metafizx

We do our motion detection on the Camera. We think its more efficient and accurate that way as the motion detection is done BEFORE the video gets compressed.

 

 

I REALLY don't like that... Every camera I have seen has horrible motion detection compared to DVRs I have used. Compressed or uncompressed the cameras right now aren't too smart and unless they get smarter you are limited.

 

This also makes it tough to get unsupported cams to work, MJEPG we have now although not really standardized is at least reasonably easy to connect. I can possibly swing that with exaqc but tring to get the motion data is a whole different story. I totally understand having an option to rely on motion from the cam, it works and does fine for the basics. I do think a leader in software should have some advanced tools to reduce false positives or provide greater accuracy to the IO controls. Which exacq should have covered better then most as well as I believe you have a whole line of IO controls even offering analog capture.

 

With our Analog board, we do the motion detection in the hardware. And you are right, some of the cameras have crap motion detection. We are looking in to doing our own motion detection on the server, but we are worried about the CPU cycles that would be needed for that. Right now you need a minimal cpu to do 24 cameras recording. That CPU will have to become a high end dual core or quad core for the same number of cameras.

 

We are also investigating other means of doing the detection through hardware other than the CPU.

 

I personally can't believe we (the industry) are letting these camera manufacturers off the hook. They need to improve their motion detection in the camera instead of having the user shoulder the burden by buying a more expensive CPU. Motion detection and analytics in general need to be done at the edge BEFORE the image gets altered by using compression.

 

If you take a look at AXIS, they are starting to do this. But others are not.

 

I will keep you updated on when we make the changes in our software. Thanks for the feedback!

IQeye cameras have excellent motion detection, & cropping.

I am very impressed with the IQ75x series cameras.

ExacQ supports IQeye as well. Maybe Rob can comment on their IQeye integration.

also IQeye has image Authentication as well.

In case anyone was still interested, I asked Arecont about the Day/Night vs. Auto-Iris and here was the response:

 

"It’s not necessary to have iris “mostly closedâ€

Don't ever use a camera with IR actually on it, bottom line. If you want/need IR add an illuminator and install it at least a couple of degrees off. What you are seeing is the IR bouncing straight back into the camera. All the other stuff discusses is fine and dandy and makes a valid point and difference however as long as the incedent IR beam and the cameras FOV are in parallel you will be capturing ghosts.

 

The other point that has been mentioned is cost, this has little to nothing to do with it. You can get sub $100 cameras that do not have this problem however they are all BW and do not have IR on them. So go get a quality BW bullet and IR corrected lens and use that Q-See as an IR illuminator.

 

1/4" CCD and Color scream piss poor low light performance regaurdless of what the marketing on the box says.

 

I am learning...albeit painfully.

I have used the canned weatherproof cameras with IR builtin, because they are attractive to customers to contain cost, size and ease of installation. But they definitely have their problems.

 

It's very hard to convince customers that the cctv that you buy as a "package" are just junk. Q-SEE and others. But getting them something that is much better quality is expensive. So most customers are looking at the bottom line $, and have a hard time digesting the technical reasons.

another comment about the canned weatherproof cameras with builtin IR.

I recently realized that the cause of severe haze at night was due to dried residue from rain splashes, causing bounceback of IR into the camera.

use of separate IR illuminator and camera w/o IR would not have this problem. Or a IR camera that is designed to reduce IR reflections from the glass plate.

Don't ever use a camera with IR actually on it, bottom line. If you want/need IR add an illuminator and install it at least a couple of degrees off. What you are seeing is the IR bouncing straight back into the camera. All the other stuff discusses is fine and dandy and makes a valid point and difference however as long as the incedent IR beam and the cameras FOV are in parallel you will be capturing ghosts.

 

The other point that has been mentioned is cost, this has little to nothing to do with it. You can get sub $100 cameras that do not have this problem however they are all BW and do not have IR on them. So go get a quality BW bullet and IR corrected lens and use that Q-See as an IR illuminator.

 

1/4" CCD and Color scream piss poor low light performance regaurdless of what the marketing on the box says.

I am learning...albeit painfully.

I have used the canned weatherproof cameras with IR builtin, because they are attractive to customers to contain cost, size and ease of installation. But they definitely have their problems.

It's very hard to convince customers that the cctv that you buy as a "package" are just junk. Q-SEE and others. But getting them something that is much better quality is expensive. So most customers are looking at the bottom line $, and have a hard time digesting the technical reasons.

I can't say I agree with a lot of that.

 

An aspherical lens allows you to open to a wide fstop without it going soft focus it has nothing to do with IR. Perhaps you mean an IR corrected lens? Look into chromatic aberration and remember IR is just like visible light but past red to see how they work.

 

An IR cut filter stops IR so having one on an IR camera kind of defeats the main reason for having an IR camera. Perhaps your thinking about a true day/night camera? That would require an IR cut filter.

 

You have to spend to get clear images with IR. Simply not true. You just need to know what you are doing. The most expensive IR camera has nothing in it that will give you sharper pictures than the cheapest IR (lens excluded). Or if there is I'd love to hear what it is.

 

Here is what I think is happening. The camera is viewing a dark scene, the majority of what it is viewing is not well lit. When your wife walks close to the camera she is being hit by a lot of strong light (forget it's IR just imagine she is standing in front of a headlight). The camera sees a mainly dark scene plus a brightly lit area (your wife). This brightly lit area is not enough to really influence the cameras exposure circuit so it continues applying gain to boost the dark areas and a side effect is it allows your wife to white out.

 

To test my theory put some things in the scene that will reflect more IR and make the camera apply less gain. If it works the camera won't clip your wife as much. The down side is the dark areas in the scene will be darker.

Thanks for your qualifying remarks..

I guess I needed to add "IR Corrected" along with "Aspherical" to make the best setup for Day or Night picture quality. If the camera is a sealed unit, then this also adds to the cost of the camera. You dont get this on a cheap camera.

And I also meant a Mechanical IR Cut Filter. To provide accurate color during the day without IR distortion, and then brighter Night pictures with the Cut Filter removed. Cameras with a mechnical IR Cut filter are definitely more costly than those without.

As for the cost of the camera, you pay more for the better chips (Super HAD, Ex-View, etc) get better quality compensation, higher res TVL. If quality wasn't proportional to cost, then why even bother with more expensive cameras ?

As for the white out, the IR might be reflected back into the camera. The AWB/BLC/AE may not respond well with the IR reflection, depending on how good the camera compensates, may cause this image problem.

well it happened...

disgruntled tenant that was evicted came back on a bicycle yesterday and within 1 minute reached up and sliced ALL the cctv camera cables. Video and power.

Good thing is the camera got him pretty good coming into the parking lot. Hopefully is clear enough for the police.

Now I have the fun job of splicing together everything.

A few lessons learned...

- think about what a vandal would do to your installation.

- assess vulnerabilities

- camera(s) to watch key areas of the cctv system

( he cut the cables going into the room where the DVR is )

cheap IR cameras will just give you blurry images at night. Fact.

You have to spend some $ to get clean images with IR.

The first thing is an IR cut filter. Second is a aspherical lens that will compensate for the change in focal length with the IR is on.

550 TVL is recommended as well. Anything less is just not clear enough.

Cameras with this sort of quality start at about $300-400.

maybe the camera has a defective light sensor for the IR ?

that switches the camera to the B&W mode when the IR lamps come on.

just a thought.

In case anyone was still interested, I asked Arecont about the Day/Night vs. Auto-Iris and here was the response:

 

"It’s not necessary to have iris “mostly closedâ€

it can vary state to state.

Generally, if the camera is visible, not recording audio, and is not invading the privacy of an individual (no private areas), then is usually considered legal without consent.

For example, video survelliance of a parking lot would be legal, but survelliance of a bedroom would not be legal.

general surveillance laws:

http://videosurveillancelaws.tumblr.com/

Here is a document on pubilc video surveillance from California law.

http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/97/05/crb97-005.html#publichousing

In general it allows video only surveillance of public areas.

The CCTV system cannot record Audio, that is generally illegal without a warrant.

I believe the same applies to home use. If you do capture audio, then it cannot be used in court. I don't know if audio recording considered illegal in your own home, but without warning the occupants, it might be.

Obviously you cannot record private areas, such as bathrooms, showers, locker rooms, or changing areas.

It can also be a legal problem for hidden cameras. so check your local laws. This means coming onsite for covert survelliance as well.

Some states specifically prohibit covert survelliance in a "private" place, like a motel room.

"nanny cams" are also a subject of legal debate. generally it is accepted for "video only" survelliance, but no audio unless you have written consent by the persons being recorded. Still a sticky legal issue is the camera is hidden without consent. Best to get written consent to being monitored up front when the employee is hired.

update on this issue.

The problem with the Visec program is that the AVI export doesn't work in my case. It skips over the important sections of a suspect's vehicle. I counted about 40 frames in the first vehicle pass and 60 frames in the second vehicle pass. The entire section was skipped for some unknown reason.

The Visec people have been responsive, but so far have not provided a solution. So I hope they will continue working with me to fix this problem.

Otherwise I will have to seek another program that does this correctly.

I like Visec because it is a simple and efficient program, but unfortunately exporting the crucial video is a key feature that must work reliably.

If I can't rely on video export, then it's not usable in my opinion.

you might try IR Iluminators that operate in the 850nm region, which is the type that you can see a glow from.

Most of the "IR" cams that you get have this LED, not 940nm. In the visible spectrum, and most cams can see this, unless they have a block filter in the lens.

there isn't any free open ip software that I know of, except for ZoneMinder, which runs on Linux.

 

for low cost s/w, there is a bunch of them that work "ok":

blueiris < demo'd seemed to work

cyeweb < demo'd, seemed to work

active webcam < works, but buggy

 

slightly more$

luxriot < have used this one and it works pretty good

visec < I use this one and works pretty good

 

more $ but better quality

nuuo

milestone

 

cyeweb is inexpensive, but works really great, not just ok.

Uh, didn't I say "demo'd, seemed to work" ? (the "ok" was generally speaking, and wasn't saying anything negative, just that it seemed to work under the demo version)

I'd like to play with cyeweb more, and see how well it does work in a more loaded test.

I guess everything works great when you sell the product !

maybe you have a bad cable ? or a ground loop ?

would a polarizing filter help ? just thinking..

is the lens for IR ? seems like it's not an IR pass lens.

What do you guys have the AES set to? I ask as I have had on up for a while and have not noticed this. Mine is the older style big box with no AI options. I run it BW with the filter removed, no problems day or night.

hi, well there aren't a lot of options available, but this is what I have it set to currently:

Illumination : Auto

Misc : Auto Exposure (just a checkbox)

Day/Night : Auto

Gains: not set (default)

Low Light Mode : either Balanced or Moonlight

Moonlight gives me way more exposure time, hence a better picture in low light, but the exposure time is very long. Anything moving is blurry.

 

@metafizx -- I'm curious where Arecont intends for the the Day/Night cameras to be used then. If you have a fixed iris that works in the day, does that mean I would need an equivalent amount of IR illuminators to make it seem like "IR daylight"? That's pretty unreasonable.

 

Anyone from Arecont care to comment on why the DN versions don't have auto-iris?

exactly the question I have. I feel pretty dumb now to have bought this camera without AI. it is pretty useless IMHO.

you first have to determine the requirements for your system.

what do you want the resulting capture to be ? facial recognition ? fields of view (can you do it with 4 cameras?)

Even though $2K sounds like a a lot to spend, it isn't..but it depends highly on the quality you want.

Low cost systems suffer from poor images. In my experience, if you don't get a decent quality DVR and cameras, you will get blurry images that you can't discern squat from.

If you don't really care so much about quality, costco (groans from the audience) has a bunch of cheap systems available. but I warn you that when it comes to getting clear images to the police, those cheapie setups will usually fail you.

For your $2K budget, I would suggest spending atleast $300 per camera, and the remaining on DVR. For $800, the DVR won't be awesome, but will work ok. you will have to kick in extra for the cables, power supplies, etc.

Also don't forget to add a battery backup unit.

The better IR cameras will have atleast 550 TVL, IR cut filter, and a decent lens. And also just because they advertise these specs, it doesn't mean the camera is all that great.

there are hundreds of products out there, some are good, much of it is fair to poor.

I'd post names of products, but that might just mislead you. and make others unhappy.

there isn't any free open ip software that I know of, except for ZoneMinder, which runs on Linux.

for low cost s/w, there is a bunch of them that work "ok":

blueiris < demo'd seemed to work

cyeweb < demo'd, seemed to work

active webcam < works, but buggy

slightly more$

luxriot < have used this one and it works pretty good

visec < I use this one and works pretty good

more $ but better quality

nuuo

milestone

I just bought the 3100DN and although the pic is nice during the day, it isn't very useful at night.

This is because there is no AI, and to get a clear image during the day, I have to close down the iris some. Which creates a problem for night time.

So without AI feature, I think the 3100DN isn't useful for viewing both day and night with optimum settings.

I was happy with the Axis 223, because it had IR cutfilter, and AI. The only problem was the resolution. Now they have 223M but I got the Arecont because of the price difference.

The problem now is there isn't a Arecont 3100xx camera that has both IR Cut filter and AI, sorely needed.

I too, have been wondering about the 3130 camera, but am afraid to gamble another $700 bucks to try it out.

My first goal is high quality images in both day and night. The second goal was to read license plates. To do this, I need as much light as possible coming in the camera at night (with aid of IR Illuminators), but still I might be dreaming because of the exposure time will blur out the plates when the vehicle is moving.

The plates show up clear during the day when it is bright. Cars are moving about 10-20mph and I can make out the plates pretty consistently.

wondering if there are any users out there with VISEC ?

I am having a problem and wondering if you might have had the same issue.

AVI Export is skipping frames with a lot of motion. Unlucky for me I am trying to get a export out for the police, and oddly the frames that I need are skipped over when the AVI is exported.

you might go for something like the ACTi ACM-1231

 

comes with free s/w, and is in an outdoor housing w/ IR

 

if you go cheap on the cameras, you get poor performance that is the main difference.

 

1 camera on a home network should work fine.

Good stuff, thanks.

 

So will this camera save to a network share?

most ip cameras will ftp images, but you have to have ftp server running.

I don't think you can just save to a network file storage.

what recording s/w handles H.264 for Arecont (other than Arecont's s/w)...

?

wondering if there is any recording s/w out there that allows you to setup multiple settings per camera over the 24 hour day.

the reason is you might want different settings for contrast/brightness/quality, etc for different times of the day / night.

for example, the Arecont 3100 DN has "moonlight" mode, which would be awesome to switch to when it gets dark, and use a different setting during the day.

I don't know of any recording s/w that allows multiple settings like this.

would be a useful feature IMHO.