Latest Install dahua mini ptz 12x

[bp2008]

I have never seen a camera preset interface out in the wild that I thought was good. For example with Dahua presets in the Dahua camera web UI, you have to type in a number and click a button to go to the preset. Perhaps this is not a bad decision, given that there are 255 or something total presets available and it would take a lot of space to give each one its own button. But you have to remember which presets are which, based only on a number. Who honestly sets and remembers even 20 presets, let alone 255 of them? You probably have less than a dozen you really use manually, so they can be made much more accessible by hotkeying the presets to keyboard keys. The interface I built for cameras with presets (in my cameraproxy app) gives each preset a button with a thumbnail image in it so you don't have to associate numbers with locations in your mind.

Anyway, with the panorama method, you no longer have to deal with presets or numbers at all. You just click on the place you want to see and zoom it to the level you desire with the mouse wheel. In most cases, you can do this faster than you can select the appropriate preset, assuming you even have a preset for the place you want to look. This is especially useful if you want to follow a moving target. You can control pan and tilt much easier than with the standard 8 direction buttons, and you don't have to stop panning and tilting if you want to zoom.

Presets are still good for some things, like setting automated patrols and interfacing with 3rd party apps that don't understand absolute positions.

 

[vector18]

I'm not knocking your method, but just think it's overkill. Are you able to use hotkeys or mouse clicks from your mobile app? If yes, how do you do that? If I'm going to presets on a constant basis from my PC and I just can't remember which number preset belongs to what, than believe me, I'll just have a chart right next to my PC. I just don't see any reason to have to build this special software or program or what ever it is. But hey, if it works for you, than that's all that matters, right?

 

[pal251]

How many presets will someone actually use and who controls their camera all day long? If someone was in front of a nvr all day controling it I would have them use the joystick style controller

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Shockwave199]

I can see the usefulness of bp2008's setup. That's pretty slick actually. But with dahua dvr/nvr coupled with dahua cameras, there is also 3D control so it becomes less about a preset number and more about 3D positioning with the mouse with boxing in and out, or dragging with cursor to pan/tilt and scroll wheel for zoom. No numbers to remember. But outside of just having nice views to look at, ptz control is really ALL about how quickly you can track a problem target. Whatever aids you to do that, rock and roll. But it's when you are tracking a potentially serious situation, where the targets and suspects are moving in ways you cannot predict but have to follow, that the quality of the ptz and software will show you just how good it is in a crisis. THEN you know how good your choices were.

 

[vector18]

Thats right Shock, I forgot about the 3d positioning. I use that all the time. It's fantastic. I still think nothing beats a joystick though.

 

[bp2008]

How does the "3d positioning" work? Is it the same as what you get when you click the

here in the web interface?

That thing is definitely the most usable control method Dahua included. But do you get something better when you control it with a Dahua NVR?

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Before I tried the panorama thing, I tried using input from a PC gaming joystick / gamepad and feeding it to a Dahua PTZ camera via web requests. But it turns out the camera will accept, at best, about 5 position requests per second (half that if you use the "official" documented API), so the controls get very laggy and when you combine that with the video latency, it gets pretty bad. I could see a good joystick being amazing though for an analog camera where the joystick is wired directly to the camera and the video has practically no latency. The high latency just kills it for me, making the panorama method much easier.

 

[vector18]

This pic you can see I drew a box around the license plate




This pic you can see the camera instantly moved into the plate and zoomed into it




This pic you can see the web interface from the NVR, this is not the interface from the camera. From the moment I let go of the mouse after drawing the red box, the camera starts to move and zoom in. This is only a 3x optical so it's nothing crazy, but it's good enough for this street. I've never seen or had any complaints about any latency on any of my dahua nvrs?

 

[networkcameracritic]

Very cool. Can you do that from the phone app? What I'm thinking is to give our security guards access from their phone. If they get a call from a homeowner, they can go on their phone, draw a box with their finger around suspicious activity and it zooms in on the action. Then they asked, what if they are hiding behind bushes, I said thermal, all I need now is a thermal PTZ.

 

[bp2008]

That thing where you click or draw a box to zoom and center is what you get when you click that

button in the web interface. So I guess there is nothing special the NVR adds.

Thermal cameras are going to be sweet once they become affordable enough for homeowners and small businesses. Not for recognizing people, but for motion detecting without false alarms from shadows and stuff like that.

 

[vector18]

It does not work from a mobile device. I know all my presets and use them frequently from my phone. But trust me, you don't want a security guard using a tiny screen to use for security

watch anyway. Give him a PC with a monitor and a mouse and either have him log in remotely, or direct wire to the NVR.

 

[Shockwave199]

When it comes to dahua, if it must be a mobile device, make it a tablet not a phone. The HD apps for android and ipad are the way to go for larger screen tablets. But I agree with Vec in that mobile phones are too small for anything but observational awareness. They will work. PTZ for instance will react to finger swipe and pinch. But it's too clunky to be useful in serious situations.

 

[Shockwave199]

Btw, just a general observation- Vec's install threads tend to end up monster multi page threads! LOL! Happens all the time!

 

[vector18]

LOL, too funny

 

[bp2008]

Never seen a package sealed with black electrical tape before.

Whoever packed it must be from NY

 

[vector18]

That's called old school

 

[bp2008]

Well I have it mounted. I don't supposed you could tell me what IP you left it on?

 

[bp2008]

Aha! It was the device I thought it was (on DHCP); but the web port is 7000. Surely that wasn't the default??

 

[vector18]

Oops, sorry about that, forgot to set the http to 80. Any pics of it mounted?

 

[bp2008]

Not yet, but soon!

 

[bp2008]

Pics of the install. A bit amateurish yes, but its my house and I don't do this for a living