IPC-B54IR-Z4E-S3 optimisation for night time LPR

[brianthesnail]

apologies if this is in the wrong forum - mods please point me elsewhere if appropriate

following all the recommendations in these forums I've bought a IPC-B54IR-Z4E-S3 from andy, specifically to dedicate to the job of LPR.
Its located at a height of about 4m (adjacent to an upper floor window of 2 storey UK house) about 30m from the target spot. Angle of about 30 degrees to the traffic.
Its on full zoom.

In the day its giving good results (depending on vehicle speed , mostly they are slow because they have to be)
In the night I have blown out reflection on the plates.

I only installed this cam yesterday so still learning how to tune this camera- in order to get a headstart, is there a set of best practice settings for a dedicated LPR use case?
I've already dialled the shutter speed down to 10msec, should I go lower? what else to tweak?

these are UK plates.

thanks

 

[Chokolinho]

Use the Manuel Mode and a higher shutter. Illuminator mode : manuell 100/100%

Try 0 - 0,5 or 1 shutter and lower gain.

 

[brianthesnail]

so I now have for Exposure set6tings:
:

not clear to me how to use that gain setting? what are the two values for? on other cameras I only have one value for gain.

I've now got a much darker picture which I know is expected - not had any cars yet (late night bad weather everybodys hiding) so will leave it recording overnight and see

 

[Underhill]

I wonder sometimes if it might be worth it for some to spend the extra money on an actual lpr vs trying to make something that’s not meant for it do the job. I guess it comes down to what is your time worth

 

[wittaj]

I wonder sometimes if it might be worth it for some to spend the extra money on an actual lpr vs trying to make something that’s not meant for it do the job. I guess it comes down to what is your time worth

Actually you have to go thru the same process to some extent. The only difference is the LPR can read and log the plates.

 

[Underhill]

Actually you have to go thru the same process to some extent. The only difference is the LPR can read and log the plates.

In the 22 years I’ve been doing this for a living, I’ve never spent the time you guys do making adjustments to an LPR as you guys have just posting about, let alone the actual keyboard time making a non lpr do the job.

I’ve said on this forum that a lot of you guys know a lot more about nighttime optics and settings than me. I wouldn’t consider it a good business model if I had to spend that amount of time to capture a plate

 

[Underhill]

And dedicated LPR cameras are usually more expensive for the convenience of the logging plates automatically.

Again, what’s your time worth?
Most of you posting on this site should be doing this for a living. I wish I had a bunch of you here in the Midwest

 

[Chokolinho]

so I now have for Exposure set6tings:
View attachment 237686:

not clear to me how to use that gain setting? what are the two values for? on other cameras I only have one value for gain.

I've now got a much darker picture which I know is expected - not had any cars yet (late night bad weather everybodys hiding) so will leave it recording overnight and see

You won't be able to recognize the car anymore, only the license plate. That's why you need two cameras if you also want to see what the car looks like. Now you need to test whether the license plate can already be recognized and then continue to optimize it.

 

[wittaj]

In the 22 years I’ve been doing this for a living, I’ve never spent the time you guys do making adjustments to an LPR as you guys have just posting about, let alone the actual keyboard time making a non lpr do the job.

I’ve said on this forum that a lot of you guys know a lot more about nighttime optics and settings than me. I wouldn’t consider it a good business model if I had to spend that amount of time to capture a plate

Maybe the high end ones that are also in well lit areas and perfect angles don't need much work, but a Dahua ALPR in the same location as mine and I still had tweaking to do to make it work.

Remember most here are also working with less than ideal lighting (I realize that the infrared and faster shutter speeds help that) and less than ideal angles and distances.

 

[JPmedia]

Again, what’s your time worth?
Most of you posting on this site should be doing this for a living. I wish I had a bunch of you here in the Midwest

Personally, it's not critical for my use to have automatic plate logging. Plate identification is really only useful in conjunction with an event, otherwise, why would an average person need it in a normal residential area? It's all about identifying and providing as much information as possible to authorities to resolve the event. As long as I can go through the footage and grab the plate info in connection with other camera footage, that's what I care about. And it's not all that difficult to acquire a decent capture as long as you understand the limitations and issues surrounding the installation of the camera. The installation location choice is a significant factor in how well the camera will perform (or not perform).

 

[Underhill]

Maybe the high end ones that are also in well lit areas and perfect angles don't need much work, but a Dahua ALPR in the same location as mine and I still had tweaking to do to make it work.

Remember most here are also working with less than ideal lighting (I realize that the infrared and faster shutter speeds help that) and less than ideal angles and distances.

I get it. Just I was a flir dealer then when they merged with digimerge and became dahua, that entire 12 years they have only had 2 models of lpr at one time; Short or longer distance. There’s never been a “high end” model. Unless it’s the international stuff like Andy sells. The model numbers you guys use here are completely different from N American distributors for the same hardware

 

[Underhill]

Personally, it's not critical for my use to have automatic plate logging. Plate identification is really only useful in conjunction with an event, otherwise, why would an average person need it in a normal residential area? It's all about identifying and providing as much information as possible to authorities to resolve the event. As long as I can go through the footage and grab the plate info in connection with other camera footage, that's what I care about. And it's not all that difficult to acquire a decent capture as long as you understand the limitations and issues surrounding the installation of the camera. The installation location choice is a significant factor in how well the camera will perform.

Again, what’s your time worth? Are you willing to spend many hours getting a non lpr cam capturing plates and then spending more hours going through footage for police who don’t care, will never return your jump drive, and will not pay or say thank you? Unless there’s a homicide, I don’t even go to crime scenes anymore

 

[JPmedia]

Again, what’s your time worth? Are you willing to spend many hours getting a non lpr cam capturing plates and then spending more hours going through footage for police who don’t care, will never return your jump drive, and will not pay or say thank you? Unless there’s a homicide, I don’t even go to crime scenes anymore

With your reasoning what's the point of having cameras at all? Anything worth something to the user will require time invested regardless. I have worked in the electronics industry most of my life and there's not much out there that doesn't require some sort of setup to meet the conditions and/or needs of the environment it is operating in.

Not much plug and play in this industry. I don't think any of us would be here if it was that easy

 

[looney2ns]

Again, what’s your time worth? Are you willing to spend many hours getting a non lpr cam capturing plates and then spending more hours going through footage for police who don’t care, will never return your jump drive, and will not pay or say thank you? Unless there’s a homicide, I don’t even go to crime scenes anymore

Geez, give it a rest.