Recommended settings for IPC-T5442T-ZE

tech191

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I've been struggling a bit with finding the right balance of settings for my IPC-T5442T-ZEs. And while I've been trying to learn, I still struggle with the practical purpose/utility of some of them. I know that at some point I came across a post from someone on this forum recommending an average (happy medium) set-up for the camera. I've tried to look for it but have been coming up empty. I understand that circumstances are different for all of us, but could someone point me in the right direction?

Thank you very much!
 

wittaj

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The cameras are so location dependent, so what works at mine won't work for you and vice versa. Here are my general thoughts.

Try to avoid the backlight settings until after you have exhausted every other attempt with the other settings as they add artifacts and other issues. Sometimes we do not have a choice, but try first. Motion in your images above with that WDR will be blur. And that lighting will only be an issue for a certain part of the day, so then you ruin the rest of the day by using WDR.

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. Even in the day auto settings are usually not your friend.

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 (night) and 0-30 (day)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 will get 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) and 25-30 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.
 

Wildcat_1

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I've been struggling a bit with finding the right balance of settings for my IPC-T5442T-ZEs. And while I've been trying to learn, I still struggle with the practical purpose/utility of some of them. I know that at some point I came across a post from someone on this forum recommending an average (happy medium) set-up for the camera. I've tried to look for it but have been coming up empty. I understand that circumstances are different for all of us, but could someone point me in the right direction?

Thank you very much!
Feel free to reach out to me via DM, we can setup some time where I can connect to your system remotely as I've done with many others, look to dial the cams in for your FOV location and target requirements. Can also answer any question you may have while doing so. Happy to assist where I can.
 

tech191

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Much appreciated!!!! I will be out of town for a couple of days and then I'll take you up on you offer. Thank you!
 

Buttan Butt

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I haven't got any IPC-T5442T-ZEs yet but they are on the way. However I've got a few IPC-T5442TM-AS with FW V2.800.15OG004.0.R, Build Date: 2020-12-03.

Initially I set these cams as I used to set up my old 2MP Starligt cameras with a frame rate of 15 FPS and an I-frame rate of the same value. Using similar strategy for this camera didn't work out well at all because parts of the image got blurred. For me, it tuned out that the default values produces the best image for this camera. It got even a bit better raising the Bitrate one level.

Capture.PNG

Cheers!
 

wittaj

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Yeah, many of us have found that the 5442 series requires a higher bit rate (which makes sense as a 4MP is more resolution than 2MP). Many of us run it 8192 and CBR. Mine looks better at H264 and 8192 bitrate. Anything lower than 8192 and it is a pixel mess.
 
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The Automation Guy

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I've also found that you want to use a constant bit rate (CBR) with these cameras. I'm pretty sure by default they are set to variable bit rate (VBR). Unfortunately that just results in a muddy mess.
 

wittaj

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No reason to run 30FPS. That is just wasting storage space and not getting you anything of value. Police only care about a clean image capture, not smooth video. Shutter speed is more important than FPS.

Hollywood movies are only shot at 24FPS, so we do not need more than that for our mobile devices and tablets LOL.

15FPS with an iframe Interval of 15 at 8192 bitrate is more than enough.

Match the coding and FPS for the substream.

Watch these, for most of us, it isn't annoying until below 10FPS


 
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SuperMiguel

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No reason to run 30FPS. That is just wasting storage space and not getting you anything of value.

Hollywood movies are only shot at 24FPS, so we do not need more than that for our mobile devices and tablets LOL.

15FPS with an iframe Interval of 15 at 8192 bitrate is more than enough.

Match the coding and FPS for the substream.

Watch these, for most of us, it isn't annoying until below 10FPS


Thanks this is good info!!! You right 30 FPS doesnt look that much better than 15FPS

So the "I Frame Interval" should be double the Frame Rate? Also should SVC be off??

1655054172459.png
 

wittaj

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You should match FPS and iframes. So they should both be the same.

Keep SVC off.
 

wittaj

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That will come down to your personal tastes and how many cameras you have.

If you have 8 or more cameras on the screen in multiview, you can probably get by with 256-512 or so.

But at a D1 resolution, even 2000 bitrate is minimal storage usage.
 
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