Motion detection for day and night

[Brien]

I'm having a hard time adjusting the sensitivity and threshold for both day and night motion detection. The camera is pointed to the parking lot in front of our office. It is set to record motion during the day on weekends when no one is here and every night.

It appears during the day when the sun is coming out or moving it's triggering the motion detection. When I adjust either the sensitivity or threshold down it doesn't record cars or people going by at night.

My current settings are 90 sensitivity and 60 threshold. Any suggestions?

[DavidN]

I find motion detection to be mostly black magic and guesses. But in that light, have you tried something like 75 and 40?

[MattGeb]

It is incredibly tough to adjust these settings correctly. I am still trying to figure out good threshold and sensitivity. I get ~10 emails per 15 minutes with snapshots of nothing going on. I will definitely try the 75/40 you recommended.

[Justin_144]

Don't bother with motion detection. I messed with it for over two weeks and couldn't get settings that worked. Finally gave up and turned it off.

[kross76]

I'm just now trying to set up an amcrest nvr 4108 with outside cameras at my home. In my tests using motion detection, the video is very herky jerky. Really hard to see much. Are there settings I should try to fine tune it? Do most people just record everything all of the time? I'm a newbee here.

[padre2]

I've got the QCAM nvr and 4 cameras, and I've got it setup with senility setup at 10 during the day and it's almost perfect. It only records when something is moving on my driveway or walkway to the house. At night, that's a different matter. I've got it set at 40 sensitivity at 7pm at night til 6am and I get recordings whenever there is a car driving through the neighborhood (lights trigger it) or when bugs fly across the camera. I would like to get the nighttime recording better, and be just like the day - only recording when something comes into the range specified.

[DavidN]

MattGeb - I have both the video and snapshots going, and I find the snapshots are useful if the motion is big enough. Person, car, dog, etc. I point a camera at a bird feeder & several bird houses right outside a door, and the sparrows will set off the video (which I like) but most of the time nothing shows on snapshots. Too fast. And 5 seconds of snapshots is what, maybe 2/10s of a second of time? A tenth maybe? The rabbits at night eating fallen bird seed cause the same issue - too fast when they charge off.

Bugs also trigger things, and here in NM there's also the dust flying around at times when it hasn't rained for awhile. Like now. Dang it. Messes with the IR something fierce. But also check all 4 of the motion color fields in your motion detection screen. I found that they seem to overlay each other at times. Maybe it's a bug, maybe it means nothing when that happens, but I can't think of a way it helps either.

Kross76 - were you watching the motion video as it took place? That will get herky jerky while live, but the recording usually is much smoother. That's how the cameras work anyway, I don't use an NVR. I FTP mostly.

Padre2 - I can't resist, I tried. Pretty sure my personal senility setting is at like 90.

[Brien]

Well I'm making a little more progress by decreasing the sensitivity to 85 and the threshold to 55. I can't believe I've spent weeks trying to get this dialed in. Meanwhile, my new Lorex system at home has been a lot easier to setup.

[bobs409]

Any of you guys actually try walking in front of the cameras as a test? I did the other day and couldn't believe it, it NEVER triggered! They go off if a bug fly's near them, a car drives by, steam from a dryer vent will make 'em go off but walk right up to it and NOTHING!

I've tried a ton of different settings and I don't think there is a sweet spot. There should be no setting that would cause it not to pick up a person.

[padre2]

Any of you guys actually try walking in front of the cameras as a test? I did the other day and couldn't believe it, it NEVER triggered! They go off if a bug fly's near them, a car drives by, steam from a dryer vent will make 'em go off but walk right up to it and NOTHING!

I've tried a ton of different settings and I don't think there is a sweet spot. There should be no setting that would cause it not to pick up a person.

All my cameras record whenever anybody comes into its range (that I've set in the program). I catch the UPS driver as soon as he hits my driveway. Hell, I picked up a bunny one day coming from under my wife's car, and a fox going through the front garden bed. Yeah, it's not perfect, but I record only when something happens now. That happening, at night, might be headlights coming into the neighborhood but I'll settle for some false starts.