SteveFD

I can find very little information about EagleEyes and compatible mobile phones so I thought I'd start this thread as a resource. If you are successfully using EagleEyes on a mobile with Avtech DVRS or OEM'd Avetech's please help by posting what works for you and what doesn't. The EagleEyes versions available are: GPRS/3G Software (No idea what this is for, anybody?) EagleEyes(J2ME) EagleEyes(J2ME New version) EagleEyes(For WinCE) EagleEyes(For WinCE New Version)

Since my (New) Avetech 761 is not able to FTP motion event images I was wondering if any members have any experience with the HIK DVR's and would be kind enough to help me with the following questions: I am considering a 4 or 8 ch. unit but here cannot confirm if they have FTP or email abilities. Not metion of this facility in the manual that I downloaded from HIK's site nor in the brochure however the local distro swears it has this facility, can anybody shed some light on this. What are your general impressions of these units in terms of build quality and reliability, firmware, ease of use etc. Additionally can these units be accessed via a mobile phone and gprs. The HIK offerings are more expensive than those from Avertech (H264 vs MPEG4)do you think they are worth the extra money. Thanks Steve UPDATE No Email or FTP facility, techs swore email was available with a firmware revision but when we went to purchase a unit and demanded pretesting suddenly it was a different story 'oh not this model we meant the 2 X times more expensive 7000 model". Looks like I'll have to keep looking.

Avetech kit is in my opinion good value for money and offers a range of features. The main problem I have is that they offer very little in the way of technical support and documentation can sometimes be misleading. From their perspective I think they expect the distro / dealer to offer support but they to my knowledge do not have any trade only support channels either. To Avetech's credit my experience is that they just work and I have had no issues with the few installations I have done using Avetech kit.

The above posters are right however I believe H.264 delivers better quality images than MPEG-4. So if image quality is high on your requirements list then H.264 is the way to go otherwise MPEG-4 will be fine.

I don't know why Port 80 should make a difference but might be worth trying changing port on DVR without translation on router just forwarding.

Hi Michel, This is why I started the EagleEyes comapatibility thread, I think that you might have to wait a bit for an Android compatible version. Even though the JME2 version works on my phone I still keep my win CE phone handy with GSM sim because the win CE version has so much more functionality. I did read in Scorpions manual that the DVR port shoud not be set to 80, if you are using this port try a different one like 8085. Regards Steve

Have you tried the GSM/3G and the original JME2 versions, if so do any run/install or still same problems?

My Motorola A1600 is a linux based touchphone (not android) and I can use EagleEyes(J2ME New version) available at http://211.22.74.18/ Go to the site using the browser on the Android Phone click on the EagleEyes(J2ME New version) link and it should download and install. Could you please comment on my thread http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=16932 and let us know if you were successful? Good luck Steve

Scorpion, Thanks for the link to the EagleEyes manual (I didn't even know one existed!). The reason I am trying to build up a resource of models where we know EagleEyes definately works is because the mobile phone demo is a real WOW factor for potential customers but I cannot say with any certainty wether their current model is supported or not. I'm sure there are a few members in the same situation. My region (Thailand) is GSM/Edge with 3G just coming on stream but I think most manufactures make basically the same phones for the US market with silghty different RF/Radio stacks. Any confirmations you can post about working phones and versions, especially Nokia N range would be gratefully received. All the best Steve

My starters are: HTC Artemis also know as (Dopod P800W) (HTC P3300) Avetech 761 EagleEyes(For WinCE New Version) Runs Notes: Slow but suspect problem is GPRS radio stack in this phone. Sometimes loses connection and has to auto re-login. Occasionally will not reconnect until soft reset. Occasionally cannot connect until DVR is powered on/off, suspect this is the DVR problem. Seems to behave better if use the EagleEyes disconnect button rather than just close the app. Tested with WinMobile 5, 6.1 and 6.5 Will not run any of the other versions even with latest JME2 midlet manager installed. Only this version works on this phone. Motorola Ming A1200 Avetech 761 EagleEyes(J2ME New version) Notes: Very Fast Gives error message when connecting about channel 16 but then presents the screen correctly and is working. Sometimes loses connection and has to auto re-login. Occasionally will not reconnect until soft reset. Occasionally cannot connect until DVR is powered on/off, suspect this is the DVR problem. Limited functionality when compared to the WinCE New version. Only this version works on this phone. More to come.....

Anybody know a player or format converter that can handle the video capture files from EagleEyes? The files have the same file extention .avc as the PC capture files and also create an .idx file but they can only be played on a mobile phone when I copy the folder from the phone to PC I can not play them with videoplayer or any other player and I have all major codecs installed.

Soundy is correct. It looks like you are trying to port forward to a single IP in this case the 2nd (internal) routers WAN IP which is not supported. One way I can think of is to add a switch (unless existing router has this built in) and 2 more routers, one to forward 80 to 80 for switch management and one to forward 8080 to 80 for Pelco. or Can the switch management IP be changed to a different port than 80? Steve

Ackray, Can't help you with Pelco but..... Not sure what your level of experience is with routers so excuse me if I'm stating the obvious. A majority of routers will be able to forward port 80 to any IP on your LAN subnet. There might be a couple of reasons why you can't reasign port 80 FWD. 1. Port 80 is already assigned to port forwarding and you must first delete that forwarding Rule then create a new one rather than just edit the old one. 2. Port 80 forwarding is assigned to the remote administratation interface, usually defined in the Admin section of the router software. So you would have to change the external port for router admin then create the new port forwarding rule. You might have to reboot after changing the admin remote interface IP address before you can create the new rule. Hope this helps. Steve

VPN's are a good solution with encrypted end to end transport but can be difficult to setup and troubleshoot. Some users may not have routers with VPN pass through, additionally VPN's especially IPSEC add a additional bandwith overheads. For me the biggest advantage with port forwarding is my DVR is instantly available from virtually any PC or mobile phone with out having to go through the trouble of installing and setting-up a vpn client for every device I may want to use to access my DVR. On security critical installations and anything which is running in an enterprise enviornment VPN is the way to go but as always it's a trade-off between greater security and convenience. Steve

If you can use a browser and find an H T T P debugging add-on you can get some clues from the H T T P headers. for example setting quality would get something like this: GET /cgi-bin/user/Config.cgi?action=set&Video.10.Mpeg4.Quality=BEST&rnd=0.9853055337376982 H T T P /1.1 Don't ask me what all that means or how exactly you can use it but you can debug and edit these headers which might put you on the right track, you can also see all the miles of java scripting. If you just want to connect to the quicktime feed then the h t t p request for AVC 761 is as follows: rtsp://ipaddress:portnumber/live/mepeg4 Hope this helps. Steve

Confirm Model is AVC761ZAS and Video Viewer only. AV760 is Video Server E

Hey MoshPuiu, Do you know of any versions of AVC761 which have successfully been able to transmit FTP? Is 760 same hardware as 761 minus the USB port or do they have different firmware? I was wondering if I it would be possible to downgrade the 761 using 760 firmware and lose USB support but regain image FTP functionality though I suspect this is just wishful thinking! Steve

Hi Dizzy, I see the problem slightly differently in so much as the fuctionality is there but it is the wrong functionality, what we currently have is: Event Triggers FTP alert. HTM page is generated with DVR access parameters and timestamp of event for remote viewing. FTP engine transfers HTM page to server. Whereas what we need is: Event Triggers FTP alert. JPG image(s) generated of alert event. FTP engine transfers JPG page to server. My guess is that the JPG image creation part is not included in current firmware rather than it being a hidden or dormant function. I don't think it would be a big deal for AVERTECH to cook a new ROM replacing the HTM creation with the .JPG creation, in fact it would probably be simpler than the original coding of the HTM routine. If the current function is due to the programmers getting too carried away without understanding the underlying reasons for an FTP requirement then there is a chance we might see an updated ROM addressing this in the future, however if uploading of images was omitted because of technical or design issues there will be nothing that can be done about it. MoshPuiu's link to VideoViewer is where I got my copy. Steve

Hi Dizzy, My Video Viewer app install file is labelled VideoViewer_Setup_M0106.exe so maybe 0.1.0.6 is the version? But I don't really have any problems with the client software (except for the EagleEyes for Win CE New app). Firmware version is reported as 1241-1012-1033-1018-M3-6C1B I can't see the client side software really helping on this one as the image upload functionality can only be provided by the firmware. The fact that Avtech can't provide any support or firmware upgrades for a specified feature is pathetic. I really like this DVR and was set to feature it as the basis for our main entry level offering but as ftp is useless I'll have to look to another model. Any reccomendations would be welcome. Steve

I only have a vague idea of what the motion dection parameters are doing but what I do find useful on the AVC 761 is to view the motion dectection setup on the monitor, the screen where detected motion flashes grey in the grid(s) detected and then use video viewer to play with the parameters. The only annoyance is that you have to press enter again on the remote when the screen times out. Not an exact science but it has enabled me by trial and error to filter out a lot of false detections, (shadows of brances, bird, etc.) and still pick up people everytime.

Managed to get 761 to sent data to my internal server by using IP address of server rather than servername. I suspect this could possibly be a Windows Server/DNS/Linux issue. Managed to get the 761 sending data to my external FTP host (driveHQ) by adding a / before the directory. Okay now have some basic communication between AVC 761 and FTP servers but when I check the directory all I have is a collection of time stamped htm files named Motion_20090217123643.htm etc. Opening one of these files gives me a webpage that has Name, Password, Channel, Start time, end time and then the common play pause, etc. controls. No video files or .jpg files are uploaded and so basically I could just have easiliy viewed the event log via the usual browser interface. This brings us back to Eric23's original gripe. The whole point of FTP is to have images available off site in case the unit itself is damaged/ stolen. This is a big problem for me because in all other respects the AVC 761 is a great piece of kit for the money but with a key advertised feature missing.

Experience tells me that as PC HDD's and DVR HDD's are so very close in pricing that the only difference is going to be in optimised firmware, power profiles and perhaps cache. Are you going to see any noticable difference? I doubt it. HDD's designed for very low MTBF rate (failure rates) are 2 to 3 times more expensive than your average PC/DVR drive. I suspect that the difference has more to do with marketing segmentation than performance. Going from Maxtor to Segate / WD /Hitachi/IBM and comparing failure rates says more about the respective companies QC at any moment in time rather than are PC HDD's any better than DVR HDD's. In conclusion if data security is a worry go for a server system with a SCSI RAID 5 or 10 array along with a decent back-up system, otherwise a PC HDD with a decent warranty will be fine. Steve

Hi mafiosso, I have the AVC-761 and using a windows mobile 6.1 mobile phone (HTC ARTEMIS) I can access the DVR using edge or GPRS. Pros: Can control DVR change views, cameras Can seach and playback Reasonable response and speed Cons: 50% of the time have to reboot mobile if I open the viewer app again After reboot does not save details so have to re-enter address and password again. My win mobile phone has a 'cooked / custom' ROM so the cons might be specific to me. I have only had the Win Mobile app working and cannot get the JAVA app working on my JAVA midlet manager. Access through mobilephone browser is not possible because lack of full authentication / active-x support on the mobile. Hope this helps Steve

Holmes, I have installed the AVC 761 4ch. and I can say that I am very happy with the unit. I am able to access it from my web browser and mobile phone (win mobile) so remote viewing is very easy, it will even live stream to quicktime so you could setup a simple bespoke webpage for your folks. The 8ch. AVC 785 is also a very capable DVR and have just installed my first unit for a customer with 6 cameras. I do prefer the 761's interface and software as it seems a little slicker on the mobile apps but would not hesitate using the 785 again if more than 4 cameras are needed. On the subject of cameras I found a very big difference between 1/4" and 1/3" CCD units and would strongly recommend that if the budget allows go for a 1.3" solution. I found the Sony CCD with Exview HAD to be excellent. With regards to location remember that you will have to wire the internet connection to the attic as well. The 761 can take a 1TB (1000GB) hard drive and the 785 can take 2 1TB hard drives but the 785 only has ATA HDD ports so you might have to invest in an ATA to SATA converter(s). As for copying to a normal format on CD or DVD you can copy on recordings or portions of to a connected PC or USB stick and then convert from the native MP4 format to avi or any other fomat. The supplied software will convert to avi but the quality is frankly awful but luckily you can find many free quality converters on the web. DISCLAIMER: CCTV is a new line for my company and I am only relating my limited personal experiences after a couple of installations. Anyway good luck with your implementation and don't forget to post back with you experiences. Steve

For a very simple answer. Any SATA drive can be made compatible by using a PATA (ATA) to SATA converter. Cost about $15 (here in Thailand). However I would recommend that you contact your DVR supplier to check that the DVR can handle the size of HDD you want to use, for some reason which I am unable to dicern some DVR units have limits as to the size of HDD that they will accept but ATA to SATA is no problem. Let us know how you get on. Steve