[Camera Support]: Dahua PTZ No hope for autotracking?

[jakeycrx]

Describe the problem you are having

Hi,

I just picked up a Dahua SD49412T-HN. It's an older discontinued model, but seems to have a pretty good spec. I bought it specifically to autotrack on my driveway, but it looks like it's not going to happen.

This is the output from fovtest.py, is there no hope? I can't find any newer firmware for it anywhere.

YES - GetServiceCapabilities shows that the camera supports MoveStatus.
YES - MoveStatus is reporting IDLE.
NO - RelativeMove Pan/Tilt is unsupported.
YES - RelativeMove Zoom is supported.

Version

0.13.2

Frigate config file

N/A

Relevant log output

N/A

FFprobe output from your camera

N/A

Frigate stats

No response

Operating system

HassOS

Install method

HassOS Addon

Object Detector

OpenVino

Network connection

Wired

Camera make and model

Dahua DH-SD49412T-HN

Any other information that may be helpful

No response

[hawkeye217]

No hope, unfortunately. Relative movement is required.

[jakeycrx]

Thanks for the explanation. Which model is that?

[hawkeye217]

It's the Dahua SD1A404XB-GNR mini PTZ.

[jakeycrx]

It looks a good little camera, nice wide FOV as well. Mine maxes out at 58 degrees which means it's very limited without autotracking. I spent hours hanging off the side of the roof to mount it as high as possible as well. I might just stick my camera on eBay and switch to your camera as I know it definitely works. It uses the same PFB305W mounting bracket as mine, so would be an easy swap.

[hawkeye217]

It's a nice little camera for sure. Only 4x zoom, but you can't really expect much more than that from such a small size.

I bought mine from EmpireTech (Dahua rebrand) and it looks like the model # changed to PTZ1A4M-4X-S2.

I also tried the PTZ425DB-AT before I settled on the mini PTZ. It was just too big for the space.

[jakeycrx]

I just came across this, I'm tempted! It has a nice wide FOV on the panoramic camera.

https://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/All-Products/PTZ-Cameras/X-Spans-Series/SDT4E425-4F-GB-A-PV1

After looking at various other Dahua PTZ models, it seems that the listing of autotracking in the spec means they should support TranslationSpaceFov. Do you think that's a correct assumption? This is from the model I linked above:

This is the PTZ425DB-AT:

Your SD1A404XB-GNR:

This is my current camera. I wish I'd picked up on that before I ordered it!

[hawkeye217]

Autotracking provided by the camera firmware is going to outperform Frigate's autotracking every time. It may only track people though. Frigate made it easy for me to write a "poor man's autotracking" using ONVIF for cameras that support the FOV translation space.

Autotracking in firmware gives no indication of whether or not the appropriate ONVIF space is supported, unfortunately.

[jakeycrx]

Can you run the OE autotracking with Frigate?

[hawkeye217]

If you want to use the onboard autotracking and configure Frigate for recordings only (and not object detection), then it should work great. But if you want to use object detection, a moving camera will confuse Frigate and you'll end up with lots of different events/review items for the same object.

[jakeycrx]

After lots of Googling about Dahua firmware upgrades I came across the IPCamTalk forum. People mentioned Andy at EmpireTech is the man to speak to about Dahua firmware upgrades. I dropped him a message and he pointed me towards some firmware on his website. This is what the upgraded firmware resulted in:

YES - GetServiceCapabilities shows that the camera supports MoveStatus.
YES - MoveStatus is reporting IDLE.
YES - RelativeMove Pan/Tilt (FOV) is supported.
YES - RelativeMove Zoom is supported.

I now have autotracking!

[hawkeye217]

Great! Andy is awesome. I've bought a number of cams from him.

[jakeycrx]

I've just been testing it by walking around and sneaking directly underneath the camera and I'm very impressed! One thing I have noticed is that it creates multiple events, is that to be expected?

[hawkeye217]

Yes, but this is greatly improved in the next version of Frigate.