Motion Detection Camera Options

[FreeLunch 0]

Disclaimer - I am new to all this, so just trying to get up to speed. I purchases the Lorex 1080p 4 camera/NVR solution for $799. I thought it might be a good match for my needs and I know if there were issues, I could easily return it. After installing it and learning more about POE cameras, I figured out the following. I am using it at my house and wanted to get a better idea of events occurring at my house. What I believe I figured out is that I want to get good motion detection. That way I know when UPS dropped off the package, or when some solicitor knocked on my door or some "solicitor/thief" continually knocks on my door to scope out my house.

 

Using the pixel based motion detection with Lorex NVR/cameras - I am getting tons of false positives. I like that it sends me emails with pictures, however, getting >100 false positives a day isn't what I want to sift through. So, I read where Buellwinkle posted about using a PIR device with a Hikvision camera which I could add to my system. I also saw where theWireGuys mentioned a thermal camera system that looked pretty cool -- (However is it very pricey?). I also read someone on here complaining about getting 1 or 2 false positives a day which to me is reasonable.

 

So, is there a way or better cameras/software/NVRs that can do motion detection? Or do you have to go high end/high $$ to get there. Even though I set my DVR to record 24x7 and have a 2TB hard drive, I'm amazed at how fast the cameras are chewing up hard drive space when recording at highest quality.

 

Thanks for your input....

[ssnapier 0]

Well, the first thing you can do is define the motion zones to exclude areas you know will set off false positives. You can also play with the sensitivity of the system to see if that gets you what you are looking for. This will be a bit of a trial and error process, but if most of these are at night adding extra light is never a bad idea.

[lowpro 0]

Does your Lorex nvr have Alarm IN/OUT on the back? If not, then you won't be able to wire in an external PIR motion sensor.

 

Look like these green blocks.

[FreeLunch 0]

There are a lot of false positives at night (presumably from bugs, etc). However, I notice at dawn/dusk there are a lot and in the afternoon when the sun starts creating shadows there are a lot of false positives. I did change the motion detection area and set the sensitivity to the lowest and it doesn't help much.

 

It's a LNVR 380 seen here:

 

 

It does have 1 RS485 connection - but the manual says it's not supported.

 

In Buellwinkle's review on the hikvision ds-2cd2732f-is 3mp camera he says the camera supports a PIR hookup to the camera. So, I guess the NVR wouldn't recognize the alarm signal coming from the camera?

[buellwinkle 0]

There's only two ways to reduce false positives. There's NVR software capable of identifying a human form, like Sighthound (formerly VitaminD). This by it's nature may be CPU intensive but can be more accurate than other methods.

 

Next is PIR motion detection which detects movement in heated objects, for example, people & cars. This gets rid of motion detects from clouds, wind blowing objects, shadows, headlights, reflections and such. It's still vulnerable to animals, birds, dogs, coyotes, mountain lions and such but can be mitigated by blocking the view to the ground and sky. This will likely remove most of your false motion detects. You would need a camera with alarm I/O and in the Hikvision line that's the ds-2cd2732f-is, great camera. Runs about $250ish, but that's just the start. A decent outdoor PIR motion detector can cost about $100 and you'll likely need a 12V power supply to power it unless you get a battery operated one. I'm not sure this would even work with your NVR, so you would need NVR software that recognizes this. I use Milestone XProtect with Hikvision cameras and use this feature. Also, from Hikvision, indoors, check out the ds-2cd2432f-iw, it has a PIR motion detector built into it, so easy peasy. Also has mic and speaker. Both these cameras have SD card slots, so you may not even need an NVR and yes, you can have it write to SD card based on PIR detections.

 

Not sure alarm I/O in an NVR will do what you want as it's just one input at the NVR level, not for a camera.

 

As for getting the low cost Flir thermal IP camera, about $600ish which is a bargain, that shows movement in heat also, so you can see someone say hiding behind a bush that would otherwise not be visible. Very cool, but probably beyond what you are trying to accomplish. Also, in our world of 1080P and better, you may need to know the Flir at that price range is 80x60 pixels, yes, for the entire camera. VGA (640x480) thermal cameras are still at least $1,300.

[lowpro 0]

Was this a package from Costco? The lack of Alarm I/O on the Lorex is why many went with the Swann package instead. I have 2 PIR sensors wired into my Swann NVR.

[MaxIcon 0]

There are a lot of false positives at night (presumably from bugs, etc). However, I notice at dawn/dusk there are a lot and in the afternoon when the sun starts creating shadows there are a lot of false positives. I did change the motion detection area and set the sensitivity to the lowest and it doesn't help much.

 

At the risk of being pedantic (which I often am), these aren't really false positives, they're motion you don't care about. Bugs flying in front of the camera at night? Moving shadows in the day? This is all motion, and it's been detected. The cam doesn't know the difference between a moth 1' in front of the cam and a flashlight 20' away at night.

 

The main real false positive is when the cam switches between night and day mode, which causes most of the pixels to shift at once.

 

To echo what BW posted, most cams don't have very good motion detect settings, and often only have sensitivity and area blocking settings. You can get rid of the night time bug detection by disabling IR and using an IR illuminator that's not too close to the camera.

 

Some software, like Blue Iris, lets you filter motion detection for things like brightness only vs color only, and has settings like object detection size, contrast, and motion time settings, as well as the ability to filter different areas at different times of the day. This gives great flexibility for motion detection, but eats up a lot of CPU power and doesn't help if you've got a dedicated NVR.

 

If your cam or NVR don't have alarm inputs, you're mostly stuck with tweaking the settings and moving the IR away.

[need2shave 0]

VideoIQ is the best solution to your problem. If it's too pricey, go the PIR route.

[SB_Jim 1]

Although the Q-See NVR's have fewer alarm inputs, I believe that the pic from the OP showed a single input. If so, that may be fine for his needs. I have the Swann 8 ch NVR, and I'm in the process of finding an appropriate PIR solution for my cams - to minimize unwanted detects. Here's what the Swann manual says about the inputs (presumably the same for Q-See):

 

"The Alarm: Sensor menu will allow you to customize and configure how you’d like the NVR to interpret input from and respond to the sensor input panel on the rear of the NVR. Alarm Input No.: The connection that corresponds to the input you’ve connected the sensor to. Note that the Alarm Input Number and the Channel Number don’t have to be the same.

 

The <- characters indicate that these are alarm inputs. Alarm Name: The name you want to associate with the alarm. We suggest something descriptive and useful, such as “Lounge Room PIR Sensor” or “Front Door Sensor”. The NVR will use this name in email alerts and in the event log to let you know where alarms are being generated.

 

Type: Whether the sensor is a NO (normally open) or NC (normally closed). You’ll need to check your sensor’s documentation to learn the correct value to use. It refers

to the way the sensor tells the NVR when it has detected something. If this is set to the wrong value, you’ll get constant “false” alarms, which will stop only when the sensor detects something."

 

The book also indicates that any camera or combination of cams can be activated for motion from single PIR.

[FreeLunch 0]

I logged into my Lorex NVR and it looks like the rs 485 had some setting for a PTZ camera not an alarm from what I can tell. (Plus the manual says the rs 485 port isn't supported).

 

Yep - not wanting to spend thousands of dollars on a low res thermal camera. I believe the PIR solution is probably the best bet from what people are saying.

 

I'm glad Costco has easy returns as it doesn't look like this solution will meet my needs. On Costco, they didn't have lower # camera Swann systems in stock anymore. They did have a Q-See system with a PTZ camera that looks interesting. I guess from another post it sounds like the PTZ camera is freaking huge. I don't want a basketball hanging from my house! But it would be nice to be able to do ptz functionality out front. More importantly, it does have the PIR alarm inputs.

 

I read up on Milestone and was thinking about going that direction. However, I'm not sure if my older PC (Core 2 Duo E8300) will run it and say 4-6 cameras well). In order to test the system, I would then have to get a PC, software, cameras, and a POE switch.

 

I do appreciate everyone's input. It's not easy finding a solution that will fit in my desired budget and meet my "to be determined" needs! As I learn more about about this stuff, I am slowly figuring out what I need.

[SB_Jim 1]

Good luck in your searching & research. It's a bit of a challenge to find the "near perfect" solution for your needs. Sometimes you just gotta start out and learn by trying - which you've been doing. I can live w/ my "way too many motion events" - but it's not what I prefer. Thus, I'm looking into another solution to hopefully reduce those by a factor of 10!

 

Jim

[lowpro 0]

I'm glad Costco has easy returns as it doesn't look like this solution will meet my needs. On Costco, they didn't have lower # camera Swann systems in stock anymore.

 

If you can, just hold tight. Costco package deals come and go. Usually they'll take them offline if they sell out. A few years back Costco was selling the 4 channel Q-See NVR packages. Q-see ended up shipping out 8 channel nvr systems because they had run out of the 4 channel boxes.

[mav 0]

I'm a dig security camera noob. I've been running Blueiris for about a year and it is very tuneable for motion and scheduling. Very few false positives for me. Generally, I only get spammed when I am experimenting with schedules and forget to set it back to my default schedule,

 

Maybe the lorex NVR has scheduling, but for example, I have my front door camera over looking at street as well as my front porch. During the day,the schedule masks out the street area so I only get email from people on the porch. At night, the street is unmasked so I can see any vehicle activity.

 

I think bblue iris has a trial period and its relatively cheap anyway. The expensive part is the PC and poe switch.

 

Mark

[steuk 0]

As we are talking about motion detection I have a (simple) question:

 

In camera configuration we set areas for motion detection. Like everybody, I have lots of false positives (by false positive I mean alarms triggered because of bugs/shadows...).

I think a simple solution would be setting several areas and trigger alarms if motion is detected in several areas in the same time.

For example, I set an area which is about 6ft high from the ground, and an other area which points to the ground. If something triggers one area only, no alert (it could be a cat or a butterfly...), but if it triggers two areas at a time then I want an alert (probably a human).

 

So are there cameras capable of this ? I think that's not really hard to code and it can lower false positives...

 

Does it make sense to you ?

[FreeLunch 0]

Unfortunately the settings in the DVr only allow me to have a very granular setting on sensitivity of 0, 1 , 2 ... I hear what you're saying but the firmware doesn't allow it

[Caporeira 0]

I'm curious how should I set (sensitivity etc.) because now when sun is shines or shadow is on detection area - I have alarm from Motion Detector.

What setting do you have ?

My camera is IPC-HBD3200C

[Machineman 0]

Does your camera have a sensativity and Threshold settings for motion detection? My 1.3mp Q-See/Dahua's only have sensativity and the motion detection is disappointing. Without threshold or other configurable settings its nearly impossible to get a balance of triggering on a person vs not triggering when a cloud passes overhead or a fly passes the lense in milisecond. So the choice is 100's of emails of nothing or no emails of a real event.