What settings should I use to get better quality footage?

[SVXskuse]

Our car was broken into in our driveway last night. For a moment the thief looks directly at the camera
from about 8 to 10 metres away but the footage is too blurry to identify him.

Are there any settings I can change on the camera so that future incidents are recorded in better detail? Or are my expectations too high?

Would it help to add more lighting?

The camera is a Hikvision DS-2CD2347G2-LU (4mm) ColorVu.
Stream Type: Main Stream
Resolution: 2688*1520
Bitrate: Variable
Video Quality: Highest
Frame Rate: 15 fps
Max Bitrate: 8192 Kbps
Max Average BitRate: 8192 Kbps
Video Encoding: H.265
H265+: On
I Frame Interval: 50
Brightness: 15
Contrast: 35
Saturation: 70
Sharpness: 75
Iris Mode: Manual
Exposure Time: 1/125
Day/Night: Auto
Sensitivity: 4mm
Filtering Time: 5
Smart Supplement light: off
Suppliement light mode: colorvu white light
Light Brightness Control: auto
White Light: 50
WDR on
Wide dynamic level: 1
HLC: off
White balance: awb1
Digital Noise Reduction: normal
noise reduction level: 1
Gray scale 0-255
Video standard pal(50hz)

 

[Robertomcat]

Well, there are several settings you have in place that can contribute to the blurring of objects, but the main one is the distance between the camera and the person.

I understand that this setting you have in general, is to save storage space at the destination, but in exchange for video quality.

For example, FPS at 15, can contribute to blur if you don't have it at the maximum of the camera. Then, encoding video in H.265 and turning on H.265+ reduces the image quality quite a bit. Another setting is the i-frame, which you have also set too high, when it should be at the same number as the FPS (although if you are using H.265+ the i-frame is managed automatically). And the exposure time of 1/125, for the night is not the most suitable, it is too high, if when there is a movement the camera light turns on, you could lower the exposure time.

 

[Kyle]

The exposure time @Robertomcat mentions is key in your case, as you need to try and brighten the overall image and lowering this will do that.
However, a lower exposure also increases the likelihood of motion blur, so I would test the different options at night with a person walking around your driveway to get the right balance.

Try enabling the smart supplement light too, as this gets the camera to adjust the built-in light so it spreads best throughout the scene.
Ideally, you want to keep as much out of the foreground as possible as this will reflect a lot of the light - if you're able to move the covered car right in front of the camera, and reposition the camera so that the white door/wall in the bottom right corner of the picture is out of shot, this will really help.

A higher frame rate may be worthwhile too, as it means you'll have more frames to search through for a clear picture of the person, and having WDR off at night should help too.

 

[SVXskuse]

Thanks for the advice. I've changed the exposure time to 1/25, increased the frame rate to max, set the encoding to H.264, turned the smart light on and fiddled with the brightness and contrast. The picture is definitely brighter and better. I can't identify cars on the road now, they just look like a big ball of light going past. But I guess that's a tradeoff, can't have everything.

I went out an where the thief was standing and I could see my clothes much better but still no face detail. It's much better when my flood light is on, so I'll experiment with some extra lighting.

 

[Robertomcat]

You have to take into account that there is a lot of space between the camera and the person you want to identify, and that is going to be a bit difficult also in the future when you want to identify someone, because they are so far away.