Smart Motion Detection generating a lot of false positives

[tuvow]

I have a couple of Dahua IPC-HDW5442T-ZE turrets. On these cameras I have Smart Motion Detection enabled to filter for only Human and Vehicle events. No matter the selected Sensitivity (I tried medium and low), the cameras seem to be triggering on any motion event regardless, such as birds, rain, moving bushes, etcetera. A lot of stuff that's obviously not Human or a Vehicle.

I can understand the AI sometimes misclassifies which would result in a false positive every now and then, but right now the cameras are each generating a ton of false positives every day. Am I missing something here? Or is the feature that bad? Or is the camera somehow maybe sending alarm triggers to BI for both normal Motion Detection and Smart Motion Detection?

I'm running the latest firmware from Andy (2.840.15OG00D.0.R, Build Date: 2022-08-18).

 

[looney2ns]

Using IVS smart plan is the much better option.
Be sure to turn off, motion and smart motion if you enable IVS.

Also be sure you have your cameras picture tuned properly.
Wittaj Camera tuning Tips.

 

[f1restarter]

Is there anywhere on this forum that explains how to set up IVS/ smart plan for Dahua/Andy cams? And also how to have BI trigger recordings based on the cameras motion detection rather than have BI do it?

When I type in IVS in the search form, i get no results. Probably too few letters, I know some webpages search functions needs to have at least 6 letters

 

[wittaj]

Go into the camera and set up smart plan with IVS (here is Dahua wiki), then go to the IVS screen and draw IVS rules (tripwire or intrusion box) and then select the AI you want it to trigger on (human or vehicle).

Then in BI, there are a few places you need to set this up in BI (assuming you already set up the IVS rules in the camera GUI):

In Camera configure setting check the box "Get ONVIF triggers".

Hit Find/Inspect on the camera setting to pull the coding for the triggers.

Go into Motion Setting and select the "Cameras digital input" box. Uncheck (if not already) all of the BI motion settings.

On the Alerts tab uncheck the Motions Zones tab (those are alerting you to any BI motion in those areas in Zones A thru H)

On the alerts tab set up how to be notified.

 

[mephisto_uk]

I'm a bit confused with camera detection as well, I got the same model running in BI and using ONVIF triggers. The camera is detecting pretty much any pixel changes as movement, I've the same config just for human and cars, but lights and animals are triggering it. Sometimes I cannot even tell what has triggered it. I created a smaller detection zone to test as well, but no changes.

I'm not sure how IVS would make this AI human detection and car work properly. I'm testing just a small are to detect movement, and it still gets tons of false positives. What would the difference be?

 

[wittaj]

Make sure you do not have motion detection or smart motion detection on in the camera.

Also make sure you are not trying to do too much with one field of view or have a problematic field of view.

Make sure you have taken the time to dial in the settings to your field of view as they play a big role in AI detection.

Make sure you have done the global configuration if you are getting false triggers.

 

[bigredfish]

Regular MD seems to sense any change in a pixel greater than some unknown value. SMD is Not Smart and as far as I can tell doesnt work any better.

Shut off MD/SMD and use IVS and never look back

 

[jmpage2]

I just ran across this thread as I am trying to get this going myself with a 5442 Dahua that I am evaluating to start replacing cameras in my system which are quite old Axis P3364-LVE 1.3MP cams.

First off, just trying to understand why Dahua Smart motion detection can't be used. Is it that BI is unable to key on a person/vehicle alert from the camera or is it that the Dahua smart motion itself is unreliable? When I had person detection turned on in the Dahua BI simply alerted on all motion since the Dahua has to have motion detection turned on in addition to the smart detection for a person or vehicle. I'm guessing that Blue Iris can't be configured to only process the ONVIF alert for a person but if that's possible that seems like the best way to set things up.

IVS setup Wiki has a lot of language that indicates that my installation will not be supported... I don't have minimum height of camera installation and also I'm ceiling mounted, both of which it says are not supported.

Is it better to just use Open AI to do the detection? I wanted to use the cameras to cut down on the CPU load of my BI server but it seems that maybe the cameras are not cut out for what I am trying to do.

 

[Mike A.]

First off, just trying to understand why Dahua Smart motion detection can't be used. Is it that BI is unable to key on a person/vehicle alert from the camera or is it that the Dahua smart motion itself is unreliable?

More the latter. SMD generates way too many falses in most cases. IVS is the better way to go at least for triggering on people/vehicles. Very reliable in my and most other's experience. BI will respond to whatever ONVIF triggers are sent by the cam. So if you have the cam only sending IVS-detected human events, that's all that you'll get in BI. The requirements for IVS aren't all that rigid. Try it. Likely will work very well. You can use BI's or other AI but a lot more to set up and keep running.

 

[jmpage2]

More the latter. SMD generates way too many falses in most cases. IVS is the better way to go at least for triggering on people/vehicles. Very reliable in my and most other's experience. BI will respond to whatever ONVIF triggers are sent by the cam. So if you have the cam only sending IVS-detected humans, that's all that you'll get. The requirements for IVS aren't all that rigid. Try it. Likely will work very well. You can use BI's or other AI but a lot more to set up and keep running.

Thanks for the explanation. I had run across threads where it was argued that the camera smart detection should work as well as using AI and that just had not been the case for me so I was getting confused.

I went ahead and turned on the Open AI for now, set it up, and it seems to be working. I will just have to look at what kind of load it is putting on the server.

The one area where Open AI seems to flop on its face in my experience is night time detection. It seems to have a very hard time detecting people with my Axis cams when they are lit with Infrared. I'll have to see if things are any better there with the higher resolution of the Dahua camera.... and then based on all of that se if I want to set up IVS. Worth noting too that IVS Wiki above specifically says cam must be mounted 9.3 feet above, not ceiling mounted, etc., all things I would not be able to do in this install location.

 

[Mike A.]

Yeah, don't put too much on the specifics for IVS. It works very well with cams that I have mounted anywhere from 3' to 20' in a variety of settings. I guess maybe looking straight down you might have an issue but not with most typical cam views.

You can always try both. You can set up for individual cams as you want. I have a variety of different motion detection running depending on the view/objectives. e.g., One thing that more recent IVS AI doesn't do well is to trigger on wildlife. That's the primary role for some of my cams so I have to go a different way there.

 

[jmpage2]

Yeah, don't put too much on the specifics for IVS. It works very well with cams that I have mounted anywhere from 3' to 20' in a variety of settings. I guess maybe looking straight down you might have an issue but not with most typical cam views.

You can always try both. You can set up for individual cams as you want. I have a variety of different motion detection running depending on the view/objectives. e.g., One thing that more recent IVS AI doesn't do well is to trigger on wildlife. That's the primary role for some of my cams so I have to go a different way there.

Okay thanks.

BI with the Dahua and Open AI seems to be working quite well with the one camera. That camera only needs to alert on people really. CPU load doesn't really look to have changed between the 4MP and the 1.3MP cameras so that's actually pretty good.

 

[Mike A.]

Just so you know, there is a calibration that you can do for IVS that may help with some views. Usually where I've seen people have issues with IVS here they have some odd view, or a very small area like a single door/gate that they're very zoomed in on, or settings without enough contrast, or, commonly, they don't have enough spacing from the edge of the image to the rule lines to permit it to detect the crossings.

 

[looney2ns]

I agree IVs works very well.

 

[wittaj]

Thanks for the explanation. I had run across threads where it was argued that the camera smart detection should work as well as using AI and that just had not been the case for me so I was getting confused.

I went ahead and turned on the Open AI for now, set it up, and it seems to be working. I will just have to look at what kind of load it is putting on the server.

The one area where Open AI seems to flop on its face in my experience is night time detection. It seems to have a very hard time detecting people with my Axis cams when they are lit with Infrared. I'll have to see if things are any better there with the higher resolution of the Dahua camera.... and then based on all of that se if I want to set up IVS. Worth noting too that IVS Wiki above specifically says cam must be mounted 9.3 feet above, not ceiling mounted, etc., all things I would not be able to do in this install location.

Posting screenshots of the field of view help as well - maybe you are asking too much.

Also running on default settings will make it problematic.

AI has a tough time with infrared and B/W and really takes dialing in the settings to the field of view.

 

[CCTVCam]

I don't have minimum height of camera installation and also I'm ceiling mounted, both of which it says are not supported.

Motion aside, just be aware a high mounted camera won't capture faces unless it's a very long zoom focusing on an area far away. Closer in you'll get the top of people's head or caps but no usable face shot. Hence why at least 1 camera in any important area is recommended to be at no more than 7-7.5 feet.

 

[XDRDX]

Essentially if just using SMD it triggers an ONVIF event for all motion events since SMD also requires regular motion detection for SMD to work and both regular motion and SMD trigger an ONVIF event. BI and any other third party NVR can’t differentiate these types of events because the ONVIF event for either is the same.

Unfortunately these cameras and most in a consumer price range don’t include ONVIF version M, which is the only one that includes the metadata information of person, vehicle, etc… and is extremely new. I don’t event think BI can even utilize ONVIF version M yet.

From what I understand if you were using a Dahua NVR with AI then it handles SMD much better because it understands the metadata being sent from the camera to the AI enabled Dahua NVR. This is part of the reason IVS works better for anything relying on ONVIF in conjunction with a third party NVR software solution, whether it be Dahua cameras or many other brands. With IVS it can be tuned and dialed in more and then only send an ONVIF trigger in conjunction with the tuned event. It doesn’t require regular motion detection be turned on for IVS events.

Ideally the best scenario would be once affordable cameras and Blue Iris start supporting ONVIF version M I think we will start seeing a lot more cross platform/cross vendor compatibility with metadata.

 

[jmpage2]

Essentially if just using SMD it triggers an ONVIF event for all motion events since SMD also requires regular motion detection for SMD to work and both regular motion and SMD trigger an ONVIF event. BI and any other third party NVR can’t differentiate these types of events because the ONVIF event for either is the same.

Unfortunately these cameras and most in a consumer price range don’t include ONVIF version M, which is the only one that includes the metadata information of person, vehicle, etc… and is extremely new. I don’t event think BI can even utilize ONVIF version M yet.

From what I understand if you were using a Dahua NVR with AI then it handles SMD much better because it understands the metadata being sent from the camera to the AI enabled Dahua NVR. This is part of the reason IVS works better for anything relying on ONVIF in conjunction with a third party NVR software solution, whether it be Dahua cameras or many other brands. With IVS it can be tuned and dialed in more and then only send an ONVIF trigger in conjunction with the tuned event. It doesn’t require regular motion detection be turned on for IVS events.

Ideally the best scenario would be once affordable cameras and Blue Iris start supporting ONVIF version M I think we will start seeing a lot more cross platform/cross vendor compatibility with metadata.

This is really helpful information, wish I had known this when making determinations on what to do when initially setting things up.

I believe the new generation Axis cams do support this, but if BI does not support it then not much point to doing it.

I love the Axis cams as they are built like tanks and totally weatherized, but can't really justify the cost since a 5MP camera on the secondary market still about $600 each.

 

[Mike A.]

Still doesn't really help with the root issue though, i.e., too many falses with SMD. You'd just get a tagged false for whatever it thought that it detected. ; )

Would be nice if SMD worked as well as the ad copy reads but it doesn't at this point. On-camera IVS or off-cam AI are the better ways to go. Having things tagged via ONVIF could be helpful in some cases but for most practical use it doesn't matter much. It's more the converse that you're going for - only getting events for people/vehicles and eliminating most all other falses vs positively tagging a person or vehicle independently.

 

[jmpage2]

The Axis AI detection works amazingly well, I just can't justify the cost.