Test & Review Dahua Star-light Network PTZ Camera SD6AL230F-HNI

PTZ dome cameras are widely used in commercial video surveillance applications such as safe city, air-port, train station, sea-port, stadium etc. Today, we bring you the SD6AL230F-HNI from Dahua Ultra-smart series portfolio. SD6AL230F-HNI is a 6-inch size 2MP Star-light network PTZ camera, it delivers full high definition video even in star-light condition, also features with intelligent 3D positioning, smart video analytics etc technologies. By the way, it utilizes a laser emitter to provide 500 meters night vision distance.

According to the datasheet of SD6AL230F-HNI, this camera adopts 1/1.9-inch large size CMOS image sensor, the equipped F1.5 zoom lens can offer maximum 30x optical zoom and 16x digital zoom. In terms of interface, it has BNC video output and RJ45 Ethernet port (10/100Mbps), 7CH Alarm Inputs/2CH Alarm Outputs, 1CH Audio I/O, meanwhile supporting 128GB SD card.

We used the 24V AC power supply and Ethernet cable to conduct the following test.

Under the default H.264 codec, 1080P@25fps, 4Mbps settings, the captured video resolution could reach horizontal 1100TVL, vertical 1100TVL, edge 1000TVL, its image resolution performance is excellent. In color reproduction testing, the image color had been reproduced accurately; its grey-scale grade even could reach up to 19 grade.

Thereafter,we moved the camera to outdoor scene, the camera aims at outdoor traffic road, in 1080P@25fps setting, the bitrate of video stream is controlled to 4.3Mbps; in terms of video delay, the average time is 140ms. The camera’s focal length is 6mm-180mm, can achieve 30x opitcal zoom and 16x digital zoom.

Since it’s a PTZ camera, it offers 300 preset positions, in real test, we preset 7 positions, then assign them to a group of cruise, after rotating for a while, we compared the original position image and finished position image, concluded that camera’s rotation is precise, no deviation; meanwhile this camera features multiple intelligent video analysis functions, such as intrusion, crossing line detection, missing object detection etc. Allowing users to customize the detection rules based on specific requirements. Once triggering the rule, the camera can automatically lock the target, zoom in on details, meanwhile tracking the suspects.

This is a star-light IP camera, we put the camera into a dark box to simulate the low-illumination environment, before switching to B/W mode, the camera could keep high quality color image by using AGC function, no any image noise and color distortion problems; when illumination is 0.50Lux, the camera switched to B/W mode; continued reducing the illumination, the lux meter displayed 0.27 Lux, the image kept clear and vivid. Lastly, when the lux meter displayed "0.00" Lux (F1.5, real lux value is 0.001 Lux), object and details in the image kept clear, no motion blur, image noise extreme small; in conclusion, it offers excellent low light performance.