Package Thief flips my house off

IReallyLikePizza2

IReallyLikePizza2

Known around here
May 14, 2019
2,666
6,137
Houston
I think this highlights how I need to adjust some cameras, and get the auto-track working a little better on the PTZ

The box was empty, sat outside for 3 days! He realizes its empty and flips me off









 
  • Love
  • Haha
  • Wow
Reactions: lulu5kamz, johnfitz, mat200 and 5 others
I'm honestly generally okay with the ghosting and whatever on the Front Path camera, as thats more of an overview camera

I need to get the front door camera better first! Thats the priority for now I think
 
  • Like
Reactions: Clark Griswald, mat200 and bigredfish
IReallyLikePizza2 said:
I think this highlights how I need to adjust some cameras, and get the auto-track working a little better on the PTZ

The box was empty, sat outside for 3 days! He realizes its empty and flips me off
Click to expand...
His mask might hide his face but his mode of transport is unique!
5 Am?
we had a 2Am to 4 Am bike guy car door checker that I sometimes I'd see in action when I worked an hour later on Saturday nites and got home like 2 am. when i lived in St. Paul.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mat200 and Techie007L
I'm tempted to get up early and see if I can see him do the same somewhere, and snag his bike :rofl:
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Reactions: johnfitz, Clark Griswald, Oneup and 2 others
@IReallyLikePizza2 The cheap Color4M-TL cameras I have installed so far consistently do a better job than this with even less light. That ghosting and blurring of moving objects shown here is terrible! I would not be extolling that camera's virtues any more than a Reolink camera if this is what it regularly did. While I wish it did even better, it is definitely an incremental improvement over the 5442-LED cameras, with light sensitivity similar to the big Color4K-T/X cameras.

edit: "Pitch dark" is not how I would describe that scene—I see street lights and significant lighting from your house. Try "can't see anything with the naked eye until the camera's white LED comes on" for actual "pitch dark". With the subject in your front yard, the Color4M-TL would've been basking in light and virtually free of motion blur with the lighting present in that scene. And at the street, it subject would've appeared well lit, sharper, and with a bit less motion blur than recorded here. And you wouldn't have been getting blur trails everywhere that moth was flying—darker and there would've been noise trails, but with that amount of light it would've maintained a clear image.
 
Last edited:
The problem is the lack of light, there is not much light here at all, its almost pitch dark at the street
 
  • Like
Reactions: bigredfish
I may swap those front cams for S3's, they are regular T5442T-ZE's

I can also add more light
 
If you had active deterrence camera with a strobe or a speaker activated by an IVS rule, do you think it would make a difference?

If you were allowed to have a fence around your property everything was much simpler.
 
Techie007L said:
@IReallyLikePizza2 The cheap Color4M-TL cameras I have installed so far consistently do a better job than this with even less light. That ghosting and blurring of moving objects shown here is terrible! I would not be extolling that camera's virtues any more than a Reolink camera if this is what it regularly did. While I wish it did even better, it is definitely an incremental improvement over the 5442-LED cameras, with light sensitivity similar to the big Color4K-T/X cameras.

edit: "Pitch dark" is not how I would describe that scene—I see street lights and significant lighting from your house. Try "can't see anything with the naked eye until the camera's white LED comes on" for actual "pitch dark". With the subject in your front yard, the Color4M-TL would've been basking in light and virtually free of motion blur with the lighting present in that scene. And at the street, it subject would've appeared well lit, sharper, and with a bit less motion blur than recorded here. And you wouldn't have been getting blur trails everywhere that moth was flying—darker and there would've been noise trails, but with that amount of light it would've maintained a clear image.
Click to expand...

Only possibly because it has onboard white lights. Add external white light and a 5442 will do the same

- Any camera with onboard lights will be "brighter" than ones without.
(of course the 4M-TL has no IR and can't see IR so a trade off)

Are the white LED's on the 4M-TL on full time? or can they be activated by IVS?

I'm trying to get one to test.

  • Not every scene can use full time white LED's on all night.
  • If I do need and can run that in a scene, I'll take the 4K-T all day long over the 4M-TL without even seeing it

- My recommendation is to use the 5442 and add appropriate external white light as needed.
I do with 1000 lumen battery floods for $30 and don't have to have white LED's on all night in scenes where not appropriate

I'm not at all convinced that the -TL has any better sensor than the 5442. Simply it has onboard white light LED's
 
elvisimprsntr said:
Or put one of these inside and he will almost certainly :poop: his pants when he opens it up. :rofl:


View attachment 242997

Just hope LE doesn't get called.
Click to expand...

Who exactly calls the police in this scenario? And what crime is it to put a potato clock in a cardboard box outside your house?
 
Yeah there is nothing he could call the cops for, he stole from me
 
bigredfish said:
Only possibly because it has onboard white lights. Add external white light and a 5442 will do the same

- Any camera with onboard lights will be "brighter" than ones without.
(of course the 4M-TL has no IR and can't see IR so a trade off)

Are the white LED's on the 4M-TL on full time? or can they be activated by IVS?

I'm trying to get one to test.

  • Not every scene can use full time white LED's on all night.
  • If I do need and can run that in a scene, I'll take the 4K-T all day long over the 4M-TL without even seeing it

- My recommendation is to use the 5442 and add appropriate external white light as needed.
I do with 1000 lumen battery floods for $30 and don't have to have white LED's on all night in scenes where not appropriate

I'm not at all convinced that the -TL has any better sensor than the 5442. Simply it has onboard white light LED's
Click to expand...
The light depicted in that scene is already more than what those little white LEDs would emit, so not terribly helpful here—it would be more of a fill from a different angle than anything else. The 5442 cannot do the same as it is about 1/3 as light-sensitive (in my estimation) compared the Color4M-TL or Color4K-T. Using its bright IR LEDs is where the 5442 still shines, but it looks like the OP is using them in forced-color mode (or with enough ambient light they're not switching to IR mode), where the Color4M-TL consistently outperforms them—hence my original comment (I also like the WizColor during the day because it automatically applies a better WDR to the image than anything the 5442 can do). You can purchase them directly from Andy (link is above in my first post). If you need more than his site will let you order, just email him with the lens/quantity you want.

The Color4M-TL camera offers four LED modes:
  1. Warm Light Mode Auto: Turns on when dark—very dark/way too late using default exposure settings (they'd probably stay off in the scene pictured in the OP), and always dimmer than the brightness slider is set. I found that limiting Gain causes the white LEDs to come on sooner/brighter.
  2. Smart Illumination: This is the mode that's supposed to give you intelligent/AI LED control, but it only seems to be useful on the dual color cameras (where it switches the camera from IR mode to color mode when triggered, switching off the IR LEDs and switching on the white LEDs in the process). On cameras with only white LEDs, its operation is sadly identical (or nearly so) to the above. Dahua really dropped the ball on this one, and it would be so easy to fix in the firmware but I'm not holding my breath.
  3. Warm Light Mode Manual: Always on 24/7, exactly whatever you set the brightness to—note that 100% manual is approximately twice as bright as 100% auto.
  4. Warm Light Mode Off: The LEDs are always off and the camera uses ambient light only.
Can the LEDs be activated by IVS? Yes, with hacks. So what I've been playing with is running batch files from Blue Iris' [On trigger...] and [On reset...] events (Motion/Trigger camera tab). I pass the camera's IP address to the batch file, and one batch file executes curl with the IP address, sending the camera CGI commands to limit shutter time+gain and set the LED to 100% auto, while the other restores high exposure/gain and drops the LED to 0% auto (which is very dim—dimmer than a phone flashlight—but typically still enough for IVS triggers to work). I'd love to use 100% manual as it's even brighter, but then it would come on during the day too and it also seems to break the license plate over exposure reducer, resulting in an overly bright image and washed out plates at night. It's all janky, but the best I can do for now. Dahua could do so much more with some simple firmware modifications. If it wasn't closed source, I could probably patch it myself!
 
  • Like
Reactions: EMPIRETECANDY
I think the best for the front door is a camera with siren for wacthing the package at the front door, and can send big alarms if the theft comes in.
IPC-T54PRO-AS IPC-T54PRO-ZE IPC-Color4M-T can do the job.
 
Techie007L said:
The light depicted in that scene is already more than what those little white LEDs would emit, so not terribly helpful here—it would be more of a fill from a different angle than anything else. The 5442 cannot do the same as it is about 1/3 as light-sensitive (in my estimation) compared the Color4M-TL or Color4K-T. Using its bright IR LEDs is where the 5442 still shines, but it looks like the OP is using them in forced-color mode (or with enough ambient light they're not switching to IR mode), where the Color4M-TL consistently outperforms them—hence my original comment (I also like the WizColor during the day because it automatically applies a better WDR to the image than anything the 5442 can do). You can purchase them directly from Andy (link is above in my first post). If you need more than his site will let you order, just email him with the lens/quantity you want.

The Color4M-TL camera offers four LED modes:
  1. Warm Light Mode Auto: Turns on when dark—very dark/way too late using default exposure settings (they'd probably stay off in the scene pictured in the OP), and always dimmer than the brightness slider is set. I found that limiting Gain causes the white LEDs to come on sooner/brighter.
  2. Smart Illumination: This is the mode that's supposed to give you intelligent/AI LED control, but it only seems to be useful on the dual color cameras (where it switches the camera from IR mode to color mode when triggered, switching off the IR LEDs and switching on the white LEDs in the process). On cameras with only white LEDs, its operation is sadly identical (or nearly so) to the above. Dahua really dropped the ball on this one, and it would be so easy to fix in the firmware but I'm not holding my breath.
  3. Warm Light Mode Manual: Always on 24/7, exactly whatever you set the brightness to—note that 100% manual is approximately twice as bright as 100% auto.
  4. Warm Light Mode Off: The LEDs are always off and the camera uses ambient light only.
Can the LEDs be activated by IVS? Yes, with hacks. So what I've been playing with is running batch files from Blue Iris' [On trigger...] and [On reset...] events (Motion/Trigger camera tab). I pass the camera's IP address to the batch file, and one batch file executes curl with the IP address, sending the camera CGI commands to limit shutter time+gain and set the LED to 100% auto, while the other restores high exposure/gain and drops the LED to 0% auto (which is very dim—dimmer than a phone flashlight—but typically still enough for IVS triggers to work). I'd love to use 100% manual as it's even brighter, but then it would come on during the day too and it also seems to break the license plate over exposure reducer, resulting in an overly bright image and washed out plates at night. It's all janky, but the best I can do for now. Dahua could do so much more with some simple firmware modifications. If it wasn't closed source, I could probably patch it myself!
Click to expand...

Thanks :rolleyes:

I have 4K-T's and X so I dont need yet another camera that needs to have its white LED's on all night, without IVS activation, and with no IR

That was my point
 
  • Like
Reactions: EMPIRETECANDY
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom