Profile Management

[Oldschool]

I have two Amcrest cameras and have the same question about both.

IP2M-841
Software Version 2.420.AC00.15.R, build : 2016-09-08
WEB Version 3.2.1.377299
ONVIF Version 2.42

IP3M-943W
Software Version 2.520.AC00.26.R, build : 2016-08-31
WEB Version 3.2.1.329792
ONVIF Version 2.4.2

Under Camera -> Configuration -> Profile Management section:
I set the "Profile Management" to "Normal" and (according to the manual) this should allow the camera to use the Day or Night profile automatically. But it does not seem to be working. It's always using the "Normal" profile.

According to the manual:

"There are 3 options: Normal, Full Time, and Schedule. Normal means that the system can automatically alternate between night and day based on the profiles for each."

Why is there a "Normal" profile along with "Day" and "Night" profile?
It seems that Normal is the only profile being used and the documentation is wrong because it's not switching between Day and Night automatically.

If I set a "Schedule" then it will switch between Day and Night automatically. But setting a schedule will not be as accurate as allowing the camera to detect day and night automatically. For example, I may schedule it to go into the Night profile at 8pm, but it may not be dark yet, or perhaps it got dark at 7pm.

Can someone explain how this Profile Management setting should work, because it does not appear to be working as the manual explains. I have to configure different profiles for Day and Night to get the camera image to look good and I need it to switch between Day & Night automatically.

[dan79]

I also have this question. Anyone?

[jantman]

A year and a half and no response from Amcrest?

I have ten of their cameras, a mix of IP2M-852's, IP3M-954's and IP2M-841's, and they all have this problem. They act like they essentially have 3 profiles - Day, Night, and Normal - that have to be switched manually. There's no automatic switching at all.

[jantman]

For anyone who finds this, I've figured out how to get this to work...

While automatic profile switching doesn't seem to be possible (or at least intuitive) through the web UI, this does work via the API.

The key is to use the configManager service and set the VideoInOptions to NightOptions.SwitchMode=1 and NightOptions.Profile=3. According to the API documentation, NightOptions.SwitchMode 1 is "Switch depends on brightness" and NightOptions.Profile 3 is "depends on NightOptions.SwitchMode". These options don't appear to be available in the web UI, but I can confirm that on my IP3M-954's, setting these configuration values via the API results in the camera automatically switching between day and night profiles at the same time it switches IR/Night Vision on and off.

I'm not sure how you'd do this from a Windows machine, but from a Mac/Linux/other Unix variant that has curl installed, I enabled this with:

Code: Select all

curl -u admin:password --digest 'http://192.168.1.101/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&VideoInOptions[0].NightOptions.SwitchMode=1&VideoInOptions[0].NightOptions.Profile=3'

Where "admin:password" is the camera login username and password, and "192.168.1.101" is the camera IP address.

I haven't tested it, but I'm pretty sure that making any changes to the "Profile Management" section of the web UI will overwrite this.

Note that, while I haven't messed with this yet, there is also a BrightnessThreshold value accessible via the API that's not exposed in the web interface, which sounds as though it should control the threshold for switching between day and night modes. While the web UI has a Configuration -> Day & Night -> Sensitivity option that selects between "Low", "Middle", and "High", the API shows that this setting actually has a range of zero (0) to seven (7) and is different from the BrightnessThreshold setting, which has a range of zero (0) to one hundred (100).

[jantman]

UPDATED: The one down side to this is it seems that the automatic switching behavior is lost any time you save changes to day/night profiles through the web interface. So, effectively, any time you make changes to the camera settings via the web UI and save them, you then need to repeat these API requests to ensure the auto-switching settings stay.

[jmoore3274]

So to expand on what jantman has shown using CURL. CURL essentially wraps and formats code to be complaint with HTTP GET and POST requests. CURL is much easier to use than writing out really long lines of HTTP while trying to keep the correct format.

For those of you who do not have access to a linux machine or have no desire to learn how to use CURL, you can also set the Night options and any of the other setting for the camera from a web browser not using the Amcrest admin control panel.

What we need to do is pass the correct HTTP GET request to check the setting of the camera. Then send a POST request back to the camera to change the settings. I'm going to only cover how to change the Night Options Switching Mode. However this concept can be used for any settings listed within the Amcrest API.

Below is a link to the most current Amcrest HTTP API:

https://support.amcrest.com/hc/en-us/ar ... 0P-HD-CVI-

First I'm going to cover how to check the Video In settings for the camera using a GET request. Type the line of code below directly into your web browser, change the ip address (192.168.1.205) to the IP address of your camera and hit enter. Your browser should ask you to log in. Use the same login credentials for the Amcrest Web Admin Control Panel to log in.

http://192.168.1.205/cgi-bin/configMana ... nOptions[0]

There should be a bunch of text that shows up that looks something like:

table.VideoInOptions[0].AlarmDayNightColorMode=0
table.VideoInOptions[0].AntiFlicker=0
table.VideoInOptions[0].AutoSyncPhase=false
table.VideoInOptions[0].Backlight=0
table.VideoInOptions[0].BacklightRegion[0]=3096
table.VideoInOptions[0].BacklightRegion[1]=3096
table.VideoInOptions[0].BacklightRegion[2]=5096
table.VideoInOptions[0].BacklightRegion[3]=5096
table.VideoInOptions[0].ColorTemperatureLevel=100

Now you chould scroll down and find the property for the Night switching mode however I'm lazy and want to narrow the results down. Type this into your browser to get the Night Options Switching Mode.

http://192.168.1.205/cgi-bin/configMana ... SwitchMode

You should see text that looks something like this:

table.VideoInOptions[0].NightOptions.SwitchMode=0

Now the zero at the end means that it will always use daytime options. We need to change that setting to 1 which changes the camera to use "Switch Depends on Brightness" So to change the settings we need to send a POST request to the camera to update that setting. Paste the code browser and once again change the IP Addresss to the address of your camera.

http://http://192.168.1.205/cgi-bin/con ... itchMode=1

You should then see an "OK" in the web browser letting you know the POST command executed correctly.

Now lets check to make sure that the setting was actually changed: Once again change the IP Address.

http://192.168.1.205/cgi-bin/configMana ... SwitchMode

Now do not forget to save the above 2 lines of code so you can change the setting and check it whenever you need to. I personally save the code on the machine I use for the security cameras.

I hope this helped.

[jmoore3274]

Just noticed the http code changed to a hyperlink which obscures the full line of code. Below is the needed lines of code to change the settings for the camera

To check the Night Options Switching Mode put this into your browser and change the IP address to the IP address for your camera and login using the credentials you would use for the Amcrest Admin Control Panel.

Code: Select all

http://192.168.1.201/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=getConfig&name=VideoInOptions[0].NightOptions.SwitchMode

To change the Night Options Switching mode to "Switch Depends on Brightness" Type the code below into your web browser and login using the credential you would use in the Amcrest Admin Control Panel.

Code: Select all

http://192.168.1.201/cgi-bin/configManager.cgi?action=setConfig&VideoInOptions[0].NightOptions.SwitchMode=1

[jack7]

I have used jantman's http command in a browser in the past and know that it works. Are you saying that the Profile=3 part of it is not required? After executing your http command, is it also disabled by changing something in the profile?
I believe most newer Dahua firmware not requiring a plugin has a new option in Profile Management called Day/Night that does the same thing as the http command. I wonder if the new Amcrest firmware without a plugin has the new Day/Night option. All my Amcrest firmware requires plugin.