Initial review of the Hikvision DS-2CD2087G2-L(U) ColorVu 4K 8MP IP bullet camera.

[dudemaar]

check the bolt circle dia. on the data sheet for both cam and mount. lookd like it will fit to me. with a 0.3 mm clearance

 

[netnode]

Thanks for that, it looks very big when I watched an install on you Tube.

HikVision describe it as "Junction Box for Dome Camera" thinking it's going to look very bulky on the wall.

Seems it's this one or nothing so I have ordered two, I will report whenever I get the cameras to install.

 

[Baoveanninh]

This is an initial review of the interesting Hikvision, linked to the marketing terms ColorVu 2.0 and Accusense 2.0
It’s a new model that’s already created a lot of interest on the forum.
The intention is to not overlap or duplicate the various other useful posts on the same device, but rather to try to pick out some different aspects that may be of interest to the forum. EOE.

Disclosure : The device under review was provided by Andy of @EMPIRETECANDY in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Andy's ipcamtalk vendor forum: link
Andy's AliExpress store: link
Andy's Amazon store: link
Andy's Email: kingsecurity2014 (at) 163 (dot) com

The camera under review came with firmware V5.5.154 build 200928
At the time of writing, the Hikvision EU and UK firmware portals don’t seem to have caught up with this model. The firmware has some rough edges, so there should be some updates out soon.
There will probably be some confusion over which firmware series is valid for this model – G3 or maybe the new G5.
Hikvision’s product info can be seen here :
DS-2CD2087G2-L(U)

Of note is the large “Image Sensor1/1.2″ Progressive Scan CMOS”
Giving a claimed “Min. Illumination 0.0005 Lux @ (F1.0, AGC ON), 0 Lux with Light”
Hikvision have also helpfully started publishing 2 camera features which should be of help to forum members :

Depth of Focus. 2.8 mm: 4.5 m to ∞, 4 mm: 7 m to ∞, 6 mm: 13 m to ∞
With the use of small aperture lenses in earlier generation cameras, depth of focus hasn’t been limited enough to be a great concern. But now with the use of wide aperture (F1.0) lenses in the ColorVu series to even further enhance the sensor low-light performance giving a more limited depth of focus, all of a sudden it’s something we need to be more aware of.

DORI.
2.8 mm, D: 96 m, O: 38 m, R: 19 m, I: 9 m
4 mm, D: 111 m, O: 44 m, R: 22 m, I: 11 m
6 mm, D: 167 m, O: 66 m, R: 33 m, I: 16 m
Many forum members are aware that surveillance cameras are installed for a purpose, not to just give a pretty overview picture that turns out to be of no use after recording an incident, so being aware of DORI distances is important.
It’s useful to be reminded that even with 4K resolution, a 2.8mm lens may not be a great choice for that facial detail.

• What’s good :

The combination of 4K 8MP resolution and a low-light performance similar to the familiar DS-2CD2347G1-L(U) ColorVu makes this an excellent surveillance camera.
Despite the oft-quoted advice on the forum to ‘not chase the mega-pixels’, the combination of the low-light performance and 8MP resolution makes the digital zoom genuinely useful and dilutes that advice in this case.

There are a number of scale expansions to otherwise existing and familiar configuration settings that should help users to fine tune the camera for their use case.
4 regions for intrusion detection, with a target that can be human or vehicle.
4 regions for line crossing detection, with a target that can be human or vehicle.

The firmware inherits the changes and improvements and quirks first seen in the ColorVu G2 cameras : Initial review of the DS-2CD2347G2-L(U) ColorVu 2.0 IP camera.

• What’s new :

A target cropping facility in Video / Audio settings – for the third stream.
A camera-stored security log in the Maintenance menu.
A selection of 4 standard and 2 custom scene profiles for image parameters, which can be set on up to 4 schedules. These are monthly schedules covering a whole year!
‘Device maintenance’ - a scheduled reboot. Not common on Hikvision devices.
A grey scale slider in Image enhancement. Not sure what this does though.
There is now a Face Capture facility, which is mutually exclusive with Smart Events for the VCA resource (image processing capacity). I’ve not yet tested this.

• What’s not so good :

Not a lot really apart from the slightly buggy G3 firmware.
This is a really good camera, definitely worth a good look.

• What’s missing :

No ability (yet) to event-trigger the LEDs.
The model number in System Settings. It’s blank.

• What’s quirky or bugged :

The ‘Snapshot’ button on Live View doesn’t work on h.265 with Firefox, OK with h.264 and IE11.

The camera might not be correctly reporting Smart Events to the NVR or management system. While VCA data is being passed over correctly, intrusion detection is missed on the NVR logs, though it does appear on Rules playback. Tested via DS-7604NI-K1/4P with 3.4.103 firmware.

The Day / Night image selection doesn’t actually switch to B&W, despite the related settings still being available, unlike on the G1 ColorVu. This stopped me testing if it still had a fixed IR filter.

The default exposure time is 1/12 which might unreasonably accentuate low-light performance and create motion blur when used by unaware customers.

The ‘low illumination’ scene makes interesting changes to the image, but the default exposure of 1/6 could also mislead if not noticed.

Some, not all, references to ONVIF have been changed to ‘Open Network Video Interface’.

• What’s techy :

The camera uses the Hi3516CV500 SoC which has a fast dual-core CPU with secure boot and built-in NNIE (Neural Net Inference Engine) for video analytics. The G1 ColorVu is single-core.
The Linux kernel is now based on 4.9.x as opposed to the much older 3.10 of the G1 ColorVu.
The G3 firmware filesize is a lot bigger than the G1 series – 80MB vs 36MB. The camera doesn’t seem to be running a dual OS.
The huge Accusense blob at 50MB+ has meant that Hikvision have stripped out the ‘secondary partition self-repair and recovery’ facility as there just isn’t the needed space even in the 256MB flash memory.
CPU utilisation rendering video under websocket in Firefox or Edge pretty heavy at about 45% (I5-6750) compared with 15% under the webcomponent plugin in IE11.


See the next post for some low-light comparison images.

I have this version as well
DS-2CD2087G2-L(U) ColorVu 4K 8MP IP bullet camera firmware V5.5.154. I have a lot of trouble with blurry recording video . Please help me with setting. I use this camera with
Hikvision nvr DS-7608NI-Q2/8P purchased also from aliexpress. Thank you so much!

 

[Baoveanninh]

have this version as well
DS-2CD2087G2-L(U) ColorVu 4K 8MP IP bullet camera firmware V5.5.154. I have a lot of trouble with blurry recording video . Please help me with setting. I use this camera with
Hikvision nvr DS-7608NI-Q2/8P purchased also from aliexpress. Thank you so much!

 

[wittaj]

I have this version as well
DS-2CD2087G2-L(U) ColorVu 4K 8MP IP bullet camera firmware V5.5.154. I have a lot of trouble with blurry recording video . Please help me with setting. I use this camera with
Hikvision nvr DS-7608NI-Q2/8P purchased also from aliexpress. Thank you so much!

Post screenshots of your settings. More than likely you are on auto settings or bitrate too low.

 

[alastairstevenson]

There are 2 settings that contribute to blurred video recordings, but how much use can be made of them depends on the level of ambient light on the scene.
The most important configuration item is the exposure time. Aim for 1/100 or 1/150 seconds.
A setting that can create motion trails is too high a DNR (digital noise reduction) value. Try dropping that to maybe 30, down from the default of 50.

 

[Baoveanninh]

Post screenshots of your settings. More than likely you are on auto settings or bitrate too low.

 

[Baoveanninh]

These are the setting on my cameras

 

[wittaj]

@Baoveanninh - that is exposure time is WAY TOO SLOW. As @alastairstevenson said, bump it way up. No slower than 1/30

 

[Baoveanninh]

Days and nights recording are the same all real blurry

 

[Baoveanninh]

I have lots of ambient lights surrounding

 

[wittaj]

Post a few videos for us to see. But a 1/6 shutter speed is way too slow and will be motion blur all night long.

It might be a bitrate issue as well if it is the entire screen that is blurry.

 

[Baoveanninh]

Live view is fine in 1080p but when switch to 4k it would say No Resource.

 

[Baoveanninh]

Post a few videos for us to see. But a 1/6 shutter speed is way too slow and will be motion blur all night long.

It might be a bitrate issue as well if it is the entire screen that is blurry.

@Baoveanninh - that is exposure time is WAY TOO SLOW. As @alastairstevenson said, bump it way up. No slower than 1/30

. I don't know much about camera but is 1/30 for both day and night?

 

[Baoveanninh]

This is the night recorded.

 

[Baoveanninh]

View attachment trim.3AE415AC-5025-41DF-8733-A5DE6016FEC8.MOV

 

[Baoveanninh]

This is live stream image iPhone screen capture

 

[alastairstevenson]

Live view is fine in 1080p but when switch to 4k it would say No Resource.

edit Assuming here that you are accessing the camera web GUI, as opposed to the NVR web GUI.
If it's the NVR - it's not powerful enough to handle the 4k stream either.

It's complaining about the inadequate PC performance.
What processor is in the PC?
The browser-free 'websocket' capability to render video in any browser is very heavy on the CPU.

You will find that the old IE11 with webcomponents plugin is much more efficient at rendering video, and should work OK on a limited power PC at 4k.

You'd be wasting the camera not using the camera's 8MP resolution.

 

[Baoveanninh]

edit Assuming here that you are accessing the camera web GUI, as opposed to the NVR web GUI.
If it's the NVR - it's not powerful enough to handle the 4k stream either.

It's complaining about the inadequate PC performance.
What processor is in the PC?
The browser-free 'websocket' capability to render video in any browser is very heavy on the CPU.

You will find that the old IE11 with webcomponents plugin is much more efficient at rendering video, and should work OK on a limited power PC at 4k.

You'd be wasting the camera not using the camera's 8MP resolution.

I am currently just use the nvr direct hdmi to 4k tv and when I am not at home I am just using him-connect app

 

[alastairstevenson]

I am currently just use the nvr direct hdmi to 4k tv

OK, so it's the NVR that's running out of resources due to the demands of the UHD video stream when it says 'No resource'.
Direct access to the camera web GUi can give the same error message when the PC CPU is overloaded by the decoding process.