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Alarm: Motion Detection Notes
Motion Detection Recording Setup
False Triggers
Setting the motion detection at high sensitivity levels (4 or
lower) increases the frequency of false alarms. On the other
hand, low sensitivity levels (20 or higher) increase the risk that
a significant motion event (such as an intruder) will not trigger
the motion detection to record.
Check the Motion Detection settings both during the day
and at night.
In low-light conditions (or when your cameras
are using infrared night vision) the NVR may be more or less
sensitive to motion, depending on your unique circumstances.
The difference might be very dramatic!
Weather
The weather conditions are going to affect your motion
detection. Dramatic weather phenomenon such as heavy
rain, strong winds, lightning and so on, may trigger the
motion detection with surprising frequency.
On the other hand, things like fog, mist and other obscuring
kinds of weather might mask or obscure something moving
to the point that the NVR fails to detect them.
Here are a few steps you can take to minimize the amount of
noise in your images.
• Try adjusting the
Image
Settings
(see
“Display: Camera”
on page 24
for details) to fine-tune the brightness and
contrast to get a more stable image.
• Limit the motion sensitive area to only the areas in view
that a target could be. In particular, large featureless
areas in the camera’s view are the ones most likely to
give false triggers - turning off the motion sensitivity to
any area a target cannot move infront of will help reduce
false triggers.
Note:
The motion detection feature will seem more sensitive
at night, particularly when using low-light or active infrared
cameras. We recommend that you test your motion detection
sensitivity both during the day and at night to ensure your
sensitivity setting is suitable for either lighting condition.
Some tips to customizing your motion detection
sensitivity and actions:
• Consider how important it is to be notified of motion
events as they happen.
Using the email alerts is a great way to be kept up-to-speed
on what’s happening, but may quickly become annoying if
something occurs which will generate a number of false
triggers. As a rule, we suggest employing the email alert
only on interior cameras during times that
no one
should be
moving about in front of them.
• It can be important to have a complete record of a
subject’s movements and actions for legal reasons.
If your cameras capture an illegal event (typically an intruder,
but we’re continually surprised by stories from our users) it is
important to have as much information as possible.
For example, images of someone in your home may not
actually
prove
that they broke in - but footage of them breaking
a window does. If you use a camera inside the home to trigger
all exterior cameras with pre-record enabled, then you will
have a record of how they entered in addition to what they did.
• Always consider what’s really important.
Which is the bigger problem - a dozen false triggers per day, or
missing one critical event?
There’s no magic setting which will make motion detection
work
perfectly
. There will always be some events that it’s
not sensitive enough to catch, or minor happenings that will
trigger an overly sensitive camera to record. Typically, the best
motion detection settings are one’s that give few false triggers
but
don’t miss anything
.
Even motion detection which false triggers a few times per
hour will still save a significant amount of hard drive space
compared with a constant recording schedule for the same
duration.
• Position your cameras well.
• Many issues seen with motion detection and security
cameras can be traced back to poor positioning of the
camera itself.
• Make sure the area in front of your cameras is as clear
as possible so it has and unobstructed view of potential
activity. Consider the center of the camera image is the
“sweet spot” which gives you the highest detail and the
best image clarity so the center of the image should be
right where you need to see the real activity.
• Position you camera so that any potential intruder’s face
will have to pass the center of the image as closely as
possible without allowing the camera to be tampered
with.
• Also note that while having the cameras show some sky
in the image might make the picture look nice it is also a
higher level of contrast the camera has to deal with, keep
the sky and any other bright objects to a minimum so that
the camera has the best chance of getting the image you
need to identify the intruder or licence plate.
• Keep the view distance to the shortest possible. Place
the cameras as close to the subject as possible to ensure
you get the best possible level of detail. Digital zoom can
make the image bigger but if the camera is too far away
then no amount of digital zoom will make the subject any
clearer.
• Where possible have some overlap for your cameras.
Overlapping camera views make it difficult for someone
to access and tamper with one camera without another
camera capturing some video of the event.
• Keep your cameras clean. Dirty lenses can affect the
image quality, give the lens a clean from time to time. Note
that spider webs are almost invisible during the day but
are extremely reflective at night which can dramatically
affect the night vision from your cameras, so keep the
spider webs away from your cameras too.
Alarm: Video Loss
Video Loss
is regarded as a potential alarm event, and is
considered to occur any time that the NVR doesn’t receive an
active video signal on any of its inputs.
The default behaviour of the NVR, when a channel has no
incoming video signal, is simply to display “Video Loss” in
white text on a black background over the associated channel.
If you’re not using all the inputs on your NVR, then some
channels will be in “permanent” Video Loss state. Just be sure
that you don’t Enable a video loss action for these channels.
Channel:
Which channel/camera you’d like to set the Video
Loss behaviour for.
Enable:
Whether the selected channel has video loss
monitoring active or not.
Schedule:
Alters when the current
Video Loss Action
will be
active.
Action:
The action you’d like the NVR to take when this event
occurs. It’s set in the same way as the Action for any other
event.
Alarm: Video Loss - Action
Audio Warning:
The NVR will use its internal buzzer to emit an
alarm tone. It sounds like an old computer indicating an error,
or a large truck backing up.
Send Email:
The NVR will send an auto-email alert when the
event type you’ve selected occurs. The Email Settings button
will take you to the same email configuration screen accessible
from the Network menu - see
“Network: Advanced: Email
Settings” on page 36
for details.
Alarm: Motion Detection - Action
Audio Warning:
The NVR will use its internal buzzer
to emit an alarm tone. It sounds like an old computer
indicating an error, or a large truck backing up.
Send Email:
The NVR will send an auto-email alert
when the event type you’ve selected occurs. The
Email Settings button will take you to the same email
configuration screen accessible from the Network
menu - see
“Network: Advanced: Email Settings” on
page 36
for details.
Trigger Camera:
You can define one camera’s
motion detection to trigger recording on one or more
other cameras.
This can be useful in a number of situations. For
example:
If you have two cameras overlooking a yard, one with
a wide view from well overhead and one with a much
narrower view of a corner or path. You may find that using the camera with the narrow view for motion detection gives fewer false
triggers and doesn’t miss an event as often as the really wide view might, so triggering the wide view to record as well ensures you
know where the subject went after they left the narrow view.
One camera might face a public area, while another camera looks down a private corridor which exits into the public area. Having
the camera in the private area trigger the one in the public area to record can give you a record of where a subject went after they
left the private area, without filling your hard drive with recordings triggered by random passers by.