Linwood

New to this whole arena. I have four hikvision dc-2cd2332-I cameras up, and mostly they are working OK as I work through software issues. I say "ok" without being sure what to expect, though. I have a real issue with night performance. in part this is due to close objects being too bright and the camera adjusting based on that. But I also just plain have an issue with range. The two attached shots do NOT have close objects, really, they are a from-above view of the driveway. This is a 4mm lens and the camera is at about 16', the car is about 20' away, the driveway maybe 50-60'. To me the night shot is way too dark, certainly not the 60' range the camera is reported to have. On the other hand, I can increase the brightness considerably in the configuration options -- but then the day washes out. These two shots are a compromise - brightness raised enough to get some night visibility, the daytime sun is completely blown out (WDR is on and set to 21, brightness is 65, gain 59, shutter 1/60th). The fundamental problem is a good setting for night blows out the day image, and a good day image is way too dark at night. Incidentally I can get a VERY good daytime shot, and better (though not good) night time, with manual adjustments for each. These two again are a compromise half way between, and so both are bad - just not as bad as the opposite if I tune for day, or for night. So I see the camera can switch on a schedule instead, then (and only then apparently) you can use some different exposure settings. There are two problems with that -- the time is not adjusted for daylight, and secondly if the outside (white) lights come on, it will not switch off IR. Is this just the way it is with these cameras without separate IR illumination? Am I missing something in how to set these up? Bad camera choice and others are much better at this? I think I can script something to allow for sunset time and reset the camera by code, that's next on my list, but really more looking for a sanity check - is this just how it is?

I never noticed that, but proof of texas ancestry would be required. Fish eye lenses sure affect perspective.

I wanted to follow up on this. I finally got around to writing a script to allow me to upload configurations based on sunrise/sunset, and change the settings. One of the biggest improvements was being able to drop to a very low shutter at night (accepting blur for less noise) and a much higher during the day. And have it happen at whatever time I want. I can also then tweak this, as I have a couple that get washed out at sunset and sunrise, so I might have a couple more adjustment points. But once done, and tweak each camera a bit differently, I think I have pretty decent day/night photos. Copies below if interested. The main one I cannot improve too much is the 3rd image -- the door is just to the right of the grill in deep shadow. But then again if someone comes in there, they have to come into the light to DO anything, so I am not worried. They look pretty decent at full resolution (2048x1536).

I just bought 7 Hikvision cameras including 6 of the DS-2CD2332-I's, and spent a lot of time looking at software without really finding on that I was completely happy with, but I did find some good choices. If you are not very computer literate I would consider Blue Iris if you are running windows (you mentioned a Macbook Air which is normally not running windows, but I did not look for any mac products). It is simple and has lots of features. However... it is a real CPU hog. But there is a trial version and you can give it a try and see if it keeps up. Hint: reduce the frame rate, you don't need 20-30fps for a security system, consider 4-6, helps a lot with CPU issues. I am using ZoneMinder, which is linux based, but is mostly for someone who likes to tinker with linux. I was also pleasantly surprised by a little known product called Xeoma. It was the exact opposite of ZoneMindr -- you CANNOT tinker with it at the OS level, they give you almost no configuration options. But they give you a lot of features you can set up (e.g. motion detection, email on alarms, frame capture, web input and output), but it's practically zero configuration at the OS level. Also has a free trial (but a weird one that resets every 4 hours -- but is good forever). All that said not sure a macbook air is really a good solution, period, especially with 2GB of memory (which is pretty tiny when considering many frames buffered of 3mp images, multiply 2048 x 1536 x 24 x 3 and you see one frame from each is already about 230MB, and keeping pre- and post-alarm buffers means usually quite a number of frames.

Never mind -- this was just bad luck. I ran out of shared memory with the 7th camera, and did not notice. I just assumed it was the camera firmware since it was a new addition. I even ran it on a test system in a VM -- but I had exactly the same memory there, so exactly the same problem.

I bought 5 of the DS-2CD2332-I one at a time. A couple were Chinese and I learned the "do not upgrade" story, 3 were US retail versions, but I left them at 5.2. I just received another US version and it is running version 5.3.0. Unlike the other 5 (plus one bullet version), I cannot get this one to work at all with ZoneMinder, the capture daemon crashes, despite using approximately the same setup. The only difference I can see besides the firmware version is I had to change the password -- but the others are using the default (ok, once I get it all set would change them anyway, but it's an internal network with no outside access). I can play with VLC from it, and the codec information display there shows the same as 5.2.x. I've tried two different zoneminder systems (I had a test server set up also). I've tried (inside of zoneminder) all three mechanisms of connection, ffmpeg, remote and lavc; and all crash. SOMETHING has changed. Two questions (at least). I read you cannot downgrade -- is that correct, even with a retail US version of the camera? And does anyone know of anything in setup that would be different I may be missing, that might cause this? Any suggestions other than putting it in a box and sending it back? (But I may well get another of the same version).

That's my plan, though I'm annoyed it doesn't know when sunset is, so am working on a little perl program to do the switch under program control. That way it can still be "auto" but will switch the exposure/wdr/etc settings on a schedule, so if the outside lights are turned on it can still switch off IR. Was going to work on it today but got off on a zoneminder building tangent, but did do a quick proof of concept, it's real easy to push up settings with curl or equivalent. An illuminator due in tomorrow and a new camera (a bullet this time as I couldn't find a 6mm in the style i had bought), so I will have some more hardware to experiment with at all. Will follow up later.

Well, ok, fair enough. Let me get some more samples. Actually it may be tomorrow night, have a baseball game tonight to photograph and may not take the time afterwards.

Will try those tonight, especially smart IR which is ON. WDR is on but higher, will try bringing it down. Exterior lighting: no, I'm very much a believer in reducing (visible) light pollution, having been into astrophotography for a while. So I need to find a path that uses only IR. I'll get some fresh comparisons tonight. I also ordered an illuminator to experiment with.

I'm sorry, I think I have mislead you based on trying to isolate the issue. These were screen shots from the montage of Zoneminder, and so had been resized and are awfully poor in terms of sharpness, etc. That was not the point. The actual full resolution image is very sharp and nice, and I can post if helpful. I showed these only to show the relative brightness of the images, not to judge acuity. My question really relates to illumination at night, and the need to crank up the brightness (or the WDR) which in turn blows out the daylight images. I can post the full resolution image if desired (2048x1536) but am quite happy with the sharpness -- it's the brightness/exposure/DR that concerns me. And again -- I can reduce the brightness and the daylight shoot looks great. I can increase the brightness and the nighttime shot is decent, if not great. But there's no one setting where both are good. Finally the daytime shot was early AM where most of the scene was in shade, which is the worst case for the over-exposed background. Right now for example the overall image is reasonably well lit with 95% in sun. The camera is adjusting reasonably to overall brightness, but I have it biased a bit too bright in order to have the nighttime shot have enough light. My thinking is that the fundamental problem is inadequate nighttime illumination; if that was brighter I could bring the overall brightness down and the daytime shot would look good. I'm asking if this is a normal kind of situation, day vs. night.

I am planning a DIY system with about 6-8 cameras for our residence. I am convinced the core is the software, and have been doing trials on lots of software - Blue Iris, Zoneminder, Sighthound, AxxonNext and Xeoma. Probably some others I have forgotten as they all start to run together. Anyway.... I'm down to short list so far of Blue Iris, Zoneminder and Xeoma. I can find lots of information on the first two, both will do what I want I think. Comes down to easy and polished vs deeper and I can customize it. Then there's Xeoma. It's really different, and I like it mostly. The visual workflow design is very cool, and more beyond how you put it together, the ability to assemble all those modules is very cool. For example, I can have a camera doing motion detection, have two different frame captures (for stills) at different rates, one hanging off of motion and one not. I can do that with Blue Iris also, but only because they built it in as separate options. Here I could extend that - have the workflow design include schedules, HTTP connection status, etc. so having some arbitrarily complex decisions (probably some limit but haven't hit it). The problem is that it seems flaky. Mostly on minor stuff -- email triggers and time zone handling are my two latest issues. Not show stoppers but makes me worry. So... has anyone been using it for a while? Is it solid? Does it run reliably over the longer haul?

My GUESS is that the version mismatch is a non-issue. But I just bought a Hikvision camera, nice price, nice camera, works fine BUT... firmware version issues abound, especially as many (most?) of the cameras readily for sale appear to be Chinese versions (not just made in China, but made FOR China) that have been reloaded by the vendor with US firmware, often hacked. I almost made a mess of mine trying to update it to the latest - it became unusable, and only by a lot of reading (including here) and trial and error recovered it. It is worth doing some reading on the subject before you buy. I am likely to buy more -- the camera itself is very nice, great image, functions fine with all software (I am in the middle of trialing various software). But it is something to go into eyes open.