Disappointed with Motion Detection

[Lofty]

I've recently bought a couple of ACTI D32 cameras and have them running on ACTI free NVR v3 software.
I seem to be struggling to get MD setup to work correctly. I've tried configuring the camera directly and through the NVR software but for some reason I’m still struggling to get consistent results. If I configure the MD detection region from the NVR software, its doesn’t always apply it correctly to the camera and end up configuring the regions in the cameras directly.
Detection is working but I seem to be unable to find a sweet spot in the settings where I can detect a large vehicle moving 20m away without becoming very over sensitive to small movements close to the camera like a moth in the dark or changes in light intensity. In fact, I find that large vehicles moving right in front of the camera haven't been recorded at all but plently of false recordings of apparently nothing happening.
Currently running sensitivity at 65
Timer at 1 sec
Threshold at 2%
I’m not sure whether to blame the camera, the software or my understanding of how to configure them to work together.
I’m happy to upgrade to some professional software if need be to ensure I have reliable motion detection and recording.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Harri Whipp]

*** Moved to ACTi products thread.

Hi there thanks for the post.

For the MD using NVR3 you need to log onto your camera and set the MD using this.

For instance browse to the camera eg. 192.168.1.125.

Now click on the screwdriver and spanner icon.

Now on the left tabs click video and under this tab click video.

A live scream should now appear with tabs underneath, click the second tab which should say motion detection.

On the new page that has loaded click 'setup'.

Now you can click enable up to 3 regions and you can select the sensitivity , trigger interval and trigger threshold.

Once you have chosen your regions and setting click apply.

Now log into NVR3 Workstation and have the camera live feed on the screen (i would suggest bench testing this) wave your hand in front of the camera, when you do so the box surrounding the live feed should flash red and in the bottom left the under the events take it should have made a new MD recording consistent.

If you are trying to get consistent MD recording or a vehicle from that distant i would suggest putting your sensitivity higher and threshold to stay the same. I would also place 3 regions overlapping one another side-by-side where the vehicles will be moving.


If you need more information or a more detailed instructional guide please email me at harri@use-ip.co.uk or alternatively phone us at 01304 827609.

 

[Lofty]

[quote="Harri Whipp, post: 744, member: 1331]

I would also place 3 regions overlapping one another side-by-side where the vehicles will be moving.

[/quote]

Harri. Many thanks for your reply. Not quite sure what you mean above. Do you mean overlap one on top of another or place regions side by side? How would this benefit?

I'm also having a lot of false triggers when the camera adjusts its aperture to account for changes in light intensity which it seems to do in steps not gradually. Any solutions for this?

 

[Harri Whipp]

Yes, if you place them side by side and have the edges overlapping this should mean that it will trigger a lot better. Discussing with my colleague MD should be no problem at 20m's from the camera.

And as far as it giving you the false triggers on lighting condition changes, there isn't too much settings wise you can do.

Motion Detection is a far from perfect feature, in concept it is great but in practice it isn't always. You can spend hours/days/weeks trying to tweek it perfectly but you'll usually come up with the problem of either false triggers, or not triggering enough, or missing something that was important.

We would always suggest continuous recording as it serves best as a security solution. What you could do for motion detection would be to get the camera to send you and email snapshot of MD to a dedicated email (separate to your private email as you will most likely be sent one every few minutes) or if your camera has the capabilities for on-board SD card storage, then in the camera settings get it to save a snapshot on motion detection to the SD Card. This will allow you to see the time in which an incident has happened and therefore you can search through your continuous recorded footage to find the precise moment.

Hope this helped, if you need any more information please post back or email/phone us.