Uniview Colour hunter camera configuration

[Craig-91]

Hi all,

new to the forum and hoping someone can help, I recently had a new Uniview colour hunter camera installed and for the life of me I can’t seem to get the settings correct to allow perfect view as I’d like to. Currently it’s set to WDR mode and I’ve adjusted the saturation slightly, the camera is a great addition and perfect colour 24/7 with fantastic view at night.

howvwer I can’t seem to get it perfect so that I can see clear views of minor things like a license plate on a car close by which I could previously. I feel the attached may shed some light and hopefully someone on here knows what it should be set atand or what could help.I have my NVR connected to an old LCD Samsung monitor so starting to think this may be the issues but not too sure. Note- it may look better than it is on the images but the monitor I can assure you gives off a grainy picture. All help greatly appreciated.

 

[wittaj]

Light is certainly a much needed friend to these types of cameras! Auto/default settings rarely produce the best results, especially at night.

You are focused on a static image with no motion - you need to be more concerned about a great capture with motion. Blur and ghosting with motion results in unusable video for the police other than to say WHAT time something happened rather than a clean picture of WHO did it.

The camera is too high if you plan to IDENTIFY someone as all you will get is top of heads and hoodies.

If you are on mostly auto/default or adjusting based on a static image, in most situations at night it will produce a nice bright picture and great picture when nothing is moving, but motion is complete crap with blurring and ghosting.

This adjustment for a nice bright picture is why your plates are a complete washout mess. Once you dial in the settings for motion, the image will get darker, but you will then be able to actually make things out during motion, as well as all that reflective glare off that plate.

In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter 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 with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in 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 immediately at night is that 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. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

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 20-30 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.

Do not use backlight features like WDR until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And when if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible. The higher the backlight number, the worse the image in most situations.

Once you dial it in, the image will be darker, but will give you better results.

 

[Craig-91]

Light is certainly a much needed friend to these types of cameras! Auto/default settings rarely produce the best results, especially at night.

You are focused on a static image with no motion - you need to be more concerned about a great capture with motion. Blur and ghosting with motion results in unusable video for the police other than to say WHAT time something happened rather than a clean picture of WHO did it.

The camera is too high if you plan to IDENTIFY someone as all you will get is top of heads and hoodies.

If you are on mostly auto/default or adjusting based on a static image, in most situations at night it will produce a nice bright picture and great picture when nothing is moving, but motion is complete crap with blurring and ghosting.

This adjustment for a nice bright picture is why your plates are a complete washout mess. Once you dial in the settings for motion, the image will get darker, but you will then be able to actually make things out during motion, as well as all that reflective glare off that plate.

In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter 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 with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in 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 immediately at night is that 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. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

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 20-30 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.

Do not use backlight features like WDR until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And when if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible. The higher the backlight number, the worse the image in most situations.

Once you dial it in, the image will be darker, but will give you better results.

Thank you for your very detailed response very helpful, I however can't seem to locate the settings you've mentioned- I have attached an image for reference.

Please let me know ASAP.

 

[wittaj]

Ok so your shutters are in fractions of a second instead of milliseconds. So try a range of 1/60 to 1/250.

 

[Craig-91]

Light is certainly a much needed friend to these types of cameras! Auto/default settings rarely produce the best results, especially at night.

You are focused on a static image with no motion - you need to be more concerned about a great capture with motion. Blur and ghosting with motion results in unusable video for the police other than to say WHAT time something happened rather than a clean picture of WHO did it.

The camera is too high if you plan to IDENTIFY someone as all you will get is top of heads and hoodies.

If you are on mostly auto/default or adjusting based on a static image, in most situations at night it will produce a nice bright picture and great picture when nothing is moving, but motion is complete crap with blurring and ghosting.

This adjustment for a nice bright picture is why your plates are a complete washout mess. Once you dial in the settings for motion, the image will get darker, but you will then be able to actually make things out during motion, as well as all that reflective glare off that plate.

In my opinion, shutter and gain are the two most important and then base the others off of it.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter 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 with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in 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 immediately at night is that 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. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

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 20-30 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.

Do not use backlight features like WDR until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And when if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible. The higher the backlight number, the worse the image in most situations.

Once you dial it in, the image will be darker, but will give you better results.

Thank you for your very detailed response very helpful, I however can't seem to locate the settings you've mentioned- I have attached an image for reference.

Please let me know ASAP.

Ok so your shutters are in fractions of a second instead of milliseconds. So try a range of 1/60 to 1/250.

Under which section and what else should I adjust? See attached

 

[wittaj]

Under the shutter - have the one on the left be 1/250 and the other be 1/60.

If it doesn't like that, then switch them. Then let us know what the picture looks like at night. Many cameras let you adjust the parameters, yet they will override it to make a brighter image which then means it suffers with motion blur.

 

[Craig-91]

Under the shutter - have the one on the left be 1/250 and the other be 1/60.

If it doesn't like that, then switch them. Then let us know what the picture looks like at night. Many cameras let you adjust the parameters, yet they will override it to make a brighter image which then means it suffers with motion blur.

Ok so I've adjusted as you mentioned and really white currently on the camera, any suggestions?

 

[wittaj]

Daytime will be whiteout at that shutter speed. If you cannot set a shutter speed for a daytime and a different shutter for nighttime settings, then change the 1/250 to the highest shutter speed on the camera, maybe 1/10,000 or so.

For the gain, change the 100 to 50

 

[Craig-91]

Daytime will be whiteout at that shutter speed. If you cannot set a shutter speed for a daytime and a different shutter for nighttime settings, then change the 1/250 to the highest shutter speed on the camera, maybe 1/10,000 or so.

For the gain, change the 100 to 50

Cheers pal, I've adjusted to that now and seems to have stopped issues with the image pixelating also as mentioned previously. I'll see how it is once it gets dark and let you know.

 

[wittaj]

Awesome! Look forward to the night results!

 

[Craig-91]

See attached current night view, seems to be a cleaner image but still some glare from the car opposite.

 

[wittaj]

That is looking much better! Try lower the 50 gain down a bit and see if that knocks the glare down - maybe try 40.

You could also try taking the 1/60 shutter a little faster - maybe try 1/90

 

[Craig-91]

That is looking much better! Try lower the 50 gain down a bit and see if that knocks the glare down - maybe try 40.

You could also try taking the 1/60 shutter a little faster - maybe try 1/90

Perfect thank you! I do also have some other cameras that are not colour hunter so b&w at night, is it worth putting the settings on these to the same?

 

[wittaj]

Yes, those are good settings to use as a start.

 

[Craig-91]

Adjusted slightly and darkened the image a bit it would appear but plate on the car opposite amongst other bits clearer..any further suggestions?

 

[wittaj]

That is what should happen. Plates are highly reflective.

But the mistake most people make are having too bright of an image. Provided those parameters you put in are adhered to by the camera and they do not alter a setting, this should result in clearer motion at night without blur or ghosting.

If that were my camera installed at that height, I would say the image is the brightness is should be to get a good capture.

 

[Craig-91]

Yeah fair comment.

Looks like they are so hopefully this helps, appreciate all your advice throughout this process. Are you saying that the camera due to location I have it now needs to be brighter or?

 

[wittaj]

I am saying that the urge most people migrate towards is a bright image, but the picture quality and ability to get clean captures of motion without blur suffer.

After you have played around with the cameras enough and have a door checker, you will begin to realize that how it performs when someone is trying to steal stuff from you is more important than a bright image with no motion in it.

So we have to run at faster shutter speeds in order to be able to eliminate motion blur ghosting that is so prevalent when people keep the cameras on default/auto settings.

The price we pay for a faster shutter is a darker image because the faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. So it is a balancing act of finding the right shutter speed to eliminate motion blur, yet still have enough light in it to be effective.

In my experience, I think your image is where it should be now. What I do not know is if that camera is capable of adhering to your settings or will it override it in software and still blur during motion.

Regarding location, I mean that it is a good overview location, but the camera should be lower for identify purposes as most perps are looking down not up.

 

[Craig-91]

Yu

I am saying that the urge most people migrate towards is a bright image, but the picture quality and ability to get clean captures of motion without blur suffer.

After you have played around with the cameras enough and have a door checker, you will begin to realize that how it performs when someone is trying to steal stuff from you is more important than a bright image with no motion in it.

So we have to run at faster shutter speeds in order to be able to eliminate motion blur ghosting that is so prevalent when people keep the cameras on default/auto settings.

The price we pay for a faster shutter is a darker image because the faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. So it is a balancing act of finding the right shutter speed to eliminate motion blur, yet still have enough light in it to be effective.

In my experience, I think your image is where it should be now. What I do not know is if that camera is capable of adhering to your settings or will it override it in software and still blur during motion.

Regarding location, I mean that it is a good overview location, but the camera should be lower for identify purposes as most perps are looking down not up.

You've been considerable helpful throughout this process and I really appreciate all the detailed advice given. I'll get someone testing at the door tonight and see how it is.

I'm confident that the camera won't over ride the settings as when I've played around with them before they tend to stay. Regarding the location I always thought it needs to be lowered, to just about door height I believe so will look into doing that and I imagine a perfectly clear ghostless image.

 

[wittaj]

I don't have experience with that camera, but it does look promising that they don't mess with the settings to artificially create a brighter image.

We have seen many cameras here that you can put in settings that should black the screen at night like a 1/2000 shutter and 0 gain and yet the camera image is still bright as can be - that is what I mean by hold the settings is does the camera actually accept the values that are inputed in or does it arbitrarily change them internally, meaning you put in a 1/250 shutter but the camera says "whoa that is too dark" and overrides it with a slower shutter while still showing a 1/250 shutter in the setting.