Eliminate false ‘Ghost Detection’ Alarms on Bosch DINION IP Thermal 8000

This article is applicable if you're encountering false alarms - so-called "ghost detection" - on your Bosch DINION IP Thermal 8000 camera

Possible causes and solution(s)

Symptoms

The setup includes:

Bosch VCA Tasks configured directly on the camera
Alarms in Milestone XProtect triggered only when a VCA Task is activated
No alarm triggers for general motion or non-task metadata (although bounding boxes still show in XProtect)

If you receive false ‘Ghost Detection’ Alarms when there is no movement or presence in the field of view,
or occur without a visible cause and are not linked to any physical activity or person in the footage.

Causes

Dual Metadata Overlays
It was observed that the camera occasionally generates metadata resembling both standard and 3D People Tracking modes at the same time, even when not explicitly configured for 3D mode. This can confuse the system and produce false triggers.
Thermal Image Noise
The camera's metadata showed signs of being influenced by environmental factors, particularly on sunny days. Rising heat from the ground can introduce haze or noise, which is mistakenly interpreted as an object or movement.
Noise Suppression Setting Was OFF
A key factor was that Noise Suppression under Metadata Generation was disabled. When OFF, the system allows more raw thermal data through, which in theory increases detection distance. However, it also increases image noise—leading to false detections from minimal or irrelevant signals.

Solution

Switching the Noise Suppression setting from OFF to MEDIUM has been confirmed to eliminate false alarms in affected systems.

What Noise Suppression Does:

Filters out random thermal noise
Smooths the image for better object recognition
Reduces false bounding boxes caused by haze, background movement, or thermal interference

Effect of Noise Suppression OFF vs MEDIUM on Detection Distance:

Setting	Impact on Detection Distance	Reasoning
Noise Suppression OFF	Longer detection distance (in theory)	No smoothing means the sensor detects more raw thermal detail, including fine edges and weak signals. This can help detect very faint targets far away but also increases noise, potentially causing false alarms or difficulty distinguishing targets.
Noise Suppression MEDIUM	Reduced detection distance (slightly)	Some noise is suppressed, leading to clearer images with fewer false details, but weak thermal signals at long distances might get smoothed out and lost. This can slightly reduce the max detection range but improve reliability and target clarity within that range.