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re: General security camera discussion (was "Unifi Protect security cameras")
Posted on 1/2/21 at 5:00 pm to bluebarracuda
Posted on 1/2/21 at 5:00 pm to bluebarracuda
Even after examining a bunch of side by side stills, pixel by pixel, and seeing what seems to be a clear difference in favor of the Reolink, something still strikes me about the G3 video that gives it a higher quality look and feel.
I think I have figured out why I still prefer the G3's video during playback.
The Reolink has a lot of artifacts when there is a lot of motion (birate is set the same as the UniFi). It also adjusts the saturation and contrast a lot when the lighting changes, and also just kind of randomly. I think it drops frames when these things happen, too. I have a couple Amcrests that do the same stuff. The G3 doesn't seem to do any of that. Whatever corrections it makes, it does them in a way that doesn't produce pixelated artifacts or dropped frames, or anything noticeable at all. It's just a steady, smooth video all the time.
I got right in front of the cameras to make an adjustment, and when I popped into the view of the Reolink my face and shirt were very blocky for several frames. Likewise when I left the frame, it took more than a second for the background blockiness and pixelation to fill in the details. And the entire frame of course very noticeably adjusted the brightness and contrast and such in a very jarring way. The G3 is much different. There is some slight artifacting, but it's hardly noticeable. And any larger image adjustments happen much more smoothly.
It's obvious that the UniFi camera has much more horsepower to handle all the processing that takes place. How that translates to overall real-world picture quality, eh, I'm still not sure. So far I've only compared one scene. But I will say that regardless of the pixel-level detail, when you watch the video the G3 has a more "premium" look to it.
1
Posted on 1/3/21 at 12:05 am to Korkstand
I'm sorry for being so wordy with all this and for seemingly beating this topic to death, but I swear I think it's all worth talking about.
I have done some more low- and no-light testing, and I think the UniFi cam is now the clear overall winner (as it should be given the price diff).
In the daylight, the cheap Chinese cam does seem to have a bit sharper image, but the G3 is still more than adequate in the same conditions. It's a difference of a few feet of extra distance as far as recognition and identification range. But in the daylight, and this can't be stated strongly enough.
In the evening and night, the G3 kicks the ever-loving dogshit out of the cheap cam. I've caught the occasional animal at night on my chinese cams, and from that footage I figured they would be sufficient to identify a person. Wrong. After doing these side-by-side comparisons, I will never buy another camera that costs less than $100. I don't care how many pixels it has, if it's that cheap it's going to let you down when it matters most.
The mid-range motion smearing at night that I posted about earlier is hardly any better up close. If I walk by at a brisk pace, my face is so smeared that I can barely recognize myself on the Reolink. No such problem on the G3.
But that's not the worst of it. I don't know if this has been improved in more recent versions, but the RLC-410 takes ages to switch between day and night mode. I don't know if the mechanical IR-cut filter requires so much power that it has to throttle the processor, or if the drastic change in lighting bogs down the image processing, but there's a good several seconds of no video whatsoever during this transition. I went out with a flashlight to blind the cameras and force them to day mode and to see how they perform in the absolute worst lighting possible. And while both cameras were indeed blinded, at least with the G3 you could still tell there was a person shining a flashlight at the camera and it didn't drop a single frame of video. The Reolink, on the other hand, totally and completely locked up when it kicked over to day mode. It did it again when I turned off the light and it switched back to night mode. It lost TWELVE FULL SECONDS OF VIDEO. It also did some crazy looping audio bullshite during this time. The G3 didn't give two shits about the light, it just switched back and forth between day and night, didn't drop a frame and audio was fine.
I do have a few Amcrest cameras in the $100 range that seem to work about as well as the G3 in switching between day and night, though I haven't yet done a side-by-side as far as image quality for the same scene. If there's any interest (and why wouldn't there be?), tomorrow I will try to hang this UniFi next to an Amcrest to do some similar tests.
I have done some more low- and no-light testing, and I think the UniFi cam is now the clear overall winner (as it should be given the price diff).
In the daylight, the cheap Chinese cam does seem to have a bit sharper image, but the G3 is still more than adequate in the same conditions. It's a difference of a few feet of extra distance as far as recognition and identification range. But in the daylight, and this can't be stated strongly enough.
In the evening and night, the G3 kicks the ever-loving dogshit out of the cheap cam. I've caught the occasional animal at night on my chinese cams, and from that footage I figured they would be sufficient to identify a person. Wrong. After doing these side-by-side comparisons, I will never buy another camera that costs less than $100. I don't care how many pixels it has, if it's that cheap it's going to let you down when it matters most.
The mid-range motion smearing at night that I posted about earlier is hardly any better up close. If I walk by at a brisk pace, my face is so smeared that I can barely recognize myself on the Reolink. No such problem on the G3.
But that's not the worst of it. I don't know if this has been improved in more recent versions, but the RLC-410 takes ages to switch between day and night mode. I don't know if the mechanical IR-cut filter requires so much power that it has to throttle the processor, or if the drastic change in lighting bogs down the image processing, but there's a good several seconds of no video whatsoever during this transition. I went out with a flashlight to blind the cameras and force them to day mode and to see how they perform in the absolute worst lighting possible. And while both cameras were indeed blinded, at least with the G3 you could still tell there was a person shining a flashlight at the camera and it didn't drop a single frame of video. The Reolink, on the other hand, totally and completely locked up when it kicked over to day mode. It did it again when I turned off the light and it switched back to night mode. It lost TWELVE FULL SECONDS OF VIDEO. It also did some crazy looping audio bullshite during this time. The G3 didn't give two shits about the light, it just switched back and forth between day and night, didn't drop a frame and audio was fine.
I do have a few Amcrest cameras in the $100 range that seem to work about as well as the G3 in switching between day and night, though I haven't yet done a side-by-side as far as image quality for the same scene. If there's any interest (and why wouldn't there be?
), tomorrow I will try to hang this UniFi next to an Amcrest to do some similar tests. 
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