Not really a manual as we are not the target client for these types of cameras - they target and market the "professionals" that should know what they are doing LOL. But we are fortunate to get our hands on these and use a site like this to learn. Plus every location is different, so what works in my setting location may not make sense for you.
No you do not need the Dahua config tool - I have never used it. Simply log into the camera GUI and do all your changes there.
Take it off auto settings at night unless you like seeing Casper and blurring and hotspots. Auto settings in most situations for shutter will produce a great picture, but motion is complete crap with blurring and ghosting.
In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it.
Go into shutter settings and change to manual and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more and gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you are getting from the infrared.
Now what you will notice that happens immediately is 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 30ms as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur.
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), 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.
Try to avoid the backlight settings until after you have exhausted every other attempt with the other settings.
Also, do not use the camera to max capacity. Just because it is capable of 30FPS doesn't mean you should as you will max out the CPU. 15FPS for surveillance cameras are fine. Movies are shot in 24 FPS for the big screen, so 15FPS for a phone or tablet or monitor at home is fine. Also match Iframe to FPS.
Do not be afraid to have to run B/W at night - unless you have a LOT of light, it is better to be B/W and get clean images than color and a blur. If it is an overview camera to get color that is different as that is not used for ID purposes of faces or vehicles other than color.
How do you plan to watch and store video - Camera GUI and SD Card,
Blue Iris, NVR, etc. as that can impact whether you use H264 or H265 and smart codec.
