Screenshots- Amcrest 4k (2.8 lens) vs Empiretech 4MP (2.8-12 lens)

biggen said:

Yup. That distance is just way too great for those cams in that usage scenario.

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As long as the 4MP I recently installed will let me read contractor signs on the sides of pickup trucks I will be satisfied. The 4k camera does not do that but it provides the overall view of everything going on outside the gate. LPR and better ID will come later.

I switched to the 4MP at 12mm because (previously) a contractor vehicle made a turnaround and I discovered I could not read the signage on the side of the vehicle. It's just a guess, but based on image quality of the Jeep I think the 4MP camera, with optical zoom, will solve that issue.

I'm not expecting to ID a chihuahua riding on the back of a moped as it makes a U-turn in the cul-de-sac. I'll let a LPR camera do that in the future.

btw I am still a little unsettled by the plugin issue. I prefer not to use plain motion detect. Its' windy here now and the camera is recording half the time.

But when I tried to use "tripwire," it wanted me to install a plugin to do that. When I tried, my firewall tossed up a warning. I checked back here and found others, with different scanning, who believe there is malware. So I did not proceed to install the plugin. Which ... is ... unsettling. What to do?

I went back to the camera to disable motion detection, and saw the "tripwire" I entered earlier displayed on live view. Now I am extra confused-- it said the plugin was required for that but it lets me see and display it anyway? So to experiment I turned off generic motion detect and will go see if I can activate the tripwire.

Peeper said:

Standard factory settings for day. I adjusted night time settings but have not tweaked day settings yet.

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These cams tend to run on the high side of sharp. I would drop Sharpness to 35 and see if that helps.

I run the plugin with no concerns.

Ri22o said:

I would drop Sharpness to 35 and see if that helps. I run the plugin with no concerns.

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OK I just set that to 35-- thanks!

I don't yet have my cameras on their own VLAN but will very soon. I think I will wait for that before adding an external plugin. I did confirm that although tripwire shows on the live screen, it does not work. Presumably because I did not complete the installation of the plug in.

Depending on when in the process you turned on and set IVS rules, make sure to check both your Day and Night exposures. There is a bug that when you place your first IVS rule that it sets the exposures to Shutter Priority.

Peeper said:

btw I am still a little unsettled by the plugin issue. I prefer not to use plain motion detect. Its' windy here now and the camera is recording half the time.

But when I tried to use "tripwire," it wanted me to install a plugin to do that. When I tried, my firewall tossed up a warning. I checked back here and found others, with different scanning, who believe there is malware. So I did not proceed to install the plugin. Which ... is ... unsettling. What to do?

I went back to the camera to disable motion detection, and saw the "tripwire" I entered earlier displayed on live view. Now I am extra confused-- it said the plugin was required for that but it lets me see and display it anyway? So to experiment I turned off generic motion detect and will go see if I can activate the tripwire.

Click to expand...

I use IVS trip wire/intrusion zone on all my cameras. On my driveway cam, I have it setup so that I get a pushover alert as soon as someone drives or steps foot onto my driveway. I don't remember having to install a plugin. Maybe I did. The newer cameras running the newer web dashboard I know you don't need to install anything. It always asks at the bottom but I ignore it on the newer ones.

The newer cameras with the latest GUI will ask you to install the plugin.. I don’t and everything works just fine. It nags but just say no

Same here. It works fine with my Chromium based browsers other than the constant nagging to install the web plugin. I wish there was a way to disable it

I’m not sure how it came back, but previously I deleted it off my computer and the mags stoppped. I’ll try again tonight

bigredfish said:

I’m not sure how it came back, but previously I deleted it off my computer

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That in itself is odd. Most programs do not rise from the dead.

It actually downloads it, or tries to, from the camera FW. So its always there, its a matter of whether you download/install it

bigredfish said:

The newer cameras with the latest GUI will ask you to install the plugin.. I don’t and everything works just fine. It nags but just say no

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I first tried configuring the Empiretech camera using duck duck go browser. Tripwire won't work. (I did not allow the plug in.)

Today I tried configuring the tripwire function using IE running on an old laptop. Did not work.

Using IE, the "window" where you would draw the tripwire is black and says "click here to download the plugin."

Using duck duck go, I can actually draw and save a tripwire on top of the displayed camera image, but it does not work when put into service.

In the meantime my "smart" camera is using plain old and somewhat useless motion detect. So everytime a bug flies by or the wind blows it senses motion.

Any other suggestions on making tripwire work? I don't know the version of IE but it was running on a Win7 laptop.

Thanks!

Peeper said:

I first tried configuring the Empiretech camera using duck duck go browser. Tripwire won't work. (I did not allow the plug in.)

Today I tried configuring the tripwire function using IE running on an old laptop. Did not work.

Using IE, the "window" where you would draw the tripwire is black and says "click here to download the plugin."

Using duck duck go, I can actually draw and save a tripwire on top of the displayed camera image, but it does not work when put into service.

In the meantime my "smart" camera is using plain old and somewhat useless motion detect. So everytime a bug flies by or the wind blows it senses motion.

Any other suggestions on making tripwire work? I don't know the version of IE but it was running on a Win7 laptop.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Cross-threading, but you need to decide do you want better cameras and accept the risk of the plug-in or using a good camera on motion detection that detects for every bug LOL.

If you accept the plug-in in IE, the tripwire will set and work.

It comes down to IE was the most popular browser when these cameras started to be made, so they centered the firmware around one particular browser and they got lazy and never updated the internals of the program to play nice with other browsers as more became available and IE started to fade.

Back when the firmware was written, it was probably a pain to get it to play nice with every different browser, so they went with the most popular one.

They haven't had a need to address this because their intended market (hint it isn't us) is mainly businesses where they have enough light they can stay in default settings so they don't have a need to login to the camera via browser. It is us homeowners that push these to the limits and actually change settings.

So we either deal with outdated browsers but better cameras or go with crap consumer grade cameras that use fancy apps (but probably more vulnerabilities than this plug-in) and modern browsers but horrible images.


A trusted member here wildcat_1, who works closely with Dahua and gets "under the hood" of the firmware, said in this thread:

"Not a case of only using IE for testing, it's more the case that this is the only fully compatible browser (until recent deployments) that truly work with Dahua GUI's. As we've all discussed before, other browsers unfortunately (up to Firefox support most recently) cause anomalies in config, maintenance modes, updates etc. All of this reported back to Dahua to tackle in future but while we all await compatibility with wider browser and platform acceptance OR browser agnostic GUI's, this is unfortunately where we're all at."

So while Dahua claims other browsers are supported, someone that looks at the fine details of the firmware, coupled with many users experience here, that Internet Explorer provides the best opportunity to set up the camera and the setting stick.

Doesn't mean you won't have a problem with another browser, but it is rolling the dice. As you have seen, some people have no issue with other browsers, yet some like you do have issues. Especially with the PTZs for some reason.

Simply use Internet Explorer and be done with it.

Even brand new NVRs still have Explorer coded into them to access the cameras:





And sometimes you don't know what you are missing by using another browser:

For those that do not know...use IE browser for Dahua (and others?) camera GUI to see more options
I've been using Chrome since I bought my first Dahua camera from Andy last year (the good 'ol 4231's). I was able to log in, see menu options, do the config, save, logout....all done. Always wondered how folks were able to see the AI detection boxes livestream and other stuff which I thought...



Or this one where someone showed that with a brand new 2024 camera model, downloading files from an SD card is 100Mbps with Explorer and 10Mbps with other browsers.

Downloading videos files directly from camera via web interface (using other than IE) seems to be capped at TEN Mbps
UPDATE: If you use Internet Explorer (with plug-in), you can download videos via the web interface at the full 100Mbps speed - note you can't go any faster because the NIC doesn't support GigE. Thanks @TheOtherMike for pointing that out on the data sheet (maybe for 2024, Dahua will go with...

Peeper said:

I first tried configuring the Empiretech camera using duck duck go browser. Tripwire won't work. (I did not allow the plug in.)

Today I tried configuring the tripwire function using IE running on an old laptop. Did not work.

Using IE, the "window" where you would draw the tripwire is black and says "click here to download the plugin."

Using duck duck go, I can actually draw and save a tripwire on top of the displayed camera image, but it does not work when put into service.

In the meantime my "smart" camera is using plain old and somewhat useless motion detect. So everytime a bug flies by or the wind blows it senses motion.

Any other suggestions on making tripwire work? I don't know the version of IE but it was running on a Win7 laptop.

Thanks!

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I dunno what you have going on. Maybe trying too hard? Maybe some other program interfering? Maybe AntiVirus or somethin?
HP Windows 11 Laptop
MS Edge- no plugin, no IE mode, just plain vanilla

I just drew/added a 5 sided Intrusion zone.
I ignore the prompts and "cancel"\
It draws fine, saves fine, activates and alerts fine

bigredfish said:

I dunno what you have going on. Maybe trying too hard? Maybe some other program interfering? Maybe AntiVirus or somethin?

It draws fine, saves fine, activates and alerts fine

View attachment 192798 View attachment 192799 View attachment 192800 View attachment 192801

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I will try again tomorrow. I can also try Edge browser.

Since the tripwire requires GUI it seems telnet or ssh is out. Seemed strange that duck duck go was seemingly closer to success than IE.

Thanks!

Sometimes a factory reset can do wonders too. Try that if you haven't.