Instruction Manual

40
MENU FUNCTIONS
EN
MENU FUNCTIONS
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 DVR 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 DVR 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 in front 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.
PTZ systems are fundamentally incompatible with
motion detection. Avoid enabling motion detection
on a channel which has a PTZ system attached to
it - especially when the PTZ system is set to Cruise
Mode.