Dahua WizColor 2449-ProX vs WizColor 2449-Pro ("Color4M-TL")

[Techie007L]

Well, I finally had some time to hook up the new Dahua WizColor HDW2449TH-S-PROX ("ProX") camera, and compare it with the previous generation Dahua WizColor HDW2449T-S-PRO ("Color4M-TL") camera. Results are...very disappointing. There are several significant incremental improvements, and many regressions. Here are my first impressions:

PROs (ProX does better):

• Noticeably more sensitive to light. I would estimate it is twice as sensitive, pulling in significantly more details at night in the country with the LED on minimum brightness (this helps with the live preview, and should help with quicker/more accurate triggers without requiring the LED to be as bright all the time). Optics (going from F1.0 to F0.8) should account for 1.5x, so there appears to have been a sensor improvement as well.
• Slightly less streaking/motion blur in low light.
• Slightly less noise/grain in low light.
• Handles glare (e.g. headlights on a car) better at night (less blooming/lens flare).
• Clearer image out of the box; 2D-NR no longer globally lowers the camera's fine-detail resolution (even during daytime), but applies smoothing to similarly colored areas as expected, with little effect during the day. (However, note that the Color4M-TL can be adjusted to exceed this camera's clarity by manually dropping 2D-NR from 50 to 25 and running it at its native 1440p mode instead of the interpolated 1520p mode.)
• I like the smaller OSD font, particularly on the sub stream (Color4M-TL could not be made small enough, even with CGI commands).

CONs (Color4M-TL does better):

• The ProX camera has the buggiest firmware I've seen from Dahua in years (I'm running 4.R built 2026-04-24, the latest at this time). Interestingly, the firmware file for this camera is half as large as the previous generation (50 MB vs 91 MB), and is shared with the IL-series cameras. One bug causes it to randomly get stuck in a faulty exposure mode where the AI/NR is processing for a totally different gain/shutter combination, resulting in a very noisy, weirdly pulsing picture. This seems to happen frequently when manually allowing the shutter to increase past 33ms at night (Auto usually extends it to 83ms without this happening).
• Running in VBR mode (H.264 or H.265), I'm frequently getting corrupt frames, missing keyframes, and even occasionally stream freezes where Blue Iris has to reconnect after several seconds. Seems to happen most when there are rapid scene changes that cause the encoder to exceed its maximum bitrate (I saw it pushing 9600kbps in Blue Iris despite having a rated maximum bitrate of 6144kbps). Lowering the quality helps, but then I get unwanted compression artifacts. This is the first Dahua camera where I have experienced this behavior. No, the connections/ping is solid; the camera is just making mistakes, and switching to CBR makes it stop (although it also increases compression artifacts when there's lots of movement, and adds noticeable pulsing artifacts). I suspect it's encountering a buffer overflow and truncating frame data. IMHO, the encoder can obviously do it, so the maximum bitrate should be increased to 8192 at least, and the buffer made larger so when the encoder briefly surges past the maximum (on a scene or keyframe), the stream doesn't get truncated, causing image corruption.
• The built-in LED is cool white, not warm white—the first Dahua camera I've seen like this. Worse yet, it's about 1/3rd as bright! This makes the camera perform similar to the previous generation when it comes to motion blur at night with moving persons, despite noticeable improvements in optics/sensor—very disappointing. Sure, with street lights it will perform better, but relying solely on its own light, it's about the same due to this regression. Unfortunately, this one is undoubtedly hardware (inferior LED) and cannot be fixed with a firmware update.
• Like its predecessor, it has a garishly oversharpened image out of the box—but worse, now it cannot be fixed! I drop Sharpness to 20 on the Color4M-TL, but this one I have at 0 and it needs to be able to go to about -200. The Sharpness slider barely does anything on this camera! The oversharpening results in quite a bit of shiny "speckle" noise in some scenes at night, and a flat embossed looking image during the day—very disappointing.
• Picture is even brighter at night by default (it was already too bright). Same workaround (enabling License Plate overexposure correction) darkens the nighttime image a little, but it is no longer satisfactory. This camera is so addicted to a bright picture that reducing Exposure Compensation from 50 to 40 results in a better picture around the clock—but it's still too bright at night, and going lower makes it too dark/flat during the day.
• Harsher, less refined nighttime image. In addition to having a cool white LED, it seems to prefer a colder white balance too (Auto or Outdoor), and selecting Natural results in an overly orange nighttime image. It needs something in between! (Perhaps adjust the Outdoor profile a bit warmer, as it and Auto appear to be identical currently?) During the day, Auto, Outdoor, and Natural all appear about the same and are fine. It's just too cold (blue) at night—even when using the Color4M-TL warm white LED.
• Lower resolving power/clarity than the previous generation (Color4M-TL, after being correctly adjusted). I cannot tell if this is due to the out-of-control oversharpening or not, but the resolution of this camera while higher out of the box, is lower than the previous generation after proper adjustment. Dropping Sharpness and 2D-NR (which resolved this on the Color4M-TL) does not help at all on the ProX.
• Audio quality has been degraded, and is now similar to the Color4K and Color4M-TiOC series cameras, where there is an additional noise reduction algorithm garbling the audio that cannot be turned off. By comparison, the previous generation (Color4M-TL) has good audio quality just like the 5442 series cameras.
• License Plate overexposure correction is much more subtle and no longer flashes the image to a dark blue when it sees a moving car. However, it no longer makes license plates readable either! The darkening effect doesn't need to be as strong as before, but twice as much as it is now would probably be about right. This wouldn't be such a problem if the camera wasn't pushing the image so excessively bright at night...
• The ProX doesn't support sending a command in response to motion (only "Record", "Take snapshot", "Send email"). All the Dahua cameras that I've played with that have the new UI firmware support it, until this one. I stopped using ONVIF triggers where possible because the command method was faster and more reliable. This camera doesn't support it.
• The ProX is the first Dahua camera I've seen in a long time that doesn't use ONVIF profile "00000". If swapping this camera into an existing Blue Iris camera window, you'll have to manually change the ONVIF profile to "VideoSource000" before ONVIF triggers will work (frustratingly, Blue Iris will still successfully pull the ONVIF events and show them to the user in the Config window, but will silently ignore them, failing to trigger the camera until this is set correctly).
• No 6mm lens variant, even in the bullet camera form factor.
• I don't like the new, larger turret form-factor, particularly all the wasted space with that ring at the bottom.

SAME (issues in the Color4M-TL that are easily fixable but remain uncorrected in the ProX):

• When the LED is set to manual mode (e.g. to get the full, actual 100% brightness), License Plate overexposure correction takes no effect, even though it is selected and turned on.
• In auto mode, when set to 100%, the built-in LED is limited to about 40% of its actual maximum brightness (as revealed in manual mode). This worsens the camera's low light motion performance. Perhaps they're trying to save the LED from premature wear; this wouldn't be such a big deal if my points above and below this one were corrected.
• On the dual color cameras (IR+white), LED Smart Illumination mode switches the camera from IR mode to color when the selection motion is detected. On these white LED cameras, the option is there, but it is useless—no different from Auto mode. It needs to enable the white LED at low brightness (following the slider, like it currently does); but when motion is detected, it needs to rapidly fade the white LED to actual 100% (same as manual 100%) brightness so the camera can capture with minimal motion blur. Even better if this tied in to Auto exposure mode, instantly capping exposure to 20-25ms and gain to 50 while in a motion-activated state, and then releasing the exposure caps and slowly fading the LED back to the user-set slider value after the motion timeout has elapsed.
• Lens Distortion Correction significantly degrades the image quality on these cameras (distorts the image and reduces FOV too) and should be turned off by default.
• Audio sample rate is limited to 16kHz. It should be 24 or 48kHz. It should also support the Opus audio codec at 64kbps.
• H.265 AI coding is useless. I love how it "freezes" areas of the image that don't feature movement, significantly cutting back the continuous bitrate, but it's WAAAY too aggresive to be used in any serious manner (introduces serious compression artifacts even in areas of interest) and lacks any sort of adjustment options.
• No 6mm lens variant. This is so important I don't care if the 6mm lens has to go up from F0.8 or F1.0 to F1.0 or F1.2. We need these cameras in a 6mm variant; this is non-negotiable!

With all these new issues, I will not be able to sell my customers on this new model—especially with the price jumping $30 (from $110 to $140). $30 more and it can't read license plates at night, the daytime picture looks garish and oversharpened, and VBR is unusable? Yeah it can see better in the dark at night (both still and moving objects), but come on! @EMPIRETECANDY Any chance you can get Dahua to fix their firmware and actually address these issues?

 

[Techie007L]

{reserved for some picture examples at a later time}

 

[tmxv4128]

Great review/comparison! I like all the details you documented. Also, totally agree about the need for 6mm. On my cameras that aren't varifocal, 2.8mm and 6mm are my most frequently used. I hardly ever use my 3.6's.

 

[bigredfish]

But its Bright!

 

[bigredfish]

Seriously thanks for the review

Couple of notes:

• I have never and dont see any benefit in running 'Auto" for exposure for any camera in any scene
• Dahau's implementation of H.256 and VBR sucks and always has
• Its the sensor. No amount of AI or FW releases can fix a cheap sensor

 

[tigerwillow1]

We need these cameras in a 6mm variant; this is non-negotiable!

I'm in the same boat. Based on specs from other brands like eufy, reolink, etc., I have the impression the mass market wants only wider FOVs. I think we're supposed to suck it up and buy varifocals for more money and have a fatter camera.

 

[OD1]

I'm confused about all the Exposure Compensation and License Plate Exposure and stuff you're mentioning. Does this camera not have manual gain and exposure limits?

 

[Techie007L]

@OD1 It does, but you're at the mercy of the AI after-processing the image. You can manually limit the gain and exposure, but the AI will remap the contrast (and even stack frames, which the ProX does less than the Color4M-TL) to re-brighten the image as it sees fit. So you have to tell the AI you want a darker image. The only options for that are the Exposure Compensation slider and License Plate Overexposure remover. I don't really mind that paradigm (and generally like the contrast mapping on these cameras compared to none at all as it provides a superior substitution for WDR), but they need to tune it better if we're going to be stuck with it. Also, with no contrast remapping, you generally need a dedicated camera with low exposure to read license plates at night. With its contrast remapping and License Plate Overexposure remover turned on, the Color4M-TL can almost always read any passing license plate at any time of day while functioning as a normal (not super dark) camera—but it was a bit too aggressive and clunky. They tried to polish this on the ProX, resulting in a regression instead, where plates are frequently washed out still.

 

[OD1]

Are they really that aggressive? You're also mentioning exposure times in the 30's. I don't get close to half of that even with my old night color 2.0 cams.

 

[Techie007L]

@OD1 The Color4M-TL is. You can half the shutter time, half the gain (for quarter the original exposure), and within seconds the image fades back to the same brightness as before, only now with more noise, slightly worse color, and more frame-stacking motion blur. Based on others' reviews I've seen here, some of the other new Dahua cameras behave similarly. And its License Plate Overexposure remover was also very aggressive—imagine a camera automatically flashing from a bright exposure to something similar to what people use on dedicated license plate cameras, as soon as a car moves past it. The ProX seems to have scaled all this back somewhat.

Both of these cameras default to a nighttime exposure of 83ms, operating with a variable frame rate of 12fps. This allows the LED to run dimly to monitor the scene. You can also set the LED to come on brighter, and it will speed up the shutter/FPS accordingly (or you can put manual limits on the shutter, just like with other Dahua cameras). The big oversight is that they made no plans for the camera to switch itself to a more sane "capture" mode when motion was detected (e.g. bump the LED to 100% and cap exposure/gain to limit motion blur). I have worked around this by using Blue Iris to execute a CGI script on trigger and on reset to manually adjust the exposure and LED brightness parameters—with acceptable results. You're probably used to the LED running at 100% all night. These are running at 1%—substantially dimmer than a phone flashlight, and that is enough to see sufficiently for IVS triggers to work.

The big difference between the old night color cameras and these is that these are more sensitive to light, and the AI does a surprisingly good job at reducing the motion blur for the high exposure times being used. But the old night color cameras have an advantage: You speed up the shutter, the image gets darker but you lose the motion blur entirely. Try that on these cameras and they start stacking frames to maintain a bright image, resulting in worse motion blur and noise than if you used a longer shutter. The big attraction is these cameras are cheaper and consistently produce a well-composed image. Hopefully Dahua will continue to realize that motion blur is a serious problem and optimize them further. The ProX already is a step in the correct direction in this area, despite the many other regressions listed in my first post.

 

[bigredfish]

@OD1 The Color4M-TL is. You can half the exposure, half the gain (for quarter the original exposure), and within seconds the image fades back to the same brightness as before, only now with more noise, slightly worse color, and more frame-stacking motion blur. Some of the other new Dahua cameras behave similarly. And its License Plate Overexposure remover was also very aggressive—imagine a camera automatically flashing from a bright exposure to something similar to what people use on dedicated license plate cameras, as soon as a car moves past it. The ProX seems to have scaled all this back somewhat.

Both of these cameras default to a nighttime exposure of 83ms, operating with a variable frame rate of 12fps. This allows the LED to run dimly to monitor the scene. You can also set the LED to come on brighter, and it will speed up the shutter/FPS accordingly (or you can put manual limits on the shutter, just like with other Dahua cameras). The big oversight is that they made no plans for the camera to switch itself to a more sane "capture" mode when motion was detected (e.g. bump the LED to 100% and cap exposure/gain to limit motion blur). I have worked around this by using Blue Iris to execute a CGI script on trigger and on reset to manually adjust the exposure and LED brightness parameters—with acceptable results. You're probably used to the LED running at 100% all night. These are running at 1%—substantially dimmer than a phone flashlight, and that is enough to see sufficiently for IVS triggers to work.

The big difference between the old night color cameras and these is that these are more sensitive to light, and the AI does a surprisingly good job at reducing the motion blur for the high exposure times being used. But the old night color cameras have an advantage: You speed up the shutter, the image gets darker but you lose the motion blur entirely. Try that on these cameras and they start stacking frames to maintain a bright image, resulting in worse motion blur and noise than if you used a longer shutter. The big attraction is these cameras are cheaper and consistently produce a well-composed image. Hopefully Dahua will continue to realize that motion blur is a serious problem and optimize them further. The ProX already is a step in the correct direction in this area, despite many other regressions.

I'll agree the Overexposure remover is very/too aggressive on a number of Dahua cameras