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LPR cams for narrow road

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I already have 16 cameras around the property. However because they're run with a NVR, I don't have alert zones and other features that I would like. Therefore I'm going to build a Blue Iris server and transfer those old 2 MP 1/2.8" cameras over to my BI server. But I also want some LPR cams in the front of the property to have a record of who comes and goes, since we've had a few mailbox thefts and garage break-ins over the past couple of years (Welcome to California).

The road is only about 15 feet wide, and as you can see, there's hardly any traffic. Most folks drive kind of in the middle of the road unless they see a car coming the other way, at which point the move over to the side. My goal is to position the cameras on a 8 ft pole inside a birdhouse or some other covering to somewhat disguise the cameras and protect them from the weather. The road has absolutely no lighting at all except for the landscape lighting along the front of my lot, which run from 5pm-1am.

Looking on Empire Technology's Aliexpress website I found this camera which has zoom and a motorized lens with a 1/2.8" CMOS sensor. Is this the preferred camera for this type of application?

Should I use two LPR cams, one facing each direction? Or is one good enough? Do I need an overview cam as well? If so, which one?

Here's what the front of the lot looks like along the road:
Road facing North with car.jpg

Road facing Sorth.jpg
 
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Review-Dahua IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E AI Varifocal Bullet

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wittaj

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Yes the Z12E is still the go to for plates. Do keep in mind this is not a true LPR camera in the sense that it does not read and log plates, rather you can set it up to capture plates and manually read them or use any number of add-ons to read them. BI has Plate Recognizer which will do 2500 plates free per month; there is OpenALPR that $8/month per camera, and a member here is working on a free version for BI.

Not having any light is fine because we rely on fast shutters and the reflective property of the plates for the infrared.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. I have no light in my location. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera with its built-in IR (that is all that is needed for plates):

1668560136732.png

You would take that camera and optically zoom it to about the box in red or a little bigger and that should get you plates no matter where the car is

1668559844159.png

Best to have two camera to catch them coming and going.

And @EMPIRETECANDY is having a Black Friday sale next week, so you would score a discount on those cameras as well.

Do any of your other cameras provide overview capabilities?
 
samplenhold

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What everyone else has stated.

As far as an overview cam, 'need' is a little subjective. I daylight hours the Z12E will give you all of the metadata info on the make, model, color, etc. But at night, you will not get that from the LPR cams.

Do you have any other cams covering the road? Do these give you color video?

With little to no light at night, you will be hard pressed to get any metadata on the cars. I have the B5442 Z4E on my corner for metadata, but there are two street lights there.
 
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wittaj said:
Yes the Z12E is still the go to for plates. Do keep in mind this is not a true LPR camera in the sense that it does not read and log plates, rather you can set it up to capture plates and manually read them or use any number of add-ons to read them. BI has Plate Recognizer which will do 2500 plates free per month; there is OpenALPR that $8/month per camera, and a member here is working on a free version for BI.

Not having any light is fine because we rely on fast shutters and the reflective property of the plates for the infrared.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. I have no light in my location. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera with its built-in IR (that is all that is needed for plates):

View attachment 145736

You would take that camera and optically zoom it to about the box in red or a little bigger and that should get you plates no matter where the car is

View attachment 145735

Best to have two camera to catch them coming and going.

And @EMPIRETECANDY is having a Black Friday sale next week, so you would score a discount on those cameras as well.

Do any of your other cameras provide overview capabilities?
Click to expand...
I don't have other cameras providing overview capabilities. That's why I'm thinking of installing one. Is there a preferred model for this type of application?
 
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samplenhold said:
What everyone else has stated.

As far as an overview cam, 'need' is a little subjective. I daylight hours the Z12E will give you all of the metadata info on the make, model, color, etc. But at night, you will not get that from the LPR cams.

Do you have any other cams covering the road? Do these give you color video?

With little to no light at night, you will be hard pressed to get any metadata on the cars. I have the B5442 Z4E on my corner for metadata, but there are two street lights there.
Click to expand...
I also plan on installing a IR blast emitter. I ran 12 volt to the front of the property and I'm going to install a junction box so I can have multiple branches. I figure at least one IR blaster facing each direction along with the cameras.
 
wittaj

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With a little bit of the light the 4K/X and 4K/T are great cameras, but they do not see infrared, so if you don't have enough light, they won't do much good.

The next best option would be the 5442 series camera. Since it is overview, you don't care as much about fine details, so you could slow the shutter down to keep the camera in color to be able to get type of car and color, etc.
 
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samplenhold said:
The IR blaster will not help with car color. The video will be in B&W.
Click to expand...
True, not much I can do about that given the road is completely pitch black at night, except for when our landscape lighting is on. I figure if we get a license plate, that's most of the battle. We've had the sheriffs request video after a break-in, and given how few cars go up and down our road at night, this could be a game changer.
 
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I ordered the IPC-LPR237B-IR. I read through the 13 page thread but I'm still a bit confused. Does this cam only work with a NVR? Or can I actually use it and its associated functions with Blue Iris? And there was mention of an internal memory card. Should this memory card always be running or can I have live streaming through BI?

I'm going to order the HFW5241E-Z12E as an overview cam as well.
 
wittaj

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The video feed from that camera will come into BI, but the automated reader portion of the plates will not. Further it is a proprietary format. You do not need the SD card to send the video to BI but will to store the plate data.

With as little traffic as you say you get I think an ANPR is overkill. The Z12E with one of the 3rd party reader options I mentioned would probably be a better choice. Plate Recognizer is free for 2500 plates per month and logs the plate in BI, and the MikeLud option available shortly will as well.

I would not use the Z12E as an overview. Too much zoom would be wasted. You would be much better with a 5442 camera and would be cheaper.
 
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wittaj said:
The video feed from that camera will come into BI, but the automated reader portion of the plates will not. Further it is a proprietary format. You do not need the SD card to send the video to BI but will to store the plate data.

With as little traffic as you say you get I think an ANPR is overkill. The Z12E with one of the 3rd party reader options I mentioned would probably be a better choice. Plate Recognizer is free for 2500 plates per month and logs the plate in BI, and the MikeLud option available shortly will as well.

I would not use the Z12E as an overview. Too much zoom would be wasted. You would be much better with a 5442 camera and would be cheaper.
Click to expand...
ANPR is overkill. But we live in a very security conscious neighborhood. I'm on the HOA board and we are investigating whether it would be worth it to add security cameras to our entrances. So I'm going to experiment with this ANPR camera and see how it goes.
 
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Flintstone61 said:
If that is not a thru street you'll get them coming and going with one cam....
here is an example of a z12 ( Previous generation) and a 5442 z4e....catching the same plate.......
Click to expand...
It is a through street, but most folks aren't traversing it to get to another destination other than their home. It's more than a mile long and winds its way through our neighborhood. There entrances to the north and south. I'm only 5 houses away from the north entrance. I figure with the street being only 15 feet wide, one camera should be able to capture any one car going down the street, especially since most folks drive kind of in the middle. It's rare that two cars cross each other going the opposite way.
 
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