Is ColorVu any decent or more of a gimmick?

mat200

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FWIW:

For those who want BOTH the IR B&W and Color ...

2021 Full Color 2.0 Has a Fantastic New Dual Lens Camera
 

Spirch

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same time, different view, camera DS-2DE4A404IW-DE

this is the one i will replace with a colorvu turret 4k at some point after this winter

exposure 1/125
WDR 25
DNR 36
FPS 15
H265+ at max bitrate of 6144 and average 3072

distance about 23 meters or 75 feet

jump at 1m45

side note, anyone know how to reduce the noise / make it more clear?

(at the time of this posting only 360p is available, higher quality incoming)
 

Smilingreen

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Don't know if this helps much or not, but this is one of my Hikvision cameras, mounted on my screened in back porch. The door at the end is 75' from the camera. I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, back in the woods, so there is 0 ambient light for illumination. This was illuminated with onboard infrared @ 3:00 in the morning. I had to place a mask on the left hand side, as the infrared was bouncing off the screen framework and basically blinding the camera. The camera is a Hikvision DS-2CD2183G0-I 8MP. The infrared intensity is set at 20%. If someone comes through the door, you get a clear facial recognition on the NVR. Any motion it picks up also triggers the Hikvision PTZ camera mounted in the carport to swing around and look at the back porch entrance, so I capture both a front and rear view of anything coming through the door and what they may have behind their back. When the carport PTZ is triggered to look at the porch door, it triggers another Hikvision PTZ camera I have to quickly pan around and watch the driveway, which is what the first PTZ camera was doing before it got triggered.
 

MrRodgers

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Maybe buy one of each. and see where you can get the best fit. the 2431 is ok in decent light, I havent used it in an IR situation.
I took your advice and bought both.

I have both installed and while there is some difference between the two it is not that big of a difference. The 5442 does have a better build and the picture is better as is the night picture. I asked a few friends and they could not see any difference in the two when i showed them on my PC.

What would be the next up in turret style or do i just need to buy a DS-2CD2087G2-LU or a DS-2CD2087G2-LU, i tempted to get one.
 

Flintstone61

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I'm not familiar with those part numbers. the DS-2CD............
Are those Hikvisions...edit....Oh wow.....$348 on one website....out of my Condos Budget probably.....
 

user8963

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View attachment 102910
Don't know if this helps much or not, but this is one of my Hikvision cameras, mounted on my screened in back porch. The door at the end is 75' from the camera. I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, back in the woods, so there is 0 ambient light for illumination. This was illuminated with onboard infrared @ 3:00 in the morning. I had to place a mask on the left hand side, as the infrared was bouncing off the screen framework and basically blinding the camera. The camera is a Hikvision DS-2CD2183G0-I 8MP. The infrared intensity is set at 20%. If someone comes through the door, you get a clear facial recognition on the NVR. Any motion it picks up also triggers the Hikvision PTZ camera mounted in the carport to swing around and look at the back porch entrance, so I capture both a front and rear view of anything coming through the door and what they may have behind their back. When the carport PTZ is triggered to look at the porch door, it triggers another Hikvision PTZ camera I have to quickly pan around and watch the driveway, which is what the first PTZ camera was doing before it got triggered.
according to google the model is a dome... you will never get a good night image with a dome and IR enabled. you see the problem: reflections...
 

user8963

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I took your advice and bought both.

I have both installed and while there is some difference between the two it is not that big of a difference. The 5442 does have a better build and the picture is better as is the night picture. I asked a few friends and they could not see any difference in the two when i showed them on my PC.

What would be the next up in turret style or do i just need to buy a DS-2CD2087G2-LU or a DS-2CD2087G2-LU, i tempted to get one.
if you are running both in auto mode, you will get probably the same (worse) result.

the x31 series is noisy as hell compared to 5442. i would say its impossible that there is only a light differnce. even in brighter night scene the 5442 should outperform the 31
 

MrRodgers

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What settings should i try to change and yes they are in auto.
 

user8963

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You should not try to change ... you have to change anything... otherwise you were maybe better by buying reolink for 1/4 of the price..

most important is shutter/gain .. so you set it to manual/custom and dial in your own settings.

this is discussed here everywhere. i am on mobile phone so i am not able to search you a thread. you can stalk @wittaj profile, he wrote many explanations a thousnad times. but its also in cliff note.
 

wittaj

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Since I have been summoned LOL.

it comes down to configuring your camera and dialing it in to your field of view and using a test subject to walk around while you are adjusting.

Auto/default settings are usually going to be problematic. Auto shutter at night was probably a motion blur ghost and didn't look like a human.

And some field of views will be problematic as well. YMMV.

In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-30 (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared.

Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night image results in Casper during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

So if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.
 

Smilingreen

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according to google the model is a dome... you will never get a good night image with a dome and IR enabled. you see the problem: reflections...
You are correct. It is a dome. Hikvision has done something with the IR emitters to cut way down on the ring effect and reflections you usually see in a dome.

I had some old GeoVision cameras with a dome that were terrible at night when the IR kicked on. I ended up throwing them away, they were really that bad.
 

Left Coast Geek

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I've avoided any dome cameras, and so far just have some bullets and mostly turret/eyeball cams. I like the turret form factor but I guess I can't get really long FL in that, because I want a 20mm or longer lens for my driveway entrance camera.
 

user8963

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You are correct. It is a dome. Hikvision has done something with the IR emitters to cut way down on the ring effect and reflections you usually see in a dome.

I had some old GeoVision cameras with a dome that were terrible at night when the IR kicked on. I ended up throwing them away, they were really that bad.
for me the image looks like looking through a vein which is common for dome cameras ... no way that a bullet or turret would look that awful. possible that it is related to weather, but i saw this problem alot with any dome. in my opinion their "modification" is just marketing bullshit. even with external/not under dome leds you would see this problem...

also if you have overexposed areas the problem is not solved by hiding it with a software blackbox.. i dont see the point why people are doing this .. this is like a cat hiding behind a curtain.. cat cant see anyone so he thinks he must be invisible for anyone.

backreflections of ir light from near objects is also a problem for bullets/turrets ending in similiar awful images.

domes should only used for a really good reason
 
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Smilingreen

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for me the image looks like looking through a vein which is common for dome cameras ... no way that a bullet or turret would look that awful. possible that it is related to weather, but i saw this problem alot with any dome. in my opinion their "modification" is just marketing bullshit. even with external/not under dome leds you would see this problem...

also if you have overexposed areas the problem is not solved by hiding it with a software blackbox.. i dont see the point why people are doing this .. this is like a cat hiding behind a curtain.. cat cant see anyone so he thinks he must be invisible for anyone.

backreflections of ir light from near objects is also a problem for bullets/turrets ending in similiar awful images.

domes should only used for a really good reason
Impressive.
 
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