Inexpensive - Real Time 4CH D1 Resolution 30FPS DVR

[thewireguys 3]

Why then does public and commercial footage look so bad? If that is what's being installed mostly, just to have a system in place, forget about anyone caring for high quality footage. It's just not gonna catch on.

 

Becuase most of the systems that customers have currently where installed 5-10 years ago when the best you could do was D1. Now the game has changes and D1 is about the worst you can do. In the past 12 months I have installed hundreds of HD/Megpixel cameras for customers that have crappy analog cameras. Here are some shots tell me if they suck.

 

 

 

 

720P day

 

5MP LPR setup I am testing.

 

 

Target is about 150ft out and 30ft wide. camera is shooting out a window about 17ft off the ground with the window open. Cars are moving about 20-30MPH FYI this camera is less then $1000

 

 

5MP Cropped

 

Car is parking about 170ft out

 

 

Cropped

 

 

This set has NO IR and are shot with the window closed * you can see the reflection of the brake lights

 

 

Cropped

 

 

 

And I know everyone will be asking for color day time shots. These are also shot with the window closed so that is why they are not so crisp

 

 

Cropped

 

[shockwave199 0]

Computer-based identification may be in its infancy, but the human mind is an amazing tool...

True about the human mind, but that's exactly what makes the weakest evidence- the eye witness. It's considered the weakest of evidence because of how our minds can skew and fit or remember incorrectly or fill in the blanks just plain wrong. As you said, crappy footage may be good for generating leads, but to me, why not have good footage for more positive results. If all it comes down to for conviction is weak footage and some people testifying they believe that's the person, I would think that won't stick. Too much reasonable doubt. Good footage to match the person- a home run.

 

Becuase most of the systems that customers have currently where installed 5-10 years ago when the best you could do was D1.

That's probably what most of it is. I don't think many besides those of us who are interested or in the business give much thought as to how well the system they have in place will help them in time of need. And that's why we continually see garbage footage. And seeing that always makes me take stock of how my own system is doing.

 

As to your photos- they are great. I'm not against progress- they are clearly great shots. But I don't think it's entirely necessary for good ID shots. I have a number of pictures from my analog system that look excellent and can ID someone too, at a fraction of the cost. Go high end if you can afford high end. But absolutely necessary? I don't think so- my opinion only of course.

[thewireguys 3]

As to your photos- they are great. I'm not against progress- they are clearly great shots. But I don't think it's entirely necessary for good ID shots. I have a number of pictures from my analog system that look excellent and can ID someone too, at a fraction of the cost.

 

Show me a D1 analog camera that can read plates with the same setup as that 5MP camera with the same FOV.

 

D1 still has it's place and yes you can ID people when they are within a 5FT FOV but I deal with customers all day long that have huge parking lots, entrance ways, very large rooms, sides mountains and all kinds of other HUGE spaces. Best part is most of them currently already spend good money on expensive analog D1 cameras and DVRs and they total not happy with the image quality even though they have some of the best analog gear money can buy. Also something that IP will always have over analog is progressive scan and it makes huge difference in image quality.

 

Listen I play in a bigger field then most do on this forum and I will admit in smaller camera counts if your shopping for price we can't play. We deliver solutions to customers not just cameras and recorders. Most of my customers that I meet with are total not happy with their current analog solution and NEED better quality.

[groovyman 0]

After being involved with preparing video of many robberies and burglaries I've formed the opinion that if the police, store owners or employees can't identify the criminal most likely the person isn't going to get caught no matter how good the video is. There is the rare occasion where the video makes the local news and someone watching might be able to identify the criminal, but that's the exception. Too many crimes go unsolved even with great video.

 

Of course, great video is always better than crappy video, but just because you have mega pixel video of an incident doesn't mean anyone will get caught. I don't care if you can zoom in on a nose hair. If nobody knows who the person is and it's not widely broadcast chances are the result will be that you'll have great video of whoever committed a crime, and that's about it.

 

The Internet is starting to change this slightly. Police agencies have been putting videos on Youtube, local police websites and, on occasion, local newspaper and TV station websites. But it's not enough. Video needs to be broadcast to as many people as possible so identification can be made. But, then there's always the issue of people not coming forward because they don't want to get involved, don't want to be branded a snitch and for fear of retribution. In fact, I get this from employees working for client businesses. I've never had an employee come up to me and say they think another employee is stealing. Once someone is caught I always hear "I thought something was going on." It's always after, never before.

 

I love the idea a couple of guys came up with, Crookstube.com. http://www.crookstube.com/index.php

But, most videos have few views and it hasn't gained enormous popularity yet.

[thewireguys 3]

Groovyman... two things A) Customers want better image quality B) Why do you think I am testing LP

[groovyman 0]

I agree about image quality - that isn't the issue. Better quality is always advantageous and I'm right there with ya. The point I'm trying to make is that no matter how good the image, people may still not be identified. This comes via experience. If nobody knows who they are and they don't leave anything behind it can be very difficult to get a positive ID. That's all.

[thewireguys 3]

I agree about image quality - that isn't the issue. Better quality is always advantageous and I'm right there with ya. The point I'm trying to make is that no matter how good the image, people may still not be identified. This comes via experience. If nobody knows who they are and they don't leave anything behind it can be very difficult to get a positive ID. That's all.

 

That is a great sales pitch to have when you sell cctv

[nDAlk90 0]

I think its fairly obvious... If nobody knows the person in picture, it doesn't matter if the picture is D1, CIF, Megaapixel, etc. You still wont know the person. You will just have a better or worse picture.

 

 

I agree about image quality - that isn't the issue. Better quality is always advantageous and I'm right there with ya. The point I'm trying to make is that no matter how good the image, people may still not be identified. This comes via experience. If nobody knows who they are and they don't leave anything behind it can be very difficult to get a positive ID. That's all.

 

That is a great sales pitch to have when you sell cctv

[thewireguys 3]

I am guessing none of you are in sales.

[nDAlk90 0]

If your customer doesn't understand the obvious, state the obvious...

 

 

Again that is a great sales pitch to have when you sell CCTV

[nDAlk90 0]

i-SK1-iILlY

 

I am guessing none of you are in sales.

[shockwave199 0]

Show me a D1 analog camera that can read plates with the same setup as that 5MP camera with the same FOV

A tip of me hat to ya matey, I can't.

 

But for lowly analog D1, I can get at least this-

 

Circled is a mailbox approx 125' out

 

Zoomed into the very small address numbers-

 

Much smaller than a plate, albeit stationary. I'll measure that out for distance accuracy. Believe me, I'm not dilusional with this. I understand the differences in simple terms of picture quality and I bet for the same shot with your camera you could drill into the name scratched into the plastic with a pocket knife and it'd be perfectly legible. But down here in the 'worst analog D1' we're hanging in, we're hanging in.

 

[thewireguys 3]

shockwave199... fantastic so are you gonna man your PTZ camera 24/7 or are you gonna hire a guard service to monitor your system?

 

 

Since we are stating the obvious

[shockwave199 0]

In a short while tonight I'm posting footage of this camera in auto tracking mode. It's the hands when mine aren't on it- the camera that is. I wager this mailbox wouldn't call it to action though! LOL! Still tweaking it for best results, but it's mighty interesting for sure. Look in the security camera forum for the post in a bit.

[thewireguys 3]

In a short while tonight I'm posting footage of this camera in auto tracking mode. It's the hands when mine aren't on it- the camera that is. I wager this mailbox wouldn't call it to action though! LOL! Still tweaking it for best results, but it's mighty interesting for sure. Look in the security camera forum for the post in a bit.

 

I would love to see how your auto tracking works when you have more then 1 object to track.

[nDAlk90 0]

You guys are too much...

An answer for everything.

 

Are you two in sales?

 

In a short while tonight I'm posting footage of this camera in auto tracking mode. It's the hands when mine aren't on it- the camera that is. I wager this mailbox wouldn't call it to action though! LOL! Still tweaking it for best results, but it's mighty interesting for sure. Look in the security camera forum for the post in a bit.

 

I would love to see how your auto tracking works when you have more then 1 object to track.

[shockwave199 0]

In a short while tonight I'm posting footage of this camera in auto tracking mode. It's the hands when mine aren't on it- the camera that is. I wager this mailbox wouldn't call it to action though! LOL! Still tweaking it for best results, but it's mighty interesting for sure. Look in the security camera forum for the post in a bit.

 

I would love to see how your auto tracking works when you have more then 1 object to track.

That's what made this footage so interesting- there were I think four kids playing on bikes and mini cars, a jogger, and cars passing by. I was so freakin happy to see the circus out there! LOL! Awesome test to see how it does. It did better than I expected. But that's for another thread coming.

[thewireguys 3]

[cctvpro69 0]

Show me a D1 analog camera that can read plates with the same setup as that 5MP camera with the same FOV.

 

D1 still has it's place and yes you can ID people when they are within a 5FT FOV but I deal with customers all day long that have huge parking lots, entrance ways, very large rooms, sides mountains and all kinds of other HUGE spaces. Best part is most of them currently already spend good money on expensive analog D1 cameras and DVRs and they total not happy with the image quality even though they have some of the best analog gear money can buy. Also something that IP will always have over analog is progressive scan and it makes huge difference in image quality.

 

Listen I play in a bigger field then most do on this forum and I will admit in smaller camera counts if your shopping for price we can't play. We deliver solutions to customers not just cameras and recorders. Most of my customers that I meet with are total not happy with their current analog solution and NEED better quality.

 

I do not know what side of the field you play in son, but in most cases when it comes to crime vehicles are stolen - getting a plate from a car is totally useless unless all you deal with is small time traffic. In even more cases the criminals will cover their face, having a megapixel camera in those cases is useless. And if the cameras you are selling your clients have the image that is shown in the attachments in your post, they are useless for capturing anyone at night time and therefore the criminal will NOT be IDENTIFIED in any way shape or form.

 

That is not a solution, that is a total flam.

[thewireguys 3]

That camera was setup to get plates not ID people and it was a test to see how well it would work. It is one part of a total solution for project which includes other cameras.

Edited May 8, 2012 by Guest

[Soundy 1]

in most cases when it comes to crime vehicles are stolen - getting a plate from a car is totally useless unless all you deal with is small time traffic.

The last three "incidents" that I gave the police plate videos for, the cars were all stolen specifically for use in another crime - they grabbed the cars, did their crimes, then ditched the cars down our street. Even the car they used to getaway from the ditched crime vehicle was stolen. Giving the police the plates allowed them to return the cars to their owners faster... that's it.

 

Actually, I guess it didn't even really do that - I just had to report that the car had been dumped; they got the plate from it when they arrived. The only one that was of any use was the final getaway car, and again, all that did was tell them it was yet another stolen car.

[hattermad 0]

back to the OP...

 

a person in our neighborhood build a watch system based upon this H.264 DVR and sony effio cams with up to 60mm lenses. we get quite clear LP images depending on cams.. course nothing like 720P.

 

the unit has an internal telnet login

root and xc3511 will get you access...(2 days john the ripper time on firmware updates I found and extracted).

http://www.dnt-cctv.com/en/downLoads.aspx?classID=5

 

a program named sofia mangles all the internals of the DVR.. the files systems are NTFS(yech!!!) and the video stream appears to contain serialized .NET data(this is as far as I could go before I puked..).(i dont care for windows overly complicated programming minutae)

 

 

On the plus side is all the libraries actually doing video appear to be intact from the His3511-3515 chip development kit(much more found in searches on pudn.com

 

http://en.pudn.com/downloads290/sourcecode/multimedia/vfw/detail1306726_en.html but I dont want to pay for a subscription yet as I was planning to go to dahua(linux SDK)

before I found out they discourage US sales.

 

 

and a script to mount up an nfs mount on a 10 network is found on the unit making for easy code development on the unit if all the other details are bypassed...

 

 

I could go on but I felt my time was best spent on units with active SDK effeorts for linux(non .NET based no NTFS file systems ) not windows oriented systems.