I'm a noob and have BI v6. I just bought some EmpireTech IPC-T58IR-ZE-S3 cameras, which I believe is the same as the Dahua 5842T-ZE-S3. I'd just like to get the basic setup on the camera Video / Configure screen from someone who knows BI and has this camera. Thanks for any help.
BI Setup EmpireTech IPC-T58IR-ZE-S3 / Dahua 5842T-ZE-S3
- Thread starter BobKat
- Start date
INITIAL SETUP OF CAMERA
For this camera it is best to use Internet Explorer - or at least try Edge with IE tab, but plain ole Explorer works best. Yes it is still baked into Windows. If you use another browser some of the settings won't hold,
The default IP address of the camera is 192.168.1.108, which may or may not be the IP address range of your system.
Unhook a computer or laptop from the internet and go into ethernet settings and using the IPv4 settings manually change the IP address to 192.168.1.100
Then power up your camera and wait a few minutes.
Then go to browser and type in 192.168.1.108 (default IP address of Dahua cameras) and you will then access the camera.
Tell it your country and give it a user and password.
Then go to the camera Network settings and change the camera IP address to the range of your system and hit save.
You will then lose the camera connection.
Then reverse the process to put your computer back on your network IP address range.
Next open up INTERNET EXPLORER and type in the new IP address that you just gave the camera to access it.
OR use the IPconfig Tool, but most of us prefer the above as it is one less program needed and one less chance for the cameras to phone home or for something to get screwed up.
DIAL IN THE CAMERA TO YOUR FIELD OF VIEW
In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.
Start with:
H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS and iframes if using 3rd party VMS (30 if using NVR is ok)
Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.
We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.
In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.
Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.
Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.
Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?
In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.
Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.
You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.
You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.
But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.
Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.
After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.
GETTING CAMERA TRIGGERS INTO BI
Go into the camera GUI and set up smart plan with IVS, then go to the IVS screen and draw IVS rules (tripwire or intrusion box) and then select the AI you want it to trigger on (human or vehicle).
Make sure MD and SMD are turned OFF in the camera.
Then in BI, there are a few places you need to set this up in BI (assuming you already set up the IVS rules in the camera GUI):
In Camera configure setting check the box "Get ONVIF triggers".
Hit Find/Inspect on the camera setting to pull the coding for the triggers.
Go into Motion Setting and select the "Cameras digital input" box OR "ONVIF/CAMERA EVENTS" based on which BI version you have. Turn off BI Motion Detection if you don't want to use it:
On the Alerts tab uncheck the Motions Zones tab (those are alerting you to any BI motion in those areas in Zones A thru H) and select ONVIF and External check boxes.
On the "On alert..." actions, select how you want to be alerted (email, push, SMS, etc.)
For this camera it is best to use Internet Explorer - or at least try Edge with IE tab, but plain ole Explorer works best. Yes it is still baked into Windows. If you use another browser some of the settings won't hold,
The default IP address of the camera is 192.168.1.108, which may or may not be the IP address range of your system.
Unhook a computer or laptop from the internet and go into ethernet settings and using the IPv4 settings manually change the IP address to 192.168.1.100
Then power up your camera and wait a few minutes.
Then go to browser and type in 192.168.1.108 (default IP address of Dahua cameras) and you will then access the camera.
Tell it your country and give it a user and password.
Then go to the camera Network settings and change the camera IP address to the range of your system and hit save.
You will then lose the camera connection.
Then reverse the process to put your computer back on your network IP address range.
Next open up INTERNET EXPLORER and type in the new IP address that you just gave the camera to access it.
OR use the IPconfig Tool, but most of us prefer the above as it is one less program needed and one less chance for the cameras to phone home or for something to get screwed up.
DIAL IN THE CAMERA TO YOUR FIELD OF VIEW
In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.
Start with:
H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS and iframes if using 3rd party VMS (30 if using NVR is ok)
Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.
We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.
In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.
Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.
Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.
Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?
In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.
Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.
You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.
You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.
But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.
Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.
After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.
GETTING CAMERA TRIGGERS INTO BI
Go into the camera GUI and set up smart plan with IVS, then go to the IVS screen and draw IVS rules (tripwire or intrusion box) and then select the AI you want it to trigger on (human or vehicle).
Make sure MD and SMD are turned OFF in the camera.
Then in BI, there are a few places you need to set this up in BI (assuming you already set up the IVS rules in the camera GUI):
In Camera configure setting check the box "Get ONVIF triggers".
Hit Find/Inspect on the camera setting to pull the coding for the triggers.
Go into Motion Setting and select the "Cameras digital input" box OR "ONVIF/CAMERA EVENTS" based on which BI version you have. Turn off BI Motion Detection if you don't want to use it:
On the Alerts tab uncheck the Motions Zones tab (those are alerting you to any BI motion in those areas in Zones A thru H) and select ONVIF and External check boxes.
On the "On alert..." actions, select how you want to be alerted (email, push, SMS, etc.)
Bruce_H
Getting comfortable
If the camera is brand new does he not have to initialize/Configure it using the ConfigTool utility from the Empire Tech web site, with the ConfigTool he can set the password and change the IP without having to be on the camera subnet?
Download Softwares
Download Softwares
I, along with many here, have never used ConfigTool to set up a new camera.
Personally, I like to install as few programs as possible and with all the concern folks have about cameras phoning home, I am not going to install a program that could make that easier.
Personally, I like to install as few programs as possible and with all the concern folks have about cameras phoning home, I am not going to install a program that could make that easier.
Bruce_H
Getting comfortable
I always have used the CopnfigTool, I did not know it was possible to connect to the camera the first time without it, I have found it very handy when I have several new cameras installed and want to config them all in one go, for me it has been a good time saver. I never enable the automatic update check
Ai search will cut to the chase if you form your issue as a question with the camera make/model and Blue Iris 6 in the question.
Thank you all very much for the high level of detail replies! Much appreciated!
I will be using a NIC with a different subnet on my BI PC, so the cameras cannot "phone home", as there is no network path to the main home network. But I too am leery of installing manufacturers app, so I will try the direct connection approach using an old Win 10 laptop initially, which may still have IE installed.
One point I noted is the use of the H.264 codec. I did some research of the different video codecs, and it appears that H.265 compression efficiency is very high resulting in less network bandwidth and has the same quality as H.264 but with smaller file sizes. If there is a preference for using H.264 over H.265, please let me know the reason.
I will be using a NIC with a different subnet on my BI PC, so the cameras cannot "phone home", as there is no network path to the main home network. But I too am leery of installing manufacturers app, so I will try the direct connection approach using an old Win 10 laptop initially, which may still have IE installed.
One point I noted is the use of the H.264 codec. I did some research of the different video codecs, and it appears that H.265 compression efficiency is very high resulting in less network bandwidth and has the same quality as H.264 but with smaller file sizes. If there is a preference for using H.264 over H.265, please let me know the reason.
After I asked the previous question, I used the AI chat link you sent previously, and it essentially replied with what you included above. Thanks for that link - I'll be using that a lot. 
Only thing it doesn’t include is Snarky replies, and descriptive official IPCAMTALK terms like
Assload or Shit tons.
Assload or Shit tons.
The TL : DR version is H265 is not a consistent codec standard and every manufacturer does it different, which can be problematic with some VMS systems. H264 tends to be the consistent codec. Plus H265 uses more camera processor resources, which can then be problematic with other options on the camera.
Now for the long version:
SmartCodec (+ variants) can create lots of problems with playback / search - many have seen it jumps and skips over time, plus it is proprietary to the manufacturer and can be problematic with other VMS systems.
Most of us have found H265 in these cameras suck.
H265 in theory provides more storage as it compresses differently, but part of that compression means it "macro blocks" (technically coding tree units) big areas of the image that it thinks isn't moving. That can be problematic for digital zooming with H265.
However, it also takes more processing power of the already small CPU in the camera and that can be problematic if someone is maxing out the camera in other areas like FPS and then it stutters.
The cheaper the camera, the more it will struggle with the processing requirements of H265.
Further some cameras can handle H265 better than others, even if the camera "claims" to support it, it may actually do a very poor job with it.
In theory it is supposed to need 30% less storage than H264, but most of us have found it isn't that much. My savings were less than few minutes per day. And to my eye and others that I showed clips to and just said do you like video 1 or video 2 better, everyone thought the H264 provided a better image.
The left image is H264, so all the blocks are the same size corresponding to the resolution of the camera. H265 takes areas that it doesn't think has motion and makes them into bigger blocks and in doing so lessens the resolution in those larger blocks yet increases the camera CPU demand to develop these larger blocks. For some cameras that then becomes problematic to do other functions as the little processor is now maxed out.
In theory H265 is supposed to need half the bitrate because of the macroblocking. But if there is a lot of motion in the image, then it becomes a pixelated mess. The only way to get around that is a higher bitrate. But if you need to run the same bitrate for H265 as you do H264, then the storage savings is essentially zero.
In my testing I have one camera that sees a parked car in front of my house. H265 sees that the car isn't moving, so it macroblocks the whole car and surrounding area. Then the car owner walked up to the car and got in and the motion is missed because of the macroblock being so large. Or if it catches it, because the bitrate is low, it is a pixelated mess during the critical capture point and by the time H265 adjusts to there is now motion, the ideal capture is missed.
In my case, the car is clear and defined in H264, but is blurry and soft edges in H265.
Digital zooming is never really good and not something we recommend, but you stand a better chance of some digital zoom with H264 rather than a large macroblocked H265. I can digital zoom on my overview camera and kinda make out the address number of the house across the street with H264, but not a chance with H265 as it macroblocked his whole house.
H265 is one of those theory things that sounds good, but reality use is much different.
Some people have a field of view or goals that allow H265 to be sufficient for their needs.
Third party VMS systems do better with H264. That is the tried and true standard. H264H is ok as well.
As always, YMMV.
Regarding the camera configure screen capture above, "Make" field, I see Generic/ONVIF selected. Has that been found to work better vs. selecting something more specific, e.g. Dahua or Empire Technology?
It is best to type in IP address and username and password and hit the find/inspect and let BI select the most appropriate protocol.
In most cases it will select generic, which tells you that camera is in compliance with ONVIF protocol.
The other options are only for cameras that do not follow ONVIF and BI created a "camera profile" so that it would work.
It doesn't mean if you select Dahua that it won't work, but the find/inspect is usually the best bet.
@wittaj: Your setup in your first response has helped me greatly. Once I got one camera setup, I went to the maintenance menu and exported the configuration file, then imported that into the other 6 cameras. I found one camera looked quite dim outdoors as compared to another one using the same exposure settings. Here's what I had for Day:
I ended up turning the exposure compensation up to 50 to get something that looked reasonable. Playing with the Shutter and Gain numbers didn't seem to make very much difference.
Here are the before & after pics:
What would you have adjusted??
I ended up turning the exposure compensation up to 50 to get something that looked reasonable. Playing with the Shutter and Gain numbers didn't seem to make very much difference.
Here are the before & after pics:
What would you have adjusted??
bigredfish
Known around here
I heave Exposure Comp on default 50 for most daytime scenes.
And again for daytime I drop exposure down to 0-3 faster and leave Gain around 50
And again for daytime I drop exposure down to 0-3 faster and leave Gain around 50