Worst PTZ you own but dont want to remove

Revo2Maxx

Revo2Maxx

IPCT+ Member
Jan 1, 2024
906
453
USA
So I have to say my WZ500 from Annke is the worse PTZ camera that I own and could have been a good 20x zoom camera if it would work as it should. The good news is the camera was cheap enough to keep it.. Now to be fair I have first release and hear that some others have later gen and they don't have the issues I have. Gave the camera to another member from a different forum. Not sure if he still uses it or not.

Besides it goes off app all the time, can't access over WebUI longer then 3 to 5 months it does keep connection with BI so I have to give it that. Only issue is can't figure out how to turn on White Leds from BI when it is only access. White leds are very bright, not great for full time on at night unless you want it seen. Zoom IR does go from low IR to long range another plus but the negative out weighs the positive

Image quality 4 out of 10 being 5mp would think it's picture would be better then an older Amcrest 2mp 20x ptz but that camera has much better day and night video/picture..
 
I’ll have one Saturday with pictures of the replacement . An older SD6 series 4MP with a 1/2.8 sensor.
It’s what solidified my decision to never by another 4MP with a 1/2.8 sensor again
 
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Ri22o said:
empiretech01.com

EmpireTech PTZ425DB-AT 1/2.8"CMOS 4MP 25x Starlight IR 5mm–125mm Vari-

Please note that this camera does not support the Expedited Shipping Method. 4MP, 1/2.8" CMOS 25x optical zoom Starlight technology Max. 25/30fps@4MP IR distance up to 100 m Auto-tracking 1.0 Perimeter protection Face detection SMD 3.0 IP66
empiretech01.com empiretech01.com

View attachment 221119
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I do have one of those, useless at night, but I'm able to use it as an LPR cam after dark due to being so close to the road and slow speeds with the help of spotter cams.

View attachment 192.168.1.110_ch7_20250311065344_20250311065401.mp4
 
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Well folks. Three months after putting the PTZ425DB-AT, it captured a burglary event at my front neighbor. A car came around two times, one time to check his mailbox and another to drop two masked guys which went on the back of his house and broke the door. Police came and saw the recording, but could not get the license plate of the burglar's car because the PTZ is not good at night (I leave it at blurry settings to have some general overview). At daylight though, I collect license plates all day long with this PTZ. This was still useful because another car stopped by the neighbors house for few minutes earlier today, which I thought was the burglar's scout trip. I got that LP and police ran it, it was a safe car owned by the township. The other good thing I like on this PTZ is that you don't see easily from the street which direction is it pointing which makes it much more discrete than some other PTZs.

I resisted buying an LP camera until now, but lesson learned tonight, I just ordered the Z12E for dedicated LP capture.
 
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blocksog said:
Well folks. Three months after putting the PTZ425DB-AT, it captured a burglary event at my front neighbor. A car came around two times, one time to check his mailbox and another to drop two masked guys which went on the back of his house and broke the door. Police came and saw the recording, but could not get the license plate of the burglar's car because the PTZ is not good at night (I leave it at blurry settings to have some general overview). At daylight though, I collect license plates all day long with this PTZ. This was still useful because another car stopped by the neighbors house for few minutes earlier today, which I thought was the burglar's scout trip. I got that LP and police ran it, it was a safe car owned by the township. The other good thing I like on this PTZ is that you don't see easily from the street which direction is it pointing which makes it much more discrete than some other PTZs.

I resisted buying an LP camera until now, but lesson learned tonight, I just ordered the Z12E for dedicated LP capture.
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Not capturing plates at night is due to settings, not the PTZ. @bigredfish captures plates with this PTZ because he set it up for plates.

If you had a faster shutter and the zoom set right you would have caught plates, but then you wouldn't have caught anything else. It is why we say two cameras.

What you experienced would happen with a great PTZ also, along with the Z12E if you don't set it up with a fast shutter to capture plates.
 
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Yes as stated you will want to setup your LP capture camera for your current location. It will take some tweaking over a night or 2 and might need to make some day and night adjustments so they focus correctly.

I will admit that I have used a PTZ camera with spotter camera to capture plates but only general capture not setup like bigredfish had his setup because I was also using my camera as a normal PTZ camera. But with a camera that has a fast enough PT motors and as said before shutter tweaks they can be used for clean captures. Mine because of where the camera was mounted I could playback the feed and pause and get the plate details. This is only really good for knowing when you need to look. having to look at all days events to find 1 car would be a big PITA.. So for me AI captures the cars color and time in Ai event. I then could look at other camera for looking at the plate feed. 1 down side to having a spotter and PTZ camera as I pointed out in a video I made years ago when I did this.. If a car going on your Tripwire and then another happens to trigger the Tripwire the other way you will or could miss the first trip if the time to Area of Interest is to long.. Showed in my video that one was tripped camera went to preset but then triggered again going other direction and just as the vehicle in first trip was in the spot the camera moved and plate missed.. So best to have a single point of interest and a camera setup for just plates..

So far for me my POS PTZ that I posted about here.. Is very cheap compared to others. If my Alibi PTZ did not get the update that corrected its bad picture it would be on the list lol.. It has some unknown features that make me like it a little more these days lol.. I shouldn't say unknown but un used features that either didn't know about or never looked at before last update lol..
 
@Revo2Maxx thanks.
@wittaj you may not remember but we talked about this in another thread. I tried some good settings and managed to almost get visible license plates at night. See here:
B

Post in thread 'Convince me Reolink is bad to buy'

Ok, folks. Last night, I tuned the PTZ425DB-AT to get licenses. It is not perfect, but I am surprised I can even do this. In pitch dark, I can see some license numbers, but this depends on the plate lights of the car itself.
snapshot-202501281084804.jpg


By day, license plates are very easy to catch and identify:
1738073031485.png

I am thinking that if I had an IR illuminator by the mailbox, night reading of licenses would still be possible.

The trick at night was to set sharpness to 0. This was the winning move to remove all the noise from the picture, otherwise sharpness was fighting with Noise Reduction...

In fact, I have a dedicated LP night setting still in the camera. But it is not sufficient to get the plates in pitch dark from 100+ feet away. I think the Z12 will be able to. Maybe the PTZ can still do something because I recently put a small yard light that I can point to the road, but that would still be a half assed solution. Moreover, I would need to spend the PTZ fixed all night in one position not see motion at night anymore. So, if I manage to dedicate the Z12 for LP capture, it will be a better solution all around. I think multiple people have said that Z12 is much better solution for long range LP, better sensor/resolution ratio.
 
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Btw, what would make this PTZ great is scene modes applied to specific presets, so when the camera goes to LP zoom preset it shifts to my LP shutter mode 1/1500 or so. This way one can use the camera both for general wide motion detection and LP reading... all at night. This is of course if the preset included an exact focus, which it doesn't.
 
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Yes kind of missing some of the things that my older PTZ cameras can do. Like in a Preset I can setup for Color or B/W using my old Analog PTZ that is a pain to setup in Ai compared to todays PTZs but has features that I wish my IP PTZs could do.. Now some of the newer AI PTZs do have the ability to setup different Ai rules per preset again something that my Old Analog camera could do just takes 10x longer to setup the Ai in the old Analog Ai PTZ lol... However as I was saying them and many of my other normal Analog PTZ cameras could setup preset with defined info for color or B/W and even change camera settings as you said you wish your camera could do. Now don't get me wrong the cameras were not cheap by any means.. Even today finding one cheap could be hard for a 600TVL or 960H PTZ lol..
 
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