[Kutalon]

I've upgraded the firmware, added bitrate and changed the day shutter speed to 0-1 range. I will let it record for a day and gather some pictures.

I've noticed that I have it on H.265 so that's why there are lower values of bitrate. Any differences in used encode mode for LPR?

 

[bickford]

better to use H264 for CPU of the camera

BICK

 

[wittaj]

Are you setting it in Internet Explorer? Some of these Dahua cameras are sensitive to that.

I would suggest using the sunrise/sunset utility created here or use the schedule in the camera - the bright headlights if pointing too long at the camera could trick it into day mode and then you are screwed.

 

[Kutalon]

I've used Fire Fox, tried to do reboot after the firmware update and this time the settings stayed.
I don't have a way now to run sunrise/sunset utility but the camera is looking at the back of the cars + the other lane is going down and to the right so not that much light goes in to the camera. Everybody is going way over the limit anyway so it's a short time. I zoomed out just a little bit and refocus and it was much better than before for some reason Anyway, I've used some setting from @bickford and it looks like this:
during the day:

right before the switch do night mode:

as expected, low quality but still readable (especially with more frames to look at)
and just after the switch:

I will check the night and sunrise footage in the morning.

 

[bickford]

perhaps you can try sharpness 35 and contrast 55.


BICK

 

[Kutalon]

This time camera switched the profiles correctly and remembered the settings but unfortunately some time before midnight it decided to change the focus setting even though it was set to manual in both profiles.
Last good picture:

I will try to reapply the settings via IE but something is clearly wrong.

 

[bickford]

very strange

BICK

 

[samplenhold]

but unfortunately some time before midnight it decided to change the focus setting even though it was set to manual in both profiles.

I have two of these cams running LPR work at my house. I have intermittent changing of the focus value on one of them. While the proper focus value is 1460, it will revert to 1640 of it's own accord at random times. The second cam has never done this. I use the day/night utility and have the focus set to manual. It never changes the zoom amount, just the focus.

This is a real head scratcher for me. Happens about 3-4 times a month. It may correspond to a cam reboot.

 

[Kutalon]

@samplenhold for me the correct value of focus is 1500 and it also went for something around 1640, I will check actual value next time. I've just did a test and camera can more or less properly refocus with just the sign in view. That means that the value was not even a result of sudden refocus, it's just random number. Now that I am not alone it seems like a software bug, @EMPIRETECANDY any more cases like this?

 

[bickford]

have you tried hard reset after upgrading the firmware ?

BICK

 

[samplenhold]

Now that I am not alone it seems like a software bug,

I don't know about that as I have two of those cams, on the same version of firmware, and only one has this issue.

 

[Wildcat_1]

Which version of firmware are you running on the 5241-Z12 @Kutalon. Remember in the latest FW you can set manual focus as mode and should hold setting. Just make sure you are using IE. If you want me to jump on and take a look let me know via DM

 

[Kutalon]

@Wildcat_1 firmware is the latest one from July, manual focus has already been set but the value changed anyway. I used FF so I reapplied the setting with IE and it was fine during this night. It lose just a bit of focus but the camera drifted a bit due to loose zip tie. It's temporary test installation that I have to dismantle for a month, I will do longer testing later. Just wanted to see how to set things up and what I can expect and I encountered those other issues by accident.