problem with camera switching back and forth to night vision

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turboc
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2019 7:12 pm

problem with camera switching back and forth to night vision

Post by turboc »

I'm new to zoneminder. I've read through the pages on setting up zones although, I won't pretend that I understand all of it. I have a camera in my garage that captures motion coming in and out of the house. It does this fine. However when the overhead light comes on, it overpowers the camera at night and switches it from nightmode to daymode. this causes an alert. I have tried setting up a preclusive zone both outside of and inside the active zone, high up on the wall. However there are objects along the wall that are technically in the active zone that appear to be causing the zone to alarm (I got this by going frame by frame when viewing the event. Not completely understanding all of the fields and their interrelations, I setup the active zone using the "best high sensitivity" preset and the preclusive zone using "fast low sensitivity". I have no idea if that is right or not. Can someone help with what my configuration should be like to eliminate these false alarms.

This is a screenshot of my camera view and settings. You can see the blue box for the preclusive zone in the upper center. The "tools" zone is not active.
Screen Shot 2019-01-18 at 5.23.46 PM.png
Screen Shot 2019-01-18 at 5.23.46 PM.png (509.77 KiB) Viewed 3460 times
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snake
Posts: 337
Joined: Sat May 21, 2016 2:20 am

Re: problem with camera switching back and forth to night vision

Post by snake »

See viewtopic.php?f=36&t=27141

for a software fix. Another option is a hardware motion detector using ZMTrigger and setting the camera to nodect, but this requires more install time. (Link: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/ZMTrigger.)
turboc
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2019 7:12 pm

Re: problem with camera switching back and forth to night vision

Post by turboc »

Thanks,
Not being familiar with the terminology. What is a Max Alarm Area and what values do I use to set it?
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kitkat
Posts: 193
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:17 pm

Re: problem with camera switching back and forth to night vision

Post by kitkat »

Maximum Alarm Area = "If more than this much of the zone changes, don't raise an alarm"

It can be set in pixels or percent.
alabamatoy
Posts: 349
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2016 2:53 pm

Re: problem with camera switching back and forth to night vision

Post by alabamatoy »

snake wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 5:57 am Another option is a hardware motion detector using ZMTrigger and setting the camera to nodect, but this requires more install time. (Link: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/ZMTrigger.)
This is where I have gone.

The ZM motion detection based on video analysis is, in my experience, simply too false-alarmy to be of use. I would either tune out the false alarms and also the real ones, or get overwhelmed with false ones.

I also have some low-end cameras which once in a while go all schitzoid at dawn or dusk and repeatedly flip-flop between night and day mode (like once every 2-3 seconds, over and over and over) and of course the motion detection really breaks down.

Until yolo or something similar is more mature and more integrated with ZM, I just dont think the motion detection is suitable for my purposes.
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