Review-I'll be the guinea pig for the new SD59225U-HNI PTZ.

[Mikeee]

It's so quiet here. Time for some footage. Mister Fox caught on camera. He's really loving our flowers ;-)

Don't forget to set it to 1080p to get the best video quality. I'm more satisfied now with catching moving objects at night in forced colour mode. Not quite there yet, but slowly getting there.

Looks better than mine maybe some screenshots of your settings?

 

[Frank van der Heide]

Another sample: forced colour, nighttime. moving subjects.


These are my settings:



Any suggestions perhaps to further improve video quality?

 

[Mike Mo]

Move your intrusion zone farther up the street, or add another one up the street.

Need to give your camera more time to zoom in

 

[bigredfish]

Obviously when the subjects trigger the security lighting the blur all but goes away. More light!

That's really pretty good IMHO and I'm still learning myself and like you trying to find that sweet spot for forced nighttime color, but two things I encountered:

1- WDR causes motion blur in low light - very very little WDR at night, like 15 or less.
2- Does it make a difference if you match the iframe to the FPS?

Also I just happened to be browsing the 2017 IPVM pdf sticky at top of the Introduction section here:
Resource Guide on IP Technology for all Noobs
And found this tidbit:

If you have blurring, you have shutter speed configuration problem, not a
frame rate one.

Key lesson: The frame rate per second can never be higher than the
number of exposures per second. If you have a 1/4s shutter, the shutter /
exposure only opens and closes 4 times per second (i.e., 1/4s + 1/4s + 1/4s
+ 1/4s = 1s). Since this only happens 4 times, you can only have 4 frames in
that second.

 

[Frank van der Heide]

Obviously when the subjects trigger the security lighting the blur all but goes away. More light!

That's really pretty good IMHO and I'm still learning myself and like you trying to find that sweet spot for forced nighttime color, but two things I encountered:

1- WDR causes motion blur in low light - very very little WDR at night, like 15 or less.
2- Does it make a difference if you match the iframe to the FPS?

Yeah, i wish i could get more light at front, but it is not permitted to put external floodlight here facing public streetway. The floodlight on the right is there to light up the area on the side of my house, where it is permitted. I have a 500 Watt LED motion detected floodlight installed there and that definitely helps for my Hikvision there.

1- I have WDR, BLC and HLC turned off. So no blur coming from there.
2- no, it doesn't make any noticable difference if i match the iframe to the FPS. I tried it, also lowering the FPS to 15-20, but also that doesn't make a huge difference.

 

[wxman]

As far as blurring goes, there's 3 different possibilities.

1. If a moving subject is blurry while all stationary surroundings are clear, you need a faster shutter speed. This is most common in low light when the shutter speed has to slow in order for the sensor to receive enough light to make the image..

2. If both the moving subject and it's stationary surroundings are blurry, you've got a focus problem. This could either be auto focusing is not working (if the camera stays at the same position for a while and the condition remains) or is too slow to keep up (if this only happens for a few seconds when the pan, tilt or zoom feature is activated)...These issues will be worsened by low light when the aperture (Iris) is more open (as it gives images a shallower depth of field), contrast in the image is limited (due to lack of light) and when zoom levels are increased (high zooms have more shallow depth of field than wide angle/less zoom). In this case, you'd either need to add more light to the scene or get a camera that is more light sensitive and/or has faster optics.

3. If the moving subject and it's immediate surroundings are blurry, yet items either closer or more distant are clear, then the auto focus is focusing on the wrong area...In this case, try changing your minimum focus distance setting. The auto focus will tend to land on the spot where the majority of the image is in focus. The more zoomed in you are, the shallower your focus depth becomes and the less room for error you have. If you zoom in on an object, yet there's a lot of distant background in the scene behind that object, it's likely going to focus on that distant background rather than the object you're trying to look at. Make sure when zooming in closer that the object you want to see is covering more of the screen than the distant background is. Many times this is not doable, and thus you'll have to manually focus or either use the least amount of zoom as possible.

 

[beingaware]

Obviously when the subjects trigger the security lighting the blur all but goes away. More light!

That's really pretty good IMHO and I'm still learning myself and like you trying to find that sweet spot for forced nighttime color, but two things I encountered:

1- WDR causes motion blur in low light - very very little WDR at night, like 15 or less.
2- Does it make a difference if you match the iframe to the FPS?

Also I just happened to be browsing the 2017 IPVM pdf sticky at top of the Introduction section here:
Resource Guide on IP Technology for all Noobs
And found this tidbit:

If you have blurring, you have shutter speed configuration problem, not a
frame rate one.

Key lesson: The frame rate per second can never be higher than the
number of exposures per second. If you have a 1/4s shutter, the shutter /
exposure only opens and closes 4 times per second (i.e., 1/4s + 1/4s + 1/4s
+ 1/4s = 1s). Since this only happens 4 times, you can only have 4 frames in
that second.

Mmm, which is where you either need more light if you are in colour more or switch to B&W and go max power IR.

Autotracking/auto focus etc need contrast to work, which WDR/light gain etc don't allow for as it causes the video to appear flat to the AF/AT processor which is gated after the image adjustment.
Flat images have no contrast or depth which means the processor has nothing to work on.

The motion blur is very much a product of WDR and low light, thus needing more light!!!
Or turn off WDR, crank up the IR, set the camera's exposure settings manually.

 

[Mike Mo]

Mmm, which is where you either need more light if you are in colour more or switch to B&W and go max power IR.

Autotracking/auto focus etc need contrast to work, which WDR/light gain etc don't allow for as it causes the video to appear flat to the AF/AT processor which is gated after the image adjustment.
Flat images have no contrast or depth which means the processor has nothing to work on.

The motion blur is very much a product of WDR and low light, thus needing more light!!!
Or turn off WDR, crank up the IR, set the camera's exposure settings manually.

 

[Mike Mo]

Yeah, i wish i could get more light at front, but it is not permitted to put external floodlight here facing public streetway. The floodlight on the right is there to light up the area on the side of my house, where it is permitted. I have a 500 Watt LED motion detected floodlight installed there and that definitely helps for my Hikvision there.

1- I have WDR, BLC and HLC turned off. So no blur coming from there.
2- no, it doesn't make any noticable difference if i match the iframe to the FPS. I tried it, also lowering the FPS to 15-20, but also that doesn't make a huge difference.

Why don't you open the iris all the way? That will let in more light. Your aperture priority mode is limited the iris opening. What happens if you set it to all the way open.

 

[beingaware]

Why don't you open the iris all the way? That will let in more light. Your aperture priority mode is limited the iris opening. What happens if you set it to all the way open.

You won't be able to zoom with IR as it will flood the sensor with light.

Colour mode should be ok but you will still have f/stop limitations.

 

[Frank van der Heide]

Why don't you open the iris all the way? That will let in more light. Your aperture priority mode is limited the iris opening. What happens if you set it to all the way open.

I'll try it tonight with iris setting 80 ~100. See what happens.

 

[Mike Mo]

I'll try it tonight with iris setting 80 ~100. See what happens.

To be honest, I don't think that will fully solve the problem. Aperture priority mode will automatically set the shutter speed to maintain the correct exposure based on the camera's exposure algorithm. To get clearer video on motion, i.e., when people or cars are moving, you need to have 1. a fast enough shutter speed to "freeze the image" and 2. enough light to "see" the image.

At night in forced color mode, you are light limited. Thus for the exposure algorithm to work, the camera will adjust the iris (f-stop) and the shutter-speed to get the correct exposure.

In aperture priority mode, you've fixed the f-stop/iris which controls how big of an opening the lens will have. The larger the value, smaller the f-stop the more light per unit time will reach the sensor, and the camera will adjust the shutter speed automatically to compensate accordingly to get the "correct" exposure.

This shutter speed it selects may be too slow to capture moving people, so they look blurry.

I don't think these cameras are able to measure the speed of the motion it detects so as to adjust the shutter speed accordingly to freeze the image to get clear images.

So your choices would be to adjust aperture (Aperture priority) and hope camera chooses the right shutter speed for you.

Fully auto, where camera chooses both.

Manual, where you can set both, or shutter speed priority, where you can choose the shutter speed you need to freeze the image.

The problem you will run into is that there is a range of speeds that you probably want to capture. From humans to cars. I think it would be better if you set a minimum shutter speed to freeze the image on walking or running humans, if that is what you want.

More likely though you'd probably want to manually set both parameters and do some testing to see which set of values work best for your use case.

I don't think the cameras are "smart" enough or have good enough optics to rely on the built in algorithm to do make the "right" choices in forced color mode at night to get clear images for you.

Post some videos of the changes you make. Thx.

 

[Mike Mo]

I'll try it tonight with iris setting 80 ~100. See what happens.

I don't know how to change the ISO on the cameras, maybe the gain feature. I think that will also change how sensitive the sensor is to the light that it detects. That may increase graininess though.

 

[wxman]

Another sample: forced colour, nighttime. moving subjects.


These are my settings:

View attachment 18901 View attachment 18902 View attachment 18905 View attachment 18906 View attachment 18907 View attachment 18908

Any suggestions perhaps to further improve video quality?

What's that dude's problem (wearing the hoodie)? Hiking his pants up like he's trying to give himself a wedgie.

 

[Rridl21]

Try this, send me directly from Dahua

Link: DH_SD-Eos_Eng_P_Stream3_V2.420.0000.11.R.20160912.bin

Would you be able to kindly send me a new link to the above? I'm having the same problems as Frank was having with the Zoom not working in auto tracking. I tried your link above but it says the transfer has been deleted. I'd really appreciate it. I can send you my e-mail address if that's easier. Thanks!

 

[Frank van der Heide]

Would you be able to kindly send me a new link to the above? I'm having the same problems as Frank was having with the Zoom not working in auto tracking. I tried your link above but it says the transfer has been deleted. I'd really appreciate it. I can send you my e-mail address if that's easier. Thanks!

I will follow-up on your PM later today when i have time.

 

[Frank van der Heide]

Even with enough light (?) it keeps struggling with focus. Should I set it to auto focus or semi auto?

Don't forget to watch it at 1080p.

 

[n0xlf]

Andy is sending me a new one - He's been great to work with! The $81.05 shipping back (and yes, I shopped around everywhere - USPS was cheapest) is a bit painful, but the cost of doing this kind of business...

Just as followup to this, received the new camera from Andy and it works great!!

If you're hesitant to order from him for any reason, have no fear about his warranty - clearly he stands behind what he sells...

 

[wxman]

Even with enough light (?) it keeps struggling with focus. Should I set it to auto focus or semi auto?

Don't forget to watch it at 1080p.

In my experience, there's no difference between auto and semi auto...You can try changing the minimum focus distance, but I don't think it's going to make any difference. The auto focus is just way too slow for object tracking. As long as the camera is moving and/or zooming, the focus is going to keep adjusting in and out. It will only stop a few seconds after the camera is stationary and not zooming. If you want it to stay reasonably in focus while moving, then you need a cam with faster auto focus. You've got to have an extremely fast focus motor for what you're trying to do and this cam just doesn't have that.

 

[Frank van der Heide]

You need a Yunch

Yeah, but then i have no autotracking at all ;-)