Brand new and all washed up

[kalecocat]

Received my new IPCT-4mp-B1 (Uniview) from the IPCT store last week, after a couple of days delay I finally set it up on the workbench and checked it out. All seemed okay, picture was a bit dark but I figured I could tweak it after I hung it up. It worked just fine that day and night. Next morning it changed from nighttime black and white to color, but then started displaying a slightly lighter colored band across the middle. The lighter band gradually became much lighter and grew to completely cover the display. Since I had just upgraded BI I thought that was the problem, but I looked at the camera settings (live view) and saw it was originating there.

I'm going to try to attach 2 screen shots of the problem I'm not very knowledgeable about camera settings as all my cameras have done pretty good as I received them. I've been reading here on the forum to see if I could find a solution, but there's so much info that I've gone into overload and I need help. I found a thread where wittaj was making suggestions, I tried to follow them and was able to make the changes he suggested but the difference was very slight

When I first saw this happening I thought the camera was bad and went to the IPCT store to start the return process. I sent the email or whatever it was, but have had no response. That was about a week ago, I think. Anyway, if I can fix the camera, I just as soon keep it. But if it can't be fixed I need to get it returned or be stuck with a doorstop
I'm also going to try to attach screenshots of the cam settings. Sure would appreciate some guidance here. Thanks.

 

[sebastiantombs]

You need to raise the daytime shutter speed significantly. 1/100 is fine at night, but during the day it needs to be 1/10.000 or even higher due to the amount of light. As you have it now, the fastest speed is 1/100 and the slowest is 1/12. The daytime settings could be 1/250 for the slowest and 1/20,000 for the highest. Alternately, just leave daytime on auto and that should work as well.

A few asides. Frame rate can be 15F/ps for surveillance purposes with no real problems. The iframe rate, especially if you're using Blue Iris for a VMS, should match the frame rate.

 

[kalecocat]

You need to raise the daytime shutter speed significantly. 1/100 is fine at night, but during the day it needs to be 1/10.000 or even higher due to the amount of light. As you have it now, the fastest speed is 1/100 and the slowest is 1/12. The daytime settings could be 1/250 for the slowest and 1/20,000 for the highest. Alternately, just leave daytime on auto and that should work as well.

A few asides. Frame rate can be 15F/ps for surveillance purposes with no real problems. The iframe rate, especially if you're using Blue Iris for a VMS, should match the frame rate.

Wow! That was easy! Just switched the Image>Scenes>Exposure>Exposure Mode to Automatic and the picture went to normal. Terrific! Thank you much.
I guess I try too hard to learn the details when I should have come here first.
However, I have questions if you don't mind. I first tried to set my shutter speeds the way you suggested, but those settings are not available here. Mine are : "Shutter(s)" are 1/25 to 1/100000 while "Slowest Shutter" is 1 to 1/25 but it has a place to turn it off or on, so I turned it off. Is this the correct thing to do?
I'm a bit familiar with frame rate and will immediatly correct as needed.
Also I have questions about Third stream and Sub Stream. What the heck are they? And I notice that the settings are different in each one. Could you give an easy explanation or suggest where I might find the info?
Thank you very much.

 

[wittaj]

Switching to automatic will result in blur and ghosting at night....

Do as @sebastiantombs suggested - slowest shutter 1/60 or 1/100 and then fastest up to 1/10,000 or higher.

Substreams are what your mobile app or VMS like an NVR or Blue Iris will use to stream to a device to save bandwidth.

 

[sebastiantombs]

As you can see in my signature I am a Dahua camera user. I have no experience with Uniview so I can't offer anything specific regarding the how's and why's of their setup. My initial advice was just based on what I saw in your settings versus what it takes to get daytime video. I can tell you that a 1/25 shutter at night will not work out well. Anything slower than 1/60 will produce blur when motion happens. In the Dahua config settings there's a "manual" selection that lets you enter exactly what you want. So scroll down the list and maybe it's hiding at the bottom of the list.

Sub streams are additional video streams that a camera can supply. Most NVRs and most VMS systems will use the sub stream video to display multi camera views. They may also record the sub stream until the camera is triggered then switch to the main stream. This has two advantages. It unloads the CPU of the NVR/VMS from processing high resolution video constantly and it also reduces the amount of disk space used since it primarily records in lower resolution as well.

 

[kalecocat]

Thanks guys. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. Granddaughter rolled her car on an Ozarks road with her and boyfriend not strapped in. Bunged 'em up some but they're young, they'll get over it.
Now I'll try to get back to the fun stuff. It's all still confusing, a lot of info that I don't know where else to get, like what is Iframe Interval and what should it be set to and should it be set the same as Frame Rate (currently 15)? Also, should the Frame Rate and these others be set the same in Sub streams as they are in the Main stream? Little stuff like that. By the way, I looked in my Frame Rate box for a "Manual" setting, but there isn't one. Just choices of: 1,3,5,6,8,10,12,15,20,25. The Iframe Interval box can be typed in (5 ~ 250) and 50 is currently in it. Is that compatible with a Frame Rate of 15?

Earlier when discussing shutters, you said:

The daytime settings could be 1/250 for the slowest and 1/20,000 for the highest.

When I select "Manual" for Exposure Mode, the Shutters box allows me to select 1/250 but the Slowest Shutter box only has selections of: 1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, 1/10, 1/12, 1/15, 1/20, 1/25. Would choosing 1/25 correspond with your suggestion of 1/250?
Also, I find that I can select Custom and get 2 Shutters boxes (not labeled). The first one allows selecting
1/25 to 1/100000 and the second box allows selecting the same. I selected 1/8000 in the first box and 1/250 in the second box. The live view looks okay and when a car went by it did not blur but did jerk a small amount as it went by. I also had turned the Slow Shutter selection to off.
Any suggestions? Please.

By the way, thanks for spending so much time with me while I try to get at least a simple education in this stuff. I spend hours reading the responses you guys give to others and pick up a lot of detail, but don't know how to apply most of it to my little off brand cam with choose from options that are different from yours.
I fgure if I can get this newest camera setup properly, then I can use it's settings as the basis to set up my others.
Anyway, I'll keep asking questions till someone tells me I'm wearing out my welcome.
Thanks again.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Sorry to hear about your granddaughter and her boyfriend, but that's why there are seatbelts in cars. They're learning the hard way.

Using the manual box is the way to do it. Generally the fastest speed in the left box and the slowest in the right box. In reality the fastest time can be left at 0.0 given that it's daylight.

If you're using Blue Iris, the frame rate and iframe rate should match and should be the same for both the main stream and the sub stream.. An iframe is a "full" frame, IE all the data from the entire scene the camera is viewing. The rest of the frames are partial information that contain anything that moved since that full frame, iframe, was sent. By matching them you insure that a full frame is sent once each second which helps motion detection work properly in Blue Iris and can "smooth" things out a little as well.

 

[kalecocat]

Thanks Sebastiantombs, That helps. But I'm hazy (to say the least). In this "Shutter" category we're discussing, it seems that the numbers all begin with a 1/ and then has a following number.
You refer to the "fastest speed" and the "slowest speed". I don't know whether a larger number is "slower" or "faster". For instance, is 1/25 faster than 1/100000 or is it slower? I can't seem to get my head wrapped around that seemingly simple piece of information.
I've been puttering with these cameras for almost 10 years and never, ever messed around with anything labeled "Shutter". But, obviously I've been missing a key piece of information and now I think I know why. I couldn't figure out the 1/, faster - slower terminology, so just left the settings at their defaults.

Again, is 1/25 faster than 1/100000 or is it slower?

 

[wittaj]

This is a fraction of a second, so 1/25 is slower than 1/100,000.

So 1/1 would be 1 second and 1/2 is 0.5 seconds.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Fractions are inversely proportional. For example 1/3 =0.3333 (1 divided by 3) while 1/8 = 0.125 (1 divided by 8). So 1/25 = 0 .04 and 1/100000 = 0.000001. The larger the number the faster, shorter, the shutter speed. As a rule of thumb a shutter speed no slower than 1/60 is needed for blur free motion detection at night, this applies to human walking speeds. 1/100 is better because it will provide blur free motion of vehicles moving at around 30mph.

When you fill in the boxes of the manual setting you are actually setting the exposure time in milliseconds. In this case the number you get by dividing to solve the fraction results in the time in milliseconds.

 

[kalecocat]

Ooooooh, Now I understand why I ignored this stuff. This kind of "Higher" math wasn't needed when I was horseback and pushing cows! And probably wasn't being taught at all to kids my age out in the Sandhills.
Thanks fellas, I'm gonna spend some time absorbing this and then start again.