Peewee Postal Pirate: Help me get better video

Frankenscript

Frankenscript

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Dec 21, 2017
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Hi folks,

18 months into my camera odyssey I've got my first video of a crime.



Youtube actually didn't blur it; it looks pretty much like this in the original clip. I can't upload .AVI for some reason to this forum (that's what Blue Iris outputs for me).

A youthful kid walked around our entire neighborhood, and the adjoining one, opening at least 60, perhaps twice that number, of mailboxes and grabbing anything of interest. In some cases he put uninteresting mail back, others just dumped it. He left the boxes open, nearly uniformly.

The video was taken by a Dahua 5321R-Z, zoomed in nearly completely. Not good enough for solid identification. What can I do to get a better imagery in this scenario in the future?

The camera exposure modes are all auto. Here are some pics of some settings (attached).

Mailbox Settings.png MailboxSettings2.png

I noticed that it looks like I've set it to full time DAY mode; have now changed that to Normal ; we'll see how that does. Probably need more IR light directed at the mailbox?

Picture is beautiful in the day... :-)

Got the perp on several other cameras but due to where he was, they didn't get much.

Any help appreciated.
 
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Looks like it needs more zoom. If you plugged this camera into IPVM Camera Calculator V3, can you see what the PPF at the mailbox is?

As he’s walking to your mailbox, that doesn’t look bad. The police in my area would have no problems using a still from that.
 
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Yeah, I checked and turns out I'm fully zoomed on the camera, so no more juice. I gave videos to the police from all cameras that caught him. Just now, I went through my cameras and tweaked a few settings (it's full dark out now) to get a bit better images, but I'm a novice at these settings. I've got a mix of Dahua and Hik cameras. Apparently the Hikvision bullet cameras I covering the driveway have seem to only have manual exposure shutter settings. At least, the mode was set to Manual and no other options came up in the "drop down"... currently set to 1/25 and 1/50 (two different cameras pointing different ways).
 
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FWIW, posting your videos as you did on YouTube is the preferred method versus uploading to forum.
Also, BI will convert/export to MP4 if you so desire.
 
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Maybe I can trim some branches... I could also get an IR spot emitter.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
 
yeah I had a similar situation on a back yard camera, cut a limb and made a big change in the exposure with IR.

Also make sure DNR is below 50 and dont use WDR at night, both contribute to blur. Also try matching FPS to iframe (30/30)

May try going from Auto to 1/30 or 1/60. And FWIW I run max bitrate (8192) and max FPS (30). I know in theory its not needed, but unless you have some big storage problem, why not? I do see a difference in image quality between 4096 and 8192.
 
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TonyR said:
FWIW, posting your videos as you did on YouTube is the preferred method versus uploading to forum.
Also, BI will convert/export to MP4 if you so desire.
Click to expand...

Hi @TonyR I went back in to look for the MP4 export in the UI... is it hidden somewhere? All I get is this:
Export.jpg

Perhaps I have to be at the actual computer to find the MP4 version of the export? That computer is hidden away but I can RDP into it as needed. Or maybe I'm missing something obvious?

It was kind of thrilling to catch the crime, but sobering to realize my nighttime captures leave much to be desired.
 
It's in BI's console. Below is relevant to v4, I don't have 5 yet.

Double-click on a clip to review.
Drag green and red triangles at bottom to set begin/end (respectively) of what you want.
Right click on the same clip and select export.
Choose MP4. Mine saves to "New" folder.

It's covered in BI's "help" file, BTW.
 
Thanks. I'm still on 4 also. Will switch to 5 in a month or two. Giving it time to settle in. Ain't broke, no need to fix right now.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
 
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Frankenscript said:
Thanks. I'm still on 4 also. Will switch to 5 in a month or two. Giving it time to settle in. Ain't broke, no need to fix right now.
Click to expand...
You read my mind.
 
Frankenscript said:
Hi folks,

18 months into my camera odyssey I've got my first video of a crime.



Youtube actually didn't blur it; it looks pretty much like this in the original clip. I can't upload .AVI for some reason to this forum (that's what Blue Iris outputs for me).

A youthful kid walked around our entire neighborhood, and the adjoining one, opening at least 60, perhaps twice that number, of mailboxes and grabbing anything of interest. In some cases he put uninteresting mail back, others just dumped it. He left the boxes open, nearly uniformly.

The video was taken by a Dahua 5321R-Z, zoomed in nearly completely. Not good enough for solid identification. What can I do to get a better imagery in this scenario in the future?

The camera exposure modes are all auto. Here are some pics of some settings (attached).

View attachment 43638 View attachment 43639

I noticed that it looks like I've set it to full time DAY mode; have now changed that to Normal ; we'll see how that does. Probably need more IR light directed at the mailbox?

Picture is beautiful in the day... :)

Got the perp on several other cameras but due to where he was, they didn't get much.

Any help appreciated.
Click to expand...


You will need to set the cam up for day/night switching.
At night, as others suggested try 1/60 manual exposure, keep the noise reduction as low as you can stand it.
Adjust gain, and contrast as needed. You have to test the settings by having someone walk through the scene.
Or this cam: Review-Dahua IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E AI Varifocal Bullet | IP Cam Talk[URL='https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/review-dahua-ipc-hfw5241e-z12e-ai-varifocal-bullet.38892/#post-357759']Review-Dahua IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E AI Varifocal Bullet | IP Cam Talk[/URL]
 
More shenanigans in my neighborhood recently have led me to see about improving my settings. I think I may be misunderstanding some basics of how to set up the exposure and such. Please help guide me.

Again, it's a Dahua 5321R-Z sourced from Andy, so it's English. Firmware is:

System Version2.622.0000000.18.R, Build Date: 2017-11-10Found New Version
per.ISPVersion
WEB Version3.2.1.515090
ONVIF Version16.12(V2.4.1.510971)
National Standard Version No.
PTZ VersionFound new PTZ firmware version
scmVersion
Module Serial Number
Camera Version
S/N4CPA[DELETED]

First question is: is there a meaningfully better firmware for this camera? The cameras are isolated from the internet but I could always download the firmware and apply it locally.

Next, I want to make sure I'm actually properly configuring the NIGHT and DAY settings. For night, most of my images of people are blurred beyond recognition so it's critical I get it to stick to a faster shutter; 1/100 or faster I guess. Let's walk through this. Logged into the camera interface, I go into conditions. Here's what I see for profile management. Am I correct that this means it will switch Day/Night modes "normally" Conditions_ProfileManagement.png

Meaning when it gets dark, it switches to night mode, based on the Day& Night settings below?
Profile_DayNight.png
I take this to mean automatic switching, middle sensitivity to light/darkness, with a 6 second delay to prevent flicker.

Now here's where I get confused:

Under Exposure, the profile is selected as "Normal" but shouldn't it just have Day and Night, to set the independent settings needed for night mode and day mode, with the mode being picked per the switching described above? In other words, if I go in and configure Night settings, that shouldn't affect the setting used during the Day, but it seems to.

Here is my guess as to decent Night time exposure settings; it's not yet full dark so I can't be sure.

Exposure_Night.png

Am I doing this correctly? Last time I messed with this, it stuck the settings during day and night, not changing them. Am I missing something obvious about how night and day mode get set and picked? Help!
 
So, it is now dark enough that the system is in Night mode, black and white. But, in the Exposure screen, if I choose Day and start messing with the settings (that I thought should only affect me during daytime brightness), my live view still changes. How do I hard code the settings for Day and Night separately?
 
I never was able to get 'Normal" to work. The newer firmware for some newer cameras have a "Day/Night" profile which actually seems to do what it should and what you (as many others including me) thought "Normal" would do.

On cameras without the new "Day/Night" I use the "Schedule" profile. This allows you to set different conditions for day and night with the only caveat that you may have to change your switching times 3 or 4 times a year.
 
OK, I remain seriously confused. Help please! Show me the ignorance of my ways.

So, I've updated the firmware to the more current one @looney2ns mentioned. Hooray, as in Profile Management there is now a Day/Night option that was missing before. I've selected it, and saved the setting as follows:

NewFirmware_ProfileManagement.png

But, it still doesn't seem to be reacting as I would expect. Right now it is before 7 pm and very sunny out. So, the camera should be in Day mode and any settings I make to the Night profile (exposure etc.) shouldn't have any effect. But I'm watching a live feed from the camera, and when I make changes to the Night profile, the live feed flickers and such.

So, given that it is now Day outside, per the Day/Night settings, and I choose this selector to go in and configure the Night settings:

NewFirmware_ProfileExposureSelect.png (assume I pick the Night Profile here)

The live image flashes and goes to whatever settings Night has chosen, and subsequent changes to Night cause changes in the live view, even though it's bright daylight outside so the camera should be perpetually in Day mode until the sun goes down. What am I missing?

I checked under Day&Night:
NewFirmware_DayNight settings.png None of the settings are adjustable here other than the Profile listed at the top (which isn't specific to this window; it persists if I click around Picture, Exposure, etc...

Also, the shutter settings are nonsensical. Let's say I pick a customized range. I should be able to pick (for example) 1/200 to 1/100000 shutter settings. Instead, it gives the shutter times in milliseconds for me to choose? Huh? I picked 0-5 milliseconds as the limits but it seems squirrely and I'm not sure I've done that right.

NewFirmware_Exposure_Night.png
I chose this range because if I want the shutter to never be longer than 1/200 sec, that would be 5 msec, with faster speeds of course closer to zero.

Why can't this interface show side by side Day and Night settings with an indicator of what mode it's in based on current light conditions? Eesh.

Any help appreciated. I've googled the manual but haven't found much help there.
 
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