Football field security -- camera layout/design

Dave88LX

Dave88LX

Getting the hang of it
Jul 13, 2016
142
64
York, PA
Looking to present the board of our local sports organization some ideas to increase security and the protection of coaches, parents, and players from the he said/she said craziness of the youth sports world and the crazy parents that are involved with it. If you know, you know LOL.

I'm told "there is a camera system, but it doesn't work." I'll take a look at what they have when I have some free time, but I'm usually on the field coaching.

One or two cameras covering the entire field obviously isn't going to do the trick. The field of view needs to be narrow enough to actually capture some detail, but if it's too narrow of course then you're cutting footage out that is closer to the camera (which would be better handled by differnet cameras anyways).

Night time, but, the field does have lights.

I don't know if they'll even go for it, but all I can do is present something that's close to a plan, and then see if we can work out even a phased budget where we may add cameras as we go, but at least get started.

Building is 2-story, so we can mount cameras pretty much anywhere, up to about 20-25' off the ground.

Any reccomendations on where to start with this?

I have Hikvision and Dahua at home, happy with it.

1760394410461.png
 
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I'm assuming the budget is going to be super small, so for starters I would suggest a dual sensor cam for 180 degree wide angle coverage of the entire field.

One of these:
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ANNKE FCD600 6MP POE Security IP Camera Dual Lens Outdoor Color Night 2 Way Talk | eBay

ANNKE FCD600. Capture More Clearly in 6MP Ultra HD. When connecting to the NVR, it takes up only ONE channel! Default IR night vision, human and vehicle motion triggered and turned the vision into color, once the event conclude, it auto reverts to IR mode.
www.ebay.com
www.ebay.com

ANNKE 4K Dual Lens 180° View AI Color Night PoE Security IP Camera Two-Way Audio | eBay

ANNKE FCD800. It can not only be used alone, but also fully compatible with 4K NVR system, occupying just 1 channel for efficient, streamlined monitoring. Crystal-Clear 4K Ultra HD Surveillance. With the H.265+ high-efficient encoding tech, it records longer videos and uses less bandwidth, don't...
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They are rebranded Hikvision. I have installed a number of the FCD600 (6MP) version and they are a great value for an overview and even have a good built-in microphone.

If you have the budget for it, Annke NCD800 is higher resolution and better color night vision. ANNKE 8MP Dual Lens 4K PoE Security IP Camera Color Night Vision Two Way Audio | eBay But it has a much smaller vertical field of view so you'd probably want to mount it closer to the ground to reduce the size of the blind spot below the camera.


Then assuming there are good choke points around the field where people enter and exit, get longer zoom cameras for those spots so you can get better face/detail capture. Consider stuff like the "ZE" and "Z4E" models from here: Smart IR Series Camera | EmpireTech Maybe even the Z12E or a full blown PTZ cam if you need to zoom in more tightly on something far away from the building.
 
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Do these ANNKE cameras have as much image warping as the Dahua 180 deg equivalent? If they are just as bad, I wonder if they'd be a good choice?
 
tigerwillow1 said:
Do these ANNKE cameras have as much image warping as the Dahua 180 deg equivalent? If they are just as bad, I wonder if they'd be a good choice?
Click to expand...

Yes and no.

The Hikvision/Annke cameras I linked above have about the same barrel distortion as the Dahua 180 cam which Andy sells (EmpireTech IPC-Color4K-T180). It is basically the same as if you got two 90 degree cams and lined them up side by side the same way as is done in these dual lens cameras. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

But the Hikvision/Annke cameras output a video that is the correct aspect ratio for their field of view, which IS NOT THE CASE with the Color4K-T180. The Color4K-T180 has a field of view that needs to be at a 32:9 aspect ratio to look correct, but for some reason Dahua decided to make its max output resolution be 4096x1800 which is about a 20:9 aspect ratio. It is way off. This creates very obvious distortion that makes everything appear unnaturally tall or not wide enough. To correct this you either need NVR software that can rescale the image to 6400 x 1800 resolution (Blue Iris can do 6392x1800 which is close enough), or you need to make the camera output its video at 3840x1080 resolution, which sacrifices about half the resolution, making it effectively a 4 megapixel camera.

1760406641382.png

Annke NCD800 is very much like the Color4K-T180, but without the aspect ratio problems.
 
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My BI will let me choose only 20:9 aspect ratio sizes. Is there something I don't know to change the aspect ratio?
Capture.JPG
 
tigerwillow1 said:
My BI will let me choose only 20:9 aspect ratio sizes. Is there something I don't know to change the aspect ratio?
Click to expand...

Yes, there is a trick. In Blue Iris, you can type your own values in the Image format > Size box. You are not restricted to using predefined items from the dropdown list. Be aware the exact number you enter might not be completely respected by Blue Iris. Blue Iris may slightly tweak the resolution you enter in the Size box, for compatibility reasons (its video processing pipeline needs dimensions that are divisible by 8 or by 16 or something).

Anyway if you have Blue Iris configured to only use a main stream for this camera, you should be able to just enter 6400x1800 into the Size box and it should work.

But I highly recommend using a sub stream with this camera (dual-streaming). IMPORTANT NOTE: Using a sub stream makes it a little trickier to rescale it to a 32:9 aspect ratio because when dual-streaming, Blue Iris is already using the Size box to rescale the sub stream to the aspect ratio of the main stream because most cameras sub streams are the wrong aspect ratio natively. So if you enter 6400x1800 in this case it will not have the desired effect. Blue Iris will try to upscale the sub stream to that resolution, and then it will try to upscale the main stream to a (much) higher resolution. And this wastes a ton of CPU time if it works at all because you're upscaling way too far.

The procedure for proper setup of a Color4K-T180 in Blue Iris while using a sub stream is:
  1. Configure Blue Iris to use a sub stream. Click OK to exit the camera settings dialog box, and wait for Blue Iris to fully initialize the camera and being playing the live video.
  2. Re-open the camera settings dialog and in the Image format > Size box, change the width so that the sub stream's resolution is upscaled to a 32:9 aspect ratio.
    For the 1024*452 sub stream, enter 1607 x 452.
    For the 1280*560 sub stream, enter 1991 x 560.
    For the 1920*832 sub stream, enter 2958 x 832.
  3. Click OK to exit the camera settings dialog box.
  4. Verify that the aspect ratio looks correct. The camera should now be twice as wide as a regular 16:9 camera.
  5. Open the BI web interface (UI3) and right click the camera and choose Camera Properties. In the information section near the top of this panel, you can find the actual main and sub stream resolutions after rescaling by Blue Iris. Mine says Video: 6392x1800 (sub: 2952x832). The main stream resolution should be 6400x1800 (give or take 8 pixels). The sub stream resolution should be what you entered in the Size box (give or take 8 pixels).

Providing screenshots of the relevant configuration, I have my Color4K-T180 in Blue Iris using Sub Stream #2.

1760415487666.png

Sub stream #2 is configured in the camera's web interface to be 1920*832 resolution.

1760415462663.png

And in the Size box I have 2952 x 832. This is what Blue Iris changed my input to, for compatibility reasons.

1760415452427.png

And in UI3 the camera properties panel shows Video: 6392x1800 (sub: 2952x832)

1760418642624.png
 
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I couldn't get to this until late today, and I think I've got it. Can't be 100% until the next daytime image because there isn't any light in the camera view. I wish you didn't have to take so much time walking me through this, and pass back a big thank you. I admit I struggle with a lot of the BI configuration. Too bad IMO that the camera doesn't de-warp the image so straight lines are straight. I've seen this for fisheyes, so it must be possible. Nevertheless, the 32:9 image is a significant improvement over 20:9.
 
Distortion correction is definitely possible, but it comes with a lot of downsides. (de)warping a digital video results in quality loss, and typically some cropping of the image. It also requires more processing power, more complex software, etc. (this is why not all fisheye cameras support dewarping in the camera firmware) Some of the distortion correction can be done via the lens design (sometimes with added cost) and you can be sure modern lenses are already designed with this stuff in mind. But in the end, any 2D view of a 3D world will be imperfect in some way. You can optimize to make straight lines appear straight, at the cost of other aspects. Maybe things will look too big near the edges of the view. Or maybe angles will appear less correct. It is all a balancing act and often a highly personal preference. It is the same reason there are so many different projections for maps of the earth and none of them are perfect for all purposes.
 
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bp2008 said:
Yes, there is a trick.
Click to expand...
I tried using your settings for my T180, and yes, it does produce a nice wide, correct aspect image in BI, but my CPU seems top be 15-20% higher using these. Is that expected? Pushes it from about 30% to 45%-50% or so... (12 cams, one T180)
 
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bp2008 said:
Distortion correction is definitely possible, but it comes with a lot of downsides. (de)warping a digital video results in quality loss, and typically some cropping of the image. It also requires more processing power, more complex software, etc. (this is why not all fisheye cameras support dewarping in the camera firmware) Some of the distortion correction can be done via the lens design (sometimes with added cost) and you can be sure modern lenses are already designed with this stuff in mind. But in the end, any 2D view of a 3D world will be imperfect in some way. You can optimize to make straight lines appear straight, at the cost of other aspects. Maybe things will look too big near the edges of the view. Or maybe angles will appear less correct. It is all a balancing act and often a highly personal preference. It is the same reason there are so many different projections for maps of the earth and none of them are perfect for all purposes.
Click to expand...
Yup. Here's a still photo through an 10.5mm Nikkor (Nikon) fisheye, straight out of my camera:

1760628278995.png

and here are my cropping options after de-fishing it in Photoshop to make straight lines straight:

1760628307320.png

and the final crop that I ended up using:

1760628394009.png

You can see much of the original image I've lost, and the unnatural stretch in the corners.
 
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rdxny said:
I tried using your settings for my T180, and yes, it does produce a nice wide, correct aspect image in BI, but my CPU seems top be 15-20% higher using these. Is that expected? Pushes it from about 30% to 45%-50% or so... (12 cams, one T180)
Click to expand...
Depends on which CPU you have and whether you have a sub stream properly configured for that camera. What video resolutions do you see in UI3 (web interface) camera properties for that camera?
 
bp2008 said:
Depends on which CPU you have and whether you have a sub stream properly configured for that camera. What video resolutions do you see in UI3 (web interface) camera properties for that camera?
Click to expand...
I see the same : Video: 6392x1800 (sub: 2952x832) CPU is i7 6700 @ 3.4 Ghz, win 11 on Optiplex 7040. 16 GB ram.
 
rdxny said:
I see the same : Video: 6392x1800 (sub: 2952x832) CPU is i7 6700 @ 3.4 Ghz, win 11 on Optiplex 7040. 16 GB ram.
Click to expand...

Ok, on that CPU, 15% extra is roughly one more maxed out CPU core (actually that'd be 13.3%) . If you're getting this much higher CPU usage than before with it just sitting on the "All cameras" view, then I'd have to recommend choosing one of the lower resolution sub streams (and then change the dimensions in the Size box accordingly). If the higher CPU usage is only while the main stream is being played somewhere, then it is more understandable and there's not much you can do about it besides lowering the camera's frame rates.

That said, you still have some headroom running at 50% CPU usage on an i7-6700 so you don't necessarily need to do anything to reduce it yet.
 
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bp2008 said:
Ok, on that CPU, 15% extra is roughly one more maxed out CPU core (actually that'd be 13.3%) . If you're getting this much higher CPU usage than before with it just sitting on the "All cameras" view, then I'd have to recommend choosing one of the lower resolution sub streams (and then change the dimensions in the Size box accordingly). If the higher CPU usage is only while the main stream is being played somewhere, then it is more understandable and there's not much you can do about it besides lowering the camera's frame rates.

That said, you still have some headroom running at 50% CPU usage on an i7-6700 so you don't necessarily need to do anything to reduce it yet.
Click to expand...
I lowered the substream to sub1 (1024*452) and changed size to 1607 x 452. UI3 reports Video: 6376 x 1800 (sub 1600 x 452, so that looks ok?
CPU still between 40% and 55%, with all cameras view (subs), still maybe 10% higher than the standard non re sized version. Room to grow if needed, as you said, just something I saw and heard (when fan kicks in at around 55% or higher)
 
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It's easy enough to get "full field coverage" with a couple of cameras and I guess that is better than nothing, but I don't see where it is going to be possible to get a system that is going to provide detailed enough footage of any potential "events" without spending a lot of money.

Outside of the overall coverage cameras, I think a couple of PTZ cameras would be a good place to start. During baseball season, they can be pointed at the stands on either side of home plate. This is where 80% of the trouble is likely to occur - either in the stands or at home plate. During football season they could be reoriented to the sidelines of the football field. (I guess fixed cameras could do this too, but it might take manual adjustments for each season).

Keeping this same overall strategy in mind, getting more and more PTZ (or fixed) cameras as money allows is probably the best solution so that you can cover more choke points. Of course they could be supplemented with fixed cameras that pointed at field entrances or other hot spots, but that probably isn't where any "action" would actually occur. Still, they could be helpful in identifying individuals coming onto the field itself.
 
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Dave88LX said:
Looking to present the board of our local sports organization some ideas to increase security and the protection of coaches, parents, and players from the he said/she said craziness of the youth sports world and the crazy parents that are involved with it. If you know, you know LOL.

I'm told "there is a camera system, but it doesn't work." I'll take a look at what they have when I have some free time, but I'm usually on the field coaching.

One or two cameras covering the entire field obviously isn't going to do the trick. The field of view needs to be narrow enough to actually capture some detail, but if it's too narrow of course then you're cutting footage out that is closer to the camera (which would be better handled by differnet cameras anyways).

Night time, but, the field does have lights.

I don't know if they'll even go for it, but all I can do is present something that's close to a plan, and then see if we can work out even a phased budget where we may add cameras as we go, but at least get started.

Building is 2-story, so we can mount cameras pretty much anywhere, up to about 20-25' off the ground.

Any reccomendations on where to start with this?

I have Hikvision and Dahua at home, happy with it.

View attachment 229837
Click to expand...

What are the functional needs ?
Where are the potential issues ?
What are the priorities ?
Vandalism at night ?
Crime at night ?
Issues during the day ?
Will someone be manning the cameras during events ( PTZ could be used in this case )
 
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