Mark_M

Do you really need 4K/8MP? Cheap cameras at 8MP tend to have very small cmos imaging sensor size (the thing which takes light and makes it into a digital image). Cheap & small imaging sensors work fine during daylight but tend to have terrible motion ghosting at night. A common cmos size in 4K cheap cameras is 1/2.7"... that's the size of a decent 2MP/1080P camera. A prober 4K camera should have near 1/1.2" cmos size. Zoom/Focal length is more important to capture an area. A higher 'mm' number is more zoom. E.g. 2.8mm typically 90deg FOV, 4mm ~80deg FOV. https://ipcamtalk.com/tools/calculators/focal/ (Focal length zoom depends on cmos size).

That is a big contradiction. So my point stands that NDAA is about Hik and Dahua being banned yet the USA gov doesn't ban other Chinese camera brands sending data back to China government servers? Including some brands in a ban but not others, sounds like a publicity stunt. How do you know if Reolink sends data back to China servers the CCP can access? I can agree on that. Far more other Chinese brands with better features available to send more data back to China.

How would you define NDAA? If it's to block Chinese cameras and smart phone apps from spying then it's failing badly. NDAA is not a global legal requirement. Its compliance is mandatory for U.S. federal agencies and entities receiving federal funding, (IE not home users or most businesses), but it does not impose legal obligations on other countries. Some countries and international companies may choose to comply with NDAA standards to maintain diplomatic and business relationships with the U.S., but this is voluntary and not a legal requirement.

Dahua and Hikvision is fine for Home use. Police will use the MP4 exported video format. NDAA is a small publicity stunt against those two biggest companies & using HiSilicon chips. If the USA cared about security it would block the other 90% of Chinese CCTV products available on the market.

Empiretech https://empiretech01.com/ Andy is very active on ipcamtalk forum. https://ipcamtalk.com/

Instead of an IP camera, maybe you would like a camera that can automatically recognise the meter numbers. Open source project 'AI on the Edge' uses a cheap $5 ESP32-Cam board to take a photo of your meter, recognise the text and then send data to an external place. E.g. MQTT to other software. Or login via web browser to the system and see the camera snapshot. https://github.com/jomjol/AI-on-the-edge-device

your camera does not have a large enough focal length (enough zoom). I guess you'd need at least 50mm lens. A 12x 5.8 - 64mm should be enough. Dahua make IP LPR cameras. Empiretech is Dahua OEM IPC-LPR437B-IR 1/1.8'', or the Dahua ITC431-RW1F-IRL8. If budget is not an issue Axis Q1700-LE or Q1798-LE. (The Q1798 has less zoom).

8 years is remarkably good for a CCTV hard drive. Life expectancy of a CCTV hard drive is 5 years.

To use SMTP you'll need the username & password of that email account to send from. Port 587 is fine, this is the SSL enabled port (you'll need to enable SSL/TLS). Some email services don't allow a device like an NVR/DVR with your standard login information. Gmail for example requires you to make a 3rd party application password. Example with Gmail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fq_kWZmZYo

Hello Tony, you're another Kiwi here . A point-to-point wifi bridge setup, like the device tomcctv has linked to is a method of extending a network very long distances. PB Tech also sell these wifi bridge's. They are two directional wifi 'access points'. Such as two Ubiquiti M2's or M5's.

What makes an LPC/LPR camera: High noise to signal ratio (often said in dB). Large focal length (zoom level). Large imaging sensor - suitable size for the resolution. High exposure speed (not necessarily higher FPS). Reolink use cheap quality imaging sensors and cheap quality processors. Here's why: Generally an LPC/LPR camera is 2MP or 4MP. Imaging sensor size matters for light sensitivity on each pixel cell. A general guide: 2MP, use an imaging sensor that is 1/2.8" or larger. At 4MP, an imaging sensor 1/1.8" or larger. For 8MP (you won't use this for LPC/LPR), the sensor should be 1/1.2" or larger. Reolink manufacture a 12MP camera at 1/2.49".... this is an absolute joke of how Reolink use the cheapest quality possible. Why does the cmos sensor size matter? A larger surface area for the imaging sensor can collect more photons of light in a shorter period of time. This means the exposure time can be lower. Lower exposure time means fast moving objects are less of a blur. Reolink and other consumer brands suffer because they use a cheap imaging sensor and to compensate the exposure speed has to be longer. Why lower resolution and more zoom? Optical zoom is far more effective than increasing the resolution. Lower resolution also means less processing power is needed for HLC (High-light compensation) or WDR (Wide dynamic range) so that the headlights and taillights do not blow out the image. Lower image resolution also helps LPR software to recognise the plate in OCR (optical character recognition) because less processing power is needed. IR light is needed for LPC/LPR, this is to illuminate the plate so it appears brighter than light from the headlights/taillights.

If you have manually set an IP address on the NVR, make sure to exclude this from the DHCP range on your router. Or set the NVR to DHCP and create a static IP address map in the router for your NVR. Last year I set a camera's IP address manually and it worked for a day. Then the router did a shuffle of DHCP leases and for some reason it didn't recognise the camera wasn't going to change address. The router then set another device to the same IP address as the camera. Both devices were randomly working until I found the cause.

Awesome to hear you have found a way and solved the issue!

Rebranded Dahua camera? The cheapest camera at a 1/3" cmos sensor...?? It's 2023, should be a 1/1.8" sensor for a 4MP camera. 1/3" is awful for low light.

That DVR looks good. It also supports from IP cameras, which is handy when you start upgrading the cameras to digital ones.