Dahua day/night settings - the basics

[geezer]

Dahua cameras have settings for Normal, Day, and Night.

- Are these settings triggered by the camera's IR sensor? Will they still be triggered if the camera is set to Colorful?

Dahua NVRs have settings for Profile 1, Profile 2, and Profile 3.

- Do these correspond, in order, with Normal, Day, and Night?

Is there anything unexpected I should know about changing these settings directly versus through the NVR?

 

[geezer]

Not an interesting question, I guess.

 

[bigredfish]

Probably more because its confusing to even some of the more experienced folks.

Not an expert, so YMMV, but generally my understanding:
On cameras -Normal- as it sounds, the camera sensor decides when to switch from day (color) to night (B&W with IR) with a common exposure as well as other settings
Day and Night profiles allow you to tweek exposure and other settings to get he most out of the available light and have separate image profiles.

I suspect the NVR "profile" settings simply allow you to set different profiles similar to Day/Night, but not directly associated with the camera profiles. A number of things can be set via both the camera and the NVR, typically I try to use the settings on the camera and leave the NVR settings "default"

 

[tigerwillow1]

It's interesting to me, and the manual isn't horribly clear about it. My understanding is that the camera is in day or night mode determined by automatic switching based on the photocell ("auto" mode), or can be set to be in day or night mode constantly. Then the profiles have absolutely no connection to the day night mode. The three profiles are just 3 different sets of camera settings that can be selected from, plus the day and night profiles can be toggled via a time setting. What I'd like would be for the camera to switch between the day and night profile based on the day-night mode controlled by the photocell, but alas, I don't think it does this. I'd love to hear any corrections to these "educated assumptions".

And after saying all of that I can't answer your original question, other than to say they're called Config 1, 2, and 3 on my 5216-4ks2. Easy enough to figure out by setting some profiles directly on a camera, then seeing what the nvr says the settings are.

 

[geezer]

Aw heck. I figured and hoped that everybody but me knew how this works.

The problem is that I keep most of my cameras in Color mode all the time but I only need and want WDR in the daytime. Since there is no PC in this arrangement, I can't use scripts.

I can say from today's observation that changing the camera's image settings changes the NVR's image settings. What confuses me is that the camera is set to "Day" and the NVR profile that gets updated is Profile 1.

 

[Parley]

It's interesting to me, and the manual isn't horribly clear about it. My understanding is that the camera is in day or night mode determined by automatic switching based on the photocell ("auto" mode), or can be set to be in day or night mode constantly. Then the profiles have absolutely no connection to the day night mode. The three profiles are just 3 different sets of camera settings that can be selected from, plus the day and night profiles can be toggled via a time setting. What I'd like would be for the camera to switch between the day and night profile based on the day-night mode controlled by the photocell, but alas, I don't think it does this. I'd love to hear any corrections to these "educated assumptions".

And after saying all of that I can't answer your original question, other than to say they're called Config 1, 2, and 3 on my 5216-4ks2. Easy enough to figure out by setting some profiles directly on a camera, then seeing what the nvr says the settings are.

I was just looking at that with my latest Dahua PTZ purchase as I wanted to tweek the night settings. However in the end I just left it alone in the factory settings. Like everyone else I was just not sure.

 

[Iemand91]

To me, this is the biggest drawback of the Dahua camera's. You have the opportunity of specifying the settings for day and night yet the camera can't change between them at sunrise/sunset. Only if you set specific times for each or use a script on a external PC.

So this leaves me changing those times every couple of weeks or so...

 

[geezer]

Thanks, lemand91. Your reply prompted me to dig around and I discovered the camera's scheduler in the GUI.

That's going to help a lot. Where I live the maximum difference in daytime length is only about 40 minutes, so I can set the schedule for 6am to 6pm. Dawn and dusk will each occur +/- 10 minutes of the profile switch.

Still, I gotta say, it's odd that Dahua hasn't added the tiny bit of firmware needed to link profile switching to the light sensor.

 

[aristobrat]

If you have a Windows PC that's always powered on, someone here wrote a tool that will connect to your Dahua cameras and flip them between day/night profiles based on the current sunrise/sunset time of your location. You can add offsets to that time, if you don't want them flipping modes literally at sunrise/sunset. This avoids having to manually tweak the time on the cameras scheduler every few weeks...

Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset

 

[Parley]

Still, I gotta say, it's odd that Dahua hasn't added the tiny bit of firmware needed to link profile switching to the light sensor.

I have to agree. I am glad I did not spend anymore time on this. I was thinking the light sensor was what would change the settings from day to night. I guess not. I also agree that is something that Dahua should work on.

 

[ck42]

Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I just happen to be fiddling around with my cameras and had the same basic question. Did a quick Google search and this thread was the first hit.

My main question was/is: Where do I set the configuration that tells the camera to use its own sensors to decide if it has enough light to switch to day profile - and if not enough, switch to night profile? There's the obvious scheduler where you can manually tell it when to switch profiles, but as discussed, there's this issue with the Earth circling around the sun.

Intuitively, it just makes total sense that there would be an 'auto' option that would tell the camera which profile to use (day/night). How could there NOT be be this option?? I'm totally baffled if this capability doesn't exist! I can't find it.

And besides day/night profile...what the heck is "normal"??
Here's the help sections mention of 'normal' profile:
"You can select normal, daytime or night mode. After you selected mode, you can set and view the setup and effect of the corresponding mode."

Gee, thanks Dahua. That is SO not helpful!

So in the Profile Management tab, what exactly does the "Day/Night" option do then?
The "Full Time" and "Schedule" options make perfect sense...This option *needs* to be labeled "Auto Day/Night" and actually do that!

Looks like there have been other threads over the years concerning this same issue. Other people just as surprised that the cameras don't have this capability. Here's an example.
Normal, Day, Night Profiles for Dahua Cameras

Saw another thread with a posting from someone in Germany from mid-2017 being a little secretive and insinuating that Dahua is working on adding this capability. But it's been over a year since that post. There's no WAY it could take that long to develop. (Running 2.640.x BTW)

 

[fenderman]

Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I just happen to be fiddling around with my cameras and had the same basic question. Did a quick Google search and this thread was the first hit.

My main question was/is: Where do I set the configuration that tells the camera to use its own sensors to decide if it has enough light to switch to day profile - and if not enough, switch to night profile? There's the obvious scheduler where you can manually tell it when to switch profiles, but as discussed, there's this issue with the Earth circling around the sun.

Intuitively, it just makes total sense that there would be an 'auto' option that would tell the camera which profile to use (day/night). How could there NOT be be this option?? I'm totally baffled if this capability doesn't exist! I can't find it.

And besides day/night profile...what the heck is "normal"??
Here's the help sections mention of 'normal' profile:
"You can select normal, daytime or night mode. After you selected mode, you can set and view the setup and effect of the corresponding mode."

Gee, thanks Dahua. That is SO not helpful!

So in the Profile Management tab, what exactly does the "Day/Night" option do then?
The "Full Time" and "Schedule" options make perfect sense...This option *needs* to be labeled "Auto Day/Night" and actually do that!

Looks like there have been other threads over the years concerning this same issue. Other people just as surprised that the cameras don't have this capability. Here's an example.
Normal, Day, Night Profiles for Dahua Cameras

Saw another thread with a posting from someone in Germany from mid-2017 being a little secretive and insinuating that Dahua is working on adding this capability. But it's been over a year since that post. There's no WAY it could take that long to develop. (Running 2.640.x BTW)

The latest the dahua firmware has this function. Alternatively if you have a PC running all the time can use the dahua sunrise sunset utility created by BP2008

 

[tigerwillow1]

I think there would be less confusion if the profiles were just named "1", "2", a,d "3" instead of "normal", "day", and "night". The names imply a capability that doesn't exist. There is one firmware version that does automatic profile switching when the camera switches between day and night modes. There are apparently two different firmware tracks, so it's not as simple as saying use a certain version or newer. The auto switching firmware is of course for only certain models. The info is here: 20180523 Firmware for DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea

 

[ck42]

I think there would be less confusion if the profiles were just named "1", "2", a,d "3" instead of "normal", "day", and "night". The names imply a capability that doesn't exist. There is one firmware version that does automatic profile switching when the camera switches between day and night modes. There are apparently two different firmware tracks, so it's not as simple as saying use a certain version or newer. The auto switching firmware is of course for only certain models. The info is here: 20180523 Firmware for DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea

Okay...so all my cameras are already running that version stated in that thread. According to that thread, the "Day/Night" option *should* be acting/working as an auto-Day/Night option!
Time to test! Hope this works! If so, then this topic is moot.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Day/night works for me, so I'm "assuming" it will work for you. I've got it on a 5231E-Z zoom and a 4231E-S fixed.

 

[marklyn]

I too was bummed at my two higher end Dahua's can't automatically select a day/night profile based on a sensor rather than a profile time setting.
I know that there BP2008 has an app out there that goes by lat/long to automatically set day/night and someone else mentioned a script that could be run but I got to thinking...
There is a command line you can use to do different camera functions, one of them being turning on a profile.
So here are the basic steps I followed to make this work with no external app/script and just using Blue Iris and the two models of Dahua cameras I have.
1) Main Blue Iris options: Schedule: enable it and I used civil twilight. Plugged in my area's lat/long.
2) Edit one of my Dahua camera properties go to Schedule then override global schedule, then goto event schedule, enable it then click Add. I checked the "relative to sunrise/sunset" and entered the time for this event for what it says will be sunrise (ie: 7:15:00 am). All profile boxes checked. For function I chose any blank preset (my Daylight is 13 and night is 12). Before you OK this make sure the "search back at startup/reset" is checked.
3) Now go to your PTZ/Control tab for that camera's settings. Choose edit presets and choose whatever preset you chose in previous step (assuming you're doing day profile first). Now in the http:// or script box put this:
http://login_name: Password@ip-address: Port/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&VideoInMode[0].Config[0]=0

The example steps is for the day profile.
The night profile is identical except you choose another preset in step 2 & 3 and use this script:
http://login_name: Password@ip-address: Port/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&VideoInMode[0].Config[0]=1

The "normal" profile is the same, except I think it ends in "2" and obviously you use your own login/pw, ip and port for your cameras.

Anyway I just tested this out and it does seem to work so if this is the case then no external scripts would be needed to run, just use blue iris. Should work on other camera manufacturers that allow http commands.
Would appreciate if it others play around with this and let me know if this seems to be solid. I hope I didn't leave anything out! and sorry if it's too concise.

**** IMPORTANT*** there are no spaces in the two script examples above but I couldn't do plain text so a colon with a p right after it became I couldn't figure out how to turn on plain text mode for this!

 

[pmcross]

I too was bummed at my two higher end Dahua's can't automatically select a day/night profile based on a sensor rather than a profile time setting.
I know that there BP2008 has an app out there that goes by lat/long to automatically set day/night and someone else mentioned a script that could be run but I got to thinking...
There is a command line you can use to do different camera functions, one of them being turning on a profile.
So here are the basic steps I followed to make this work with no external app/script and just using Blue Iris and the two models of Dahua cameras I have.
1) Main Blue Iris options: Schedule: enable it and I used civil twilight. Plugged in my area's lat/long.
2) Edit one of my Dahua camera properties go to Schedule then override global schedule, then goto event schedule, enable it then click Add. I checked the "relative to sunrise/sunset" and entered the time for this event for what it says will be sunrise (ie: 7:15:00 am). All profile boxes checked. For function I chose any blank preset (my Daylight is 13 and night is 12). Before you OK this make sure the "search back at startup/reset" is checked.
3) Now go to your PTZ/Control tab for that camera's settings. Choose edit presets and choose whatever preset you chose in previous step (assuming you're doing day profile first). Now in the http:// or script box put this:
http://login_name: Password@ip-address: Port/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&VideoInMode[0].Config[0]=0

The example steps is for the day profile.
The night profile is identical except you choose another preset in step 2 & 3 and use this script:
http://login_name: Password@ip-address: Port/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&VideoInMode[0].Config[0]=1

The "normal" profile is the same, except I think it ends in "2" and obviously you use your own login/pw, ip and port for your cameras.

Anyway I just tested this out and it does seem to work so if this is the case then no external scripts would be needed to run, just use blue iris. Should work on other camera manufacturers that allow http commands.
Would appreciate if it others play around with this and let me know if this seems to be solid. I hope I didn't leave anything out! and sorry if it's too concise.

**** IMPORTANT*** there are no spaces in the two script examples above but I couldn't do plain text so a colon with a p right after it became I couldn't figure out how to turn on plain text mode for this!

Thanks for this, marklyn! This is very helpful and saved me a ton of time. Works flawlessly.

 

[awsum140]

Simply use the Dahua Sunrise/Sunset utility available on this form written by BP2008, I believe. I use it to control the profiles of all my Dahua cameras and it works flawlessly with point click configuration.

Dahua day/night switch utility - DahuaSunriseSunset

 

[marklyn]

As I mentioned in my post I already knew about BP2008's app and while appreciated, I found that my solution is easier to use since Dahua cameras accept script commands.
So far it's been working flawlessly

 

[aristobrat]

As I mentioned in my post I already knew about BP2008's app and while appreciated, I found that my solution is easier to use since Dahua cameras accept script commands.
So far it's been working flawlessly

Are you running older firmware? I was playing around with http commands last night (to disable motion detection) and my Dahua cameras wouldn’t accept the username and password being passed in the URL. I ended up having to make BI call the curl.exe tool which can use digest authentication, which worked.