I have been doing a lot of license plate capture and automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) testing using the Viewtron LPR-IP4 camera that I installed at my house. In this video, I document the performance of the night time license plate capture when the camera’s IR night vision is engaged.
If you missed my previous blog post and video demo, the LPR camera at my house is installed at a far greater height, angle, and viewing distance to the license plate detection zone that what CCTV Camera Pros would normally recommend for automatic license plate recognition (ALPR). You can read more about the of the LPR camera installation at my house here.
LPR Camera
This is the LPR-IP4 camera that is installed at my house. It is the newest Viewtron LPR camera that we carry. CCTV Camera Pros has primarily supplied our Viewtron LPR cameras for commercial and government projects because LPR camera are typically difficult to install on a house. However, my experience with installing this one at my house has changed my mind a bit about LPR camera installations on homes. We will start recommending this LPR camera to homeowners after making sure they understand the differences between license plate recognition vs license plate capture, and the difference in installation requirements for each.
Automatic License Plate Recognition
You can see in the above screenshot captured from my Viewtron NVR that the LPR camera is actually automatically detecting license plates. However, it is not automatically identifying the numbers and letter on the plates as reliably as the LPR-IP4 camera that we have installed at CCTV Camera Pros warehouse. This was expected when I started testing this camera at my house. Actually, I did not expect ALPR to work at all. The camera installed at CCTV Camera Pros was done strictly according to our LPR camera installation guide.
License plate capture (not ALPR) at my house is working almost perfectly. License plate capture is the ability to record license plates of moving vehicles clear enough for a human to read the license plate when playing back recorded video.
IP Camera w/ AI Vehicle Detection
By setting up the other IP camera installed above my garage to detect all of the vehicles driving by, it gave me an easy way to locate all of the license plate capture events on the NVR. You can see intrusion zone (green rectangle) that I setup for this camera on the street on front of my house. The LPR camera is focused in just past my mailbox on the right. So, anytime a vehicle triggers the vehicle detection on this camera, I know that I can manually review the recorded footage on the LPR camera to see the license plate.
IP Camera with AI Software
This is the IP camera with AI software that I am using to detect vehicles. It is the Viewtron IP-4BZ. It i a 4mp resolution IP camera with a 2.8 to 12mm motorized varifocal lens. We have been selling this AI camera to be used as an overview camera bundled with our 2mp LPR camera for many years. We also have a 4K resolution AI camera with motorized zoom lens here.
Night Time Vehicle Detection Search
Here you can see a search that I performed on the NVR for any vehicle detection / intrusion events detected by the IP-A4BZ IP camera installed on the front of my house. I can check the box in the upper left of any of the thumbnail images and click on the playback button to begin video playback at that point in time.
When the video player opens, you can switch the playback screen from single camera display to multiple camera video playback.
Here is the 4-camera video playback view. You can see the overview camera in the lower left (with the truck driving in the detection zone). The LPR camera is the one in the upper right. You will notice that the LPR camera is very dark when it runs in infrared night vision mode. This is required for night time license plate capture and is another reason I recommend to use at least one overview camera with an LPR camera. You can switch to the single camera view of the LPR camera by double-clicking on it.
Night Time License Plate Capture w/ IR LPR Camera
Here is the single camera view of the LPR camera capturing a license plate on a pickup truck at night. You can click on the image for a larger view, but please be aware that I scaled these images down in size for the website. The original images are much larger at 4K resolution.
Here is a close-up of the rear license plate capture.
Night Time License Plate Capture (Front Plate)
Here is the front license plate capture that I recorded. Again, you can click on this image for a full sized view but it is not the original. It is scaled down from the 4K HDMI output of the Viewtron NVR to 1080p resolution for the website.
Here is a close-up of the night time front license plate capture. You can see at the 130-140 foot distance from the LPR camera, the plate is not crystal clear at night but you can still identify all of the numbers and letters.
License Plate Capture CCTV Camera
In addition to our Viewtron IP LPR camera systems, CCTV Camera Pros also has this coax cable based CCTV license plate capture camera (LPR-AHD5). I highly recommend this LPR-AHD5 for customers that have existing HD coax security camera systems and are not ready to invest in running CAT5e or CAT6 network cable. The LPR-AHD5 is excellent at capturing license plates in crystal clear video, but it does not have ALPR software. This means that the license plate number is not recorded to a database on the DVR. I recommend using the LPR-AHD5 with our Viewtron hybrid CCTV camera DVRs.
CCTV Camera Pros ONLY recommends the LPR-AHD5 for customers that MUST USE an existing coax cable. Our top pick is our Viewtron LPR camera systems. You can find all of our license plate capture cameras here.
Additional LPR Camera Videos
You can watch additional LPR camera video demos here.
Questions?
Please contact me with any questions at mike@cctvcamerapros.net.
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