License Plate Capture Works Great with AI Security Camera
License plate capture is much easier to achieve compared to automatic license plate recognition. Watch the above video for an explanation of the difference between LPC and ALPR. I also demonstrate how I setup a Viewtron AI security camera on the front of my house to bookmark all of the recorded license plate capture events. This makes it much easier to go back and review all of the license plate capture events.
The Viewtron LPR-IP4 is an LPR camera. It can be used for LPC and ALPR operations. About a week ago, I posted these results of the initial testing this LPR camera installed at my house here.
In this post, I want to share some additional thoughts and lessons learned now that the camera has been operating at my house for a week. CCTV Camera Pros can now confidently recommend using our Viewtron LPR cameras for license plate capture at greater distances and angles. For automatic license plate recognition, we still recommend reading our original LPR camera installation guide and the LPR effective distances according to the camera specs.
What is the difference between LPR and LPC?
License Plate Capture Camera (LPC)
A license plate capture camera is specialized security camera that is capable of capturing video surveillance footage of license plates on moving vehicles where the recording is clear enough for a human to identify the plate numbers and letters.
Here is a screenshot of a license plate capture event using the Viewtron LPR-IP4 camera.
Here is a zoomed in view of the license plate recording. You can clearly identify all of the numbers and letters on the license plate even though the ALPR software of the camera did not automatically detect the plate.
The light blue areas on the video player timeline annotate vehicle object detection events from the separate AI security camera mounted on my house. If the LPR camera was able to automatically detect the license plate, there would have been a separate colored annotation on the timeline.
Automatic License Plate Recognition Camera (ALPR)
An automatic license plate recognition camera is specialized security camera that is capable if capturing surveillance video footage of license plates on moving vehicles and also has ALPR software built into it that can identify the existence of a license plate and automatically recognize the numbers and letters on the plate. ALPR cameras are also known as LPR cameras.
Here is a screenshot using the same Viewtron LPR-IP4 camera. This one is installed at CCTV Camera Pros office with a much more direct view of the license plate detection zone (much less angle and distance). You can see the ALPR software automatically detected the existence of the license plate and accurately identifies all of the letters and numbers on the plate.
IP Camera w/ AI Software
The existing IP-A4BZ AI security camera that is installed on the other side of my garage was a great solution to use in combination with the LPR camera. Being that the LPR camera could not automatically detect all license plates, I wanted a way to bookmark all of the events of a car driving by my house. That way, I could easily find all of those events on the video playback timeline in order to manually review the license plates. CCTV Camera Pros always recommends using at least one additional camera with LPR cameras to act as an “overview camera”.
I always recommend our Viewtron AI cameras for overview cameras. It worked out perfect that I already had one installed at my house. I just angled it a little further out towards the street and moved the vehicle detection zone onto the street instead of my driveway.
Vehicle Detection / AI Security Camera Setup
Here is a screenshot of the AI software vehicle intrusion setup on the Viewtron NVR. Anytime a vehicle is detected in that green rectangle, the NVR will trigger video recording on this camera as well as the LPR camera. This also causes all of the vehicle detection events to be bookmarked on the recorded video playback timeline on the NVR. You can also perform an analytics search on the NVR for all vehicle detection events which displays a thumbnail image of each event.
IP Camera NVR w/ ALPR Software
These are the Viewtron NVRs integrated with the ALPR camera software.
License Plate Capture CCTV Camera
In addition to the Viewtron IP LPR cameras, 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.
Additional LPR Camera Videos
You can watch additional LPR camera video demos here.
Questions?
Please contact me with any questions at mike@cctvcamerapros.net.
