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  1. NielK

    My Pond Cam

    More camera-based retro-investigations ... Found a pile of feathers by the side of the pond this morning. It was a sparrowhawk. Impact just off camera but you can see the Sparrowhawk streaking after a blackbird and then returning with its prey to dine in front of the camera. (Video trimmed...
  2. NielK

    My Pond Cam

    We lost all of the 20-year old Koi carp that we inherited with the house. Turns out it was an otter - caught red-handed by a 5442. Here's the evidence from a previous post: Any suggestions for night exposure settings to improve this fox capture?
  3. NielK

    Power Line Communication (Ethernet over power)?

    Worth noting that Ubiquiti claims many of the newer Ubiquiti devices do now support 802.3af power as well as the legacy 24V passive POE, although there are still plenty that don't. 24V passive only includes ... NanoStation M NanoStation Loco M NanoBeam M NanonBeam AC 802.3af includes ...
  4. NielK

    Anyone used a USB 3.0 connected external Drive for Video storage?

    I am doing just that. My Blue Iris machine didn't have room for a third internal drive so I plugged in an external 3TB Seagate USB3 drive as an experiment. Internal SSD - boot disk Internal WD Purple 4TB disk - Blue Iris "New" folder External Seagate USB3 4TB disk - Blue Iris "Saved" folder...
  5. NielK

    Is reolink a swear word here?

    It really depends what you want the cameras for. My parents have a set of Reolink cameras and they are very happy with them but their use case is very different to most that you will read about in the forum. They are mainly interested in looking at / spotting wildlife around the house in the...
  6. NielK

    Cloning a drive: Want to ensure Dell partition is also cloned

    If you do want to clone a drive, I've found Macrium Reflect to be a rock solid backup/restore program that also does drive cloning. There is even a free version of it (link: Reflect Free Edition).
  7. NielK

    IVS issues?

    Same. I switch the object filter off on some of my cameras because I do want them to trigger on animals. But it doesn't do so reliably.
  8. NielK

    IVS issues?

    The 5442 with 20211203 firmware gives you the opportunity to switch the IVS object filter off completely. When the object filter is on, you have to select at least one of the two options (human and motor vehicle). The AI is great at ignoring steam, leaves and spiders, while still picking out...
  9. NielK

    Mesh vs APs

    I have previously struggled with wireless meshes when they get to 5+ APs and have a mix of wirelss mesh and ethernet backhaul. The result has been network storms every now and then. I currently have 5 Ubiquiti APs, all ethernet connected to the same network and with wireless meshing disabled...
  10. NielK

    BI ONVIF alerts and Clone Masters

    Yes indeed. I was just noting that the ONVIF alerts continued to work even with multiple clone masters. I could usefuly have also noted that having multiple clone masters isn't a smart thing to do, for the very reason that you have highlighted.
  11. NielK

    BI ONVIF alerts and Clone Masters

    I have been using the built-in IVS on my 5442 cameras - it's really helpful at this time of year when leaves, spiders and the central heating exhaust can generate a lot of BI motion alerts. To test out IVS, I cloned a camera and configured one of the cameras to use BI motion detection...
  12. NielK

    RTSP on raspberry PI to view grid

    I did an experiment about a year ago using rpisurv (GitHub - SvenVD/rpisurv: Raspberry Pi surveillance) to view RTSP streams. It can comfortably dispay 4 cameras in a grid as long as you're displaying substreams (which makes sense unless you have a huge 8k monitor). Setup RPi 4B, 2GB RAM, GPU...
  13. NielK

    So what POE switch is everyone using these days?

    TP-Link: TL-SG108PE & TL-SG1008P Ubiquiti: USW-Lite-8-POE, USW-Lite-16-POE I started with a set of TP-Link POE switches and Netgear non-POE switches. Worked well apart from the fortnightly network storm that required a restart. I changed to an all Ubiquit Unifi managed setup for router...
  14. NielK

    UK CCTV Purchasing?

    I'm also in the UK. I bought 7 x Dahua 5442 from @EMPIRETECANDY via this forum. He was helpful (eg chosing the right models and associated mounting boxes), offered decent prices and delivery from Hong Kong was within a fortnight. The cameras have been great too. If (ok, when) I get the urge to...
  15. NielK

    Smart door bell harassment - 100K

    It does seem an extreme punishment. If you look at the stats for CCTV in the UK, we had 5-6 million at the end of 2020. Interestingly, only small fraction of them (under 5%) are run by the state/local authorities. The rest are run by private businesses and homeowners. London has a lot of...
  16. NielK

    Smart door bell harassment - 100K

    Aparently the case wasn't really about the door camera. He had another camera on his shed that looked out over his neighbour's garden and parking area. The judge was most critical of the fact that the cameras were also recording conversations in the neighbour's garden. Try this article from the...
  17. NielK

    Any suggestions for night exposure settings to improve this fox capture?

    And just last night, the camera caught an otter taking a 15" carp out of the pond. To keep the file size down, I've downconverted the video to 720p and trimmed the length somewhat (from the original 8 minutes of butchery).
  18. NielK

    Any suggestions for night exposure settings to improve this fox capture?

    Here are a few frame grabs from a 5442 turret, 6mm mounted on a pergola about 6 feet high in a rural back garden (moon/starlight only). External IR illuminator, camera IR off, night mode shutter speed @ 20ms. Foxes are about 10, 20 and 60 feet from the camera and the gate at the back of the...
  19. NielK

    IPC-T5442T-ZE IPC-T5442TM-AS IPC-T5842T-ZE SMD 3.0 Smart IR Latest New Firmware From EmpireTech

    Indeed. I have a set of one metre poles in the garage just for this.
  20. NielK

    IPC-T5442T-ZE IPC-T5442TM-AS IPC-T5842T-ZE SMD 3.0 Smart IR Latest New Firmware From EmpireTech

    I had the same experience here with 3 x 5442E-ZE (bullet) and 4 x 5442TM-AS (turret). Lots of clear human motion not being picked up on IVS when using 210525 and 210729 firmware from Andy. Reverted to 20201203 and IVS restarted working as expected. Only wierdness is that the first couple of...
  21. NielK

    How are you getting to BI remotely?

    Setting up a VPN on the Ubiquiti USG router was straightforward, as was setting up an iPhone / iPad to work with it. So far it has worked reliably for remotely connecting to BI (using the BI app and also UI3 running on a web browser). The VPN is routed into a separate LAN and you can configure...
  22. NielK

    5.4.4.0 update - new triggered+continuous record setting

    Update: against my normal practice, I just tried updating to the latest version of BI (5.4.7.9). The long delays have gone :-)
  23. NielK

    5.4.4.0 update - new triggered+continuous record setting

    Yes - started after I upgraded from 5.4.3.12 to 5.4.6.3
  24. NielK

    Who uses Dahua AI capable cameras? Reliable AI for triggering events? Pro's/con's?

    @Holbs I have a set of 5442s (3 x bullet, 4 x turret). The camera AI has been really good in most circumstances and it works well with BlueIris. Out front I used to get many false alarms from headlights at night and spiders when using BI motion detection. Using the Dahua IVS with an intrusion...
  25. NielK

    Help! Need to catch mice or rats on camera at night!

    Rat coming under the gate from the field behind. Dahua 5442 3.6mm turret - great night time vision. (Video downconverted from 2688x1520 to 1280x720 to reduce file size.)
  26. NielK

    How do you really use your cams and what's your experience for those use cases? Non-professionals only

    I started with a cheap Longse camera + NVR as recommended by a local CCTV shop. I learned loads from this forum and upgraded to 8 x Dahua 5442 and BI - it's in a different league, especially at night. Mainly used for spotting wildlife visitors (from rats upwards) but it doesn't hurt to have a...
  27. NielK

    Blue Iris UI3

    Here's a photo of rpisurv displaying 9 and 11 camera substreams. The aspect ratio appears to be preserved only if the screen is divided equally into a 2x2 or 3x3 grid so maybe best to stick to 9 substreams. rpisurv can cycle round to display other "screens", each showing up to 11 substreams...
  28. NielK

    Blue Iris UI3

    Second attempt :) Setup RPi 4B, 2GB RAM, GPU memory set to 512MB rpisurv 2.1.7 installed, taking rtsp streams directly from the cameras Dahua 5442 cameras (15fps, main stream= 2688 x 1520, substream = 704 x 576) Main stream display 1 x main stream displays reliably Adding a second causes...
  29. NielK

    Blue Iris UI3

    @biggen @bp2008 Ah thanks for the reducation :-) FWIW, my BI webcast frame size is 3840 x 2160 @15fps.
  30. NielK

    Blue Iris UI3

    My Raspberry Pi 4 is comfortably coping with 8 camera streams using the UI3 "4k"stream setting. (8 x Dahua 5442 cameras 2688x1520 @ 15fps). BlueIris is not using substreams.
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