Replacing a Dahua 5231R-Z — G6 Turret vs T54IR-ZE-S3 vs T58IR-ZE-S3 (front of house + street)

[RROONNBB]

(Cross-posting to Dahua and UniFi Protect forums)

Looking for opinions on replacing my aging Dahua IPC-HDW5231R-Z. It's mounted on the front of my house covering my front steps, with the street also in view. I'd love to be able to catch license plates on cars passing by when possible. Night vision performance is important — there's some street lighting but it's not a brightly lit area. (attached photos of day vs night)

I don't us the zoom on my current camera - always running at widest FOV (and would actually prefer a slightly wider FOV than what the 5231R-Z has).

My main NVR is Scrypted, but since I've got a Dream Machine Pro I also run all my cameras through UniFi Protect as raw ONVIF).

Tempted to try the UniFi G6 (I don't currently have any UniFi cameras) but I've seen a fair number of comments here about how the sensor just isn't as good as the Dahua's.

Current setup:

• Scrypted as primary NVR
• Dream Machine Pro running UniFi Protect since I already had it set up for my home network and the only thing it cost me was adding an HDR into it.
• Current camera: IPC-HDW5231R-Z (2MP Starlight, 2.7-13.5mm varifocal)
• Distance from camera to street: roughly 50-60 feet

Cameras I'm considering:

1. UniFi G6 Turret ($199) — 4K, 1/1.8" sensor, 110° fixed FOV, built-in LPR/face recognition, native Protect integration. No varifocal but I don't need it. Widest FOV of the three.
2. IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 (~$230) — 4MP, 1/1.8" sensor, 2.7-12mm varifocal, Starlight. The community gold standard. Best night performance of the three from what I've read, and apparently surprisingly good at LPR.
3. IPC-T58IR-ZE-S3 (~$260) — 8MP/4K, 1/1.8" sensor, same varifocal lens. Better daytime detail and has 4 streams which is nice for Scrypted, but from what I've read the 4MP beats it at night due to larger pixel size on the same sensor.

Main questions:

• For my use case (front steps overview + opportunistic LPR on passing cars at ~50-60 ft), is the 4MP S3 really enough resolution or would the 8MP make a meaningful difference for plates?
• How much am I giving up in night performance going 8MP over 4MP on the same 1/1.8" sensor with the S3 chipset?

 

[wittaj]

The 5442 4MP all the way. not even close. At night, the 4MP will show an identifiable image where the 8MP will show an unidentifiable blob. And when the 4MP is showing an unidentifiable blob, the 8MP won't know anything is there at all.

At 50-60 feet, the Z4E would be a better choice. Based on that field of view, you are trying to do too much with one camera.

You would have to set the camera up specifically to read plates. You need the proper camera with OPTICAL zoom for the distance you are covering and the angle to get plates.

Regarding plates, keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

See the LPR subforum for more details.

And you will need a better angle for LPR.