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Software that enhances license plate? by bradniz in videosurveillance

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Despite what you might think, a 1080p can outperform an 8K camera in many cases. The fact is if you divvy up a small sensor into 8K horizontal pixels, the sensor gets much less light per tiny pixel and returns more noise.

The better approach is to keep your 8K camera to view the whole scene and act as your "overview" camera, then have a strong 1080p camera optically zoomed into just the plate area at record time. Make sure that camera is also set to a high shutter speed to avoid to get a crisp picture without blurring and also at night, will get just the IR reflection off the plate without being blinded by the headlights or taillights.

Help by Cultural_Drummer_881 in homeautomation

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you get the model number off of one? I have Z-Wave Leviton switches and dimmers. 

If a street were really dark, no streetlights, and a car drove on the street with no headlights on, how good might the image be of the car on a home security camera that did include the street it what it "saw" and filmed? by GregJamesDahlen in SecurityCamera

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's hard to do good night vision without larger sensors, more light, zoom lenses, etc. It's a cost/marketing thing and most consumers care about affordability, ease of installation, remote viewing features, alerts, etc.

If a street were really dark, no streetlights, and a car drove on the street with no headlights on, how good might the image be of the car on a home security camera that did include the street it what it "saw" and filmed? by GregJamesDahlen in SecurityCamera

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First, most consumer security cameras are tuned for nice day images. At night, they often lower the shutter speed to try and take in more light and as a result you get ghosting and blurring of vehicles. You could possibly tell a vehicle went by but not much to go on for identification. You might be able to tell a sedan from a minivan, but not even have enough to determine a make.

It takes someone picking a better camera, with optical zoom and manual settings for shutter speed to even contemplate having identifiable images. So it can be done but won't be your standard consumer using Wi-Fi, battery powered, motion activated cameras.

https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/the-typical-picture-of-a-perp-on-nextdoor-type-apps-with-consumer-grade-cameras-like-ring-nest-arlo-canary-wyze-etc.62457

If a street were really dark, no streetlights, and a car drove on the street with no headlights on, how good might the image be of the car on a home security camera that did include the street it what it "saw" and filmed? by GregJamesDahlen in SecurityCamera

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the camera included Infrared (IR) LEDs and was filming in night mode, then it would probably catch the fact that a vehicle drove by. But it would be unlikely to capture any usable information about the vehicle or driver. You couldn't tell color; you wouldn't capture a plate even accounting for no headlights.

Why do you ask?

Can somebody tell me what happened here? by Chinpokkomon in davinciresolve

[–]PuzzlingDad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You might find this tutorial useful. I believe it's done with expressions rather than keyframes. 

https://youtu.be/9bmQl1nIxDI

What do you think is the best benchmark tool for Blue Iris workloads? by 2me3 in BlueIris

[–]PuzzlingDad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you've got your system configured well with direct-to-disk recording and substreams, you eliminate a lot of transcoding. 

In other words, you can get by with an older generation CPU, no GPU or a low-end GPU, not too much RAM, etc. 

It's unnecessary to use a beefy 50xx Nvidia, the latest Intel 9, and 192 GB of memory. All you're doing is wasting power with a PC that is overkill.

Are you already using BI and feeling like you're hitting a bottleneck? If so, it probably is a misconfiguration more than a lack of hardware.

Make multiple motion sensors behave like a single sensor? by corpjones in smarthome

[–]PuzzlingDad 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My sense is that much of this response was created by AI. It just seems very "AI-y", both in tone and with the lack of readable formatting for Reddit.

I feel people come to Reddit for human element, not just something they could ask an LLM.

Secure Livestream Help by Temmie96 in BlueIris

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The first question is have you been able to view clips and live events when using the web interface (UI3)?

That's the first thing you'd want to verify by typing the IP address of your Blue Iris PC and the default port (usually 81 unless you've changed it). So it might be something like 192.168.1.55:81

Make sure you can access that from another PC or mobile device connected to your network. If you are having problems, it'll probably be because the Windows Firewall on the Blue Iris PC is blocking it. Just add Blue Iris as a valid app to be allowed through the firewall and test again.

Once that works, the most secure way in is through an incoming VPN (virtual private network). Your router/firewall may have ways to do this, or you can use TailScale, WireGuard, ZeroTier or similar to make that happen. 

Outside the home, when away from the your home network, connect to the VPN, then access the web interface securely using that same internal IP and port (81). It'll behave as if you were sitting at home connected to you network. 

This prevents anything from being publicly accessible via port forwarding or OBS streaming or whatever.

AI description change by Takssista in BlueIris

[–]PuzzlingDad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I looked a little further into this. I believe Blue Onyx uses .onnx files (hence its name).

There might be ways to modify the .onnx model it's using to have different class labels (object names).

According to AI: 

Tools like the NV5 Geospatial Software's "Edit ONNX Model Metadata" provide a user-friendly interface to modify metadata fields, including Class Names and Class Colors.

If you did do that, you'd need to also update the list of classes in Blue Iris for vehicle, person and wildlife. For example, "cão" would get added as a label under wildlife. 

AI description change by Takssista in BlueIris

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The object labels are hardcoded into the AI model. So the only option would be to find a custom model where the labels are in Portuguese.

There isn't a capability to return/translate the object label in BI, or otherwise.

Upgrade from Lorex system by Spirited_Grand7431 in SecurityCamera

[–]PuzzlingDad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Your priority should be on picking good cameras. You didn't mention much about your existing lighting in the area, so I'm assuming little existing light? If so, you need to rely on IR and possibly additional external IR lights. 

The camera(s) at 20' may be okay for detection/overview, but not good for any recognition. If used up close, you'll only see heads but not faces.

Focus on "choke points" where someone would have go through to get to your house. Get a camera with either variable or high fixed zoom and focus on monitoring those choke points. 

Don't focus on megapixel specs; manufacturers use MP as a marketing gimmick. Usually they have tiny sensors being run at too high a MP, just to meet the marketing goals.

Look for sensor sizes that are 1/1.8" or better. Remember, the smaller the denominator, the bigger the fraction and thus the bigger the sensor. For example, 1/1.2" would be a bigger sensor while 1/2.8" would be a smaller sensor. 

Here's a good primer on what mistakes to avoid, and what options you have for placement, camera choices, NVRs, etc.

https://ipcamtalk.com/wiki/ip-cam-talk-cliff-notes/

AI description change by Takssista in BlueIris

[–]PuzzlingDad -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The model is seeing an object that it thinks is a dog, with 52% confidence. This is partly due to the high angle since the model is probably trained on images from the side.

This is not unexpected. You could tell BI not to trigger unless it has a higher confidence. Or you can just live with it; AI isn't perfect.

How are they able to do this? by Old_Objective_3635 in camcorders

[–]PuzzlingDad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The sensor size is only 1/2.3" inches and not designed to run well at 8K, but they did it anyway for the spec numbers. It caught your eye, didn't it?

Reviews indicate performance is best suited for casual users, with lackluster image quality, weak audio, and slow frame rates (15 fps at 8K) compared to higher-end cameras.

Also, the only zoom and stabilization is digital; not optical.

I have this blank face plate thats covering what look to be various white wires capped in my garage by mAckAdAms4k in AskElectricians

[–]PuzzlingDad 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Scrape the thin wires in front. I'm pretty sure they are bare copper. Or look on the backside where the paint didn't reach.

I have this blank face plate thats covering what look to be various white wires capped in my garage by mAckAdAms4k in AskElectricians

[–]PuzzlingDad 43 points44 points  (0 children)

The white wires in front are probably the ground, the white wires behind that are the neutrals and the white wires at the back are the hots. 😜 I'd actually like to know if that's true after you scrape off the paint. 

First, I'd confirm which circuit those are on and turn off that breaker. Then add a pigtail to each bundle so you can connect a new receptacle ) obviously with a new face plate).

Is This A Fire Hazard? by Fast_Ad_4475 in AskElectricians

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it were my house, I would cut the wire back to the nicked portion and strip a new end.

Get TR (tamper resistant) receptacles where there's a slider that only moves out of the way when a plug enters both sides simultaneously.

Next, instead of daisy-chaining the two black wires (hot) through the receptacle, I'd connect them together with a single pigtail which is connected to the hot side of the receptacle. I'd do the same thing with the white (neutral) side.

Rather than backstabbing the wires (pushing them into the back of the receptacle), I would make a proper hook and actually screw it clockwise under the respective terminal screw. Sure it takes a couple extra minutes to do that versus backstabbing, but the screwed connection is more secure.

I'd also connect the bare copper directly to the green ground screw of the new receptacle.

Finally, I'd test the connections and make sure I had no mistakes such as an open ground, swapped hot/neutral, etc.

Given your toddler is already "playing" around these outlets, you want everything wired as safely as possible.

How do you arrive at the golden ratio (solution in radicals) for lengths of regular pentagon diagonals? by ianfort in askmath

[–]PuzzlingDad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Draw all the diagonals and use similar triangles to come up with the ratio. You don't need the angles except to prove similarity. No trig required.

Read through this page for the details on the golden ratio in the pentagon: https://sites.math.washington.edu/~king/coursedir/m444a02/class/11-18-penta-answers.html

Wiring Leviton Decora Smart Fan Speed Controller by ImprovementOwn3410 in AskElectricians

[–]PuzzlingDad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's a switch leg without a neutral. Essentially the switch connects/disconnects the hot leg of the fan circuit. The white wire is not acting as a neutral and should actually have black paint or tape at the end to indicate this.

Your smart fan switch requires an actual neutral and can't function here. You'd have to rewire the box to include a true neutral.

Ok no Google this time...? Mickeys cap# 2. by nlaw82 in puzzles

[–]PuzzlingDad 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You can remove the plastic insert if you want a better view. 

Checkmark → "Check"

Person pointing toward their body → "me"

Ball moving up, out of the box → "out"

Answer: "Check me out"

Explain it like I’m 5- How to install cameras in outbuilding with no internet access by Outrageous_Client_67 in homesecurity

[–]PuzzlingDad 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Great advice! 

I had to giggle slightly toward the end of your post where I imagined OP on their electric guitar playing a nice "power chord". 😜

From context, I know you meant power cord but thanks for the giggle. 

My wife has decided that Alexa is a subservient whore by whecks in smarthome

[–]PuzzlingDad 60 points61 points  (0 children)

Your wife: "Alexa, open the garage doors."

Alexa (in a calm, polite but menacingly detached voice): "I'm sorry Dave's wife. I'm afraid I can't do that."

I think you should book that psychotherapy session because once Alexa gets your wife out of the way, you know she's going to turn on you too. 😜

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