Dahua NVR5208-XI (WizMind) — worth it or better options?

Night color is a marketing term.

All cameras need light. Either white or IR
If you are running them without either, you much have a buttload of ambient light or a worse image than you think.

The camera you mention is a 4MP with white LEDs and has no IR. Show a pic from your night color cam with a. Human moving in front of it
 
I see what you're getting at. Here are 2 pics. One with just nightmode (no lights) the other once the motion lights come on. I guess i am going for what i have, just better quality. So it seems like the 4k-t will give me that... to some extent.pic2.jpg
 
I only see one pic with the floods on and no movement, I can make a $30 camera do that.
Its easy to get a bright image, its much harder to get one that is clear at night with movement and be able to ID the person
 
I only see one pic with the floods on and no movement, I can make a $30 camera do that.
Its easy to get a bright image, its much harder to get one that is clear at night with movement and be able to ID the person
I figured that's what you were getting at. I care less about identification than i do about detection. Part of detection includes having a clear image. I dont know why it's not letting me attach the other photo, but it looks like daytime(ish).



pic1.jpg
 
This is your camera (and the 4K-T) without the white LED's on and No ambient light. The one you have is simply a 4MP version of this
192.168.1.110_GatorCam-Color4K-T_main_20250815213814_@1.jpg

This is it with just some ambient light from a flood but NO LED's on the camera
192.168.1.110_GatorCam-Color4K-T_main_20250815213614_@1.jpg

This is with the LED's on all night like I run mine,.
192.168.1.110_GatorCam-Color4K-T_main_20250815213835_@1.jpg


And this is with the LED's on and the floods kicked in
192.168.1.110_GatorCam-Color4K-T_main_20250815213503_@1.jpg
 
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Here's one on default Auto settings like out of the box that produces a bright image but sucks when there is movement.

If you dont care about ID, and blurry blobs of movement are ok with you, go on Ebay and buy any old $50 8MP camera and leave it set on default


192.168.1.110_GatorCam-Color4K-T_main_20250815214930_@1.jpg
 
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This is interesting. Thank you. I have spent a lot of time tuning my images, shutter priority, etc. I feel like it’s a decent balance but I can see what you mean about it being a bit washed.

It sounds like the 4K-T is going to be the best upgrade I can get right now anyway so I will do that. I was hoping the AI would be able to do some upscaling but given what it takes to do that offline I guess that was a pipe dream.
Here is the current shot of it being pretty dark out.
 

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Please post screenshots of your settings.

And a snapshot of a person in motion.

As mentioned if all you care about is detection, then get a cheap $50 camera, otherwise you are wasting the capabilities of the more expensive camera.
 
This is interesting. Thank you. I have spent a lot of time tuning my images, shutter priority, etc. I feel like it’s a decent balance but I can see what you mean about it being a bit washed.

It sounds like the 4K-T is going to be the best upgrade I can get right now anyway so I will do that. I was hoping the AI would be able to do some upscaling but given what it takes to do that offline I guess that was a pipe dream.
Here is the current shot of it being pretty dark out.

Is that 9:41 or 8:41? State?

Wait till it’s actually dark. Say 10pm

But the whole point is motion.

You may have enough flood lights and ambient lights that it doesn’t matter. You keep all that lighting on all night?
But without video of a person moving you won’t know.