HD-TVI Camera Help

Hello,

I have setup several cameras on the perimeter of a building for a client. We have used the following cameras: Northern TVITIR100 (http://tri-ed.com/pdf/NTH-TVITIR100.pdf). They all give fairly good images right out of the box without adjusting much of any settings, however we wanted to be able to capture license plate numbers clear enough to identify the plate number. The main reason is that people are dumping garbage on the property and are doing so by driving to the back of the building and unloading large items and driving away. All the cameras are set to record only on motion via the DVR (Hikvision DS-7308-HQHI-SH).

The plate numbers at full frame rate and resolution were not readable when played back from the DVR.

I researched after and read that the shutter speed can be adjusted and the image sharpened in the settings over the UTC menu. I tried this and got it to be able to capture a legible plate number (can't recall all the settings we changed as we had to try it several times with different settings applied). We adjusted a few of the cameras that face the driveway around the building and figured everything should be good.

We went back a few weeks later and reviewed some video footage that was recorded and found that all the cameras we adjusted when they would record at night recorded almost completely black images. Previous video we reviewed when we first installed the cameras was fine for recording at night and very clear with the IR.

Not sure what's going on. We reset all the camera settings back to the factory default via the UTC and everything is back to normal, except we can't read plate numbers anymore.

Could simply adjusting the shutter speed make the camera too dark at night?

Could simply adjusting the shutter speed make the camera too dark at night?

I do not have much experience with license plates cameras myself, but I would say "Yes". If you adjust a camera to be able to read license plates at night, well, that might be all you will be geting, license plates... for everything else the settings will not be good. A night license plate camera will most likely be a dedicated camera.

There is a reason why there are cameras designed specifically for reading license plates and nothing else.

They have filters to narrow down the light spectrum they see. They blast the target with 850nm IR and the cut filters will only allow the sensor to see 850nm light. Therefore headlights and tail lights don't bloom the image.

https://www.anixter.com/en_us/products/VLR-4075-V521/BOSCH-SECURITY-SYSTEMS/Surveillance-Cameras/p/547889

http://resource.boschsecurity.com/documents/VLR_4075_Operation_Manual_enUS_13920762123.pdf

Installing a licence plate camera will work if they drive through the target area of said camera but you can greatly enhance your existing camera's ability by adding some exterior lighting .