Daryl733

That's best left to people with more than 30 years of experience to prove what the manufacturer posted on their website is wrong. I am not sufficiently experienced or qualified to comment on this. Are you connecting the 4K camera to the 4K NVR through local network or through internet ? If it's through internet, you'll have to see how much bandwidth you have and if it support recording at that kinda resolution. 4K Video Streaming will require around 12Mbps per camera. Do you have that kind of bandwidth ? Otherwise, you'll not be able to record at those resolution. But as you said, price's not much of a different, and if you are willing to pay for future proof, why not. But most of the time, future proving isn't necessary unless you have immediate/midterm plans to upgrade your broadband connection plan to support the multiple 4K camera streaming. Otherwise 4 years later, you'll still not be tapping the full potential of the system, and by that time, prob new standard will be up and running and prob can stream 4k with much better compression. "Sending" i assume you mean through HDMI/VGA Connection. Yes, it should be able to. What it mean is you can configure the display differently on the HDMI and VGA Out. e.g. HDMI Out shows Camera 1,2, 3, 4 while VGA Out only show camera 2. This will be the default camera display, so whenever the system is off and on, it'll default to these camera display order. Packaging remote controller together with DVR/NVR seems to be getting rarer from manufacturer. Most system support mouse control, and they don't come with remote controller anymore nor suppor them. You can however use wireless mouse. If you configured the system correctly, you don't actually need to fiddle on anything on the NVR except to power it on. The predefined channel would come on the TV. They are quite normal nowadays. Lower profile. For me, I'll go with NVR. Less problem. No OS layer to take care of, e.g. Window Updates, antivirus , etc. Then again, that's just me. I don't have over 30 years of experience to back me up.

From the way you are using your DVR, the easiest way is to replace the HDD once it's full and keep the old harddisk in storage. Check if there are player that you can use to playback the removed hdd, otherwise if it's important enough, you may want to get another same model DVR as a backup to playback the recording in the future. You'll have to be careful about the handling of the HDD. There's a reason why DVR nowadays no longer comes with removable hdd rack, unlike those 10 years back. The UI design of most DVR is for you to backup incidents. Not to copy the HDD wholesale. The DVR is running 24x7 recording video. Doing backup concurrently incurred a lot of overhead. The better way to do it is to look for a system that can accommodate enough HDD so that these are done seamlessly. You did not mentioned the size of your HDD. Currently the maximum size of HDD is 8TB. But not all DVR support it. There are also system that support NAS recording. In theory, these can be scale up to unlimited size depending on equipment you use. $150 cloners are way too expensive....... But then again, different locality.

Here's a list of the app by Y-Cam, is the standard app any of these apps you are referring to ? https://itunes.apple.com/gb/developer/y-cam-solutions-ltd/id366454061 Or something else by another developer ?

Then it's probably me that's mistaken. HomeMonitor Camera as mentioned in y-cam website doesn't mean an equipment or a range of their equipment. but rather a services as you highlighted. All their IP Cameras are called Y-Cam IP Cameras . Could be clearer if they called it HomeMonitor Services. My mistake then.

Perhaps then I understand what y-cam had on their website wrongly. http://support.y-cam.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1661650-can-i-use-a-y-cam-ip-camera-with-homemonitor- I probably misunderstaood that HomeMonitor cameras with Y-Cam IP Cameras. means 2 different range of Equipement Y Cam sold. The link http://www.y-cam.com/internet-services doesn't work as well. Maybe from your experience Home Monitor Cameras and Y-Cam IP Cameras means the same thing. That probably arises from my lack of experiences. I admit I don't have 33 years of experience under my belt. " title="Applause" /> Only 10+ years and another ard 10 years in software development & design and data analytic. My opinion are from what I know and what I read. It's never a definite one only solution and it's always open for discussion for a solution. I've also no commercial interest in any of the brand and that's why I don't really recommend any brand/model over another nowadays. I would be interested to see a workable solution for dmills913 to resolve his current issues using his current camera and setup with minimum additional cost. We could all learn something from this.

Formatting on windows won't help. The DVR will detect the HDD (if it's supported) and format it in it's own format (most DVR format in Ext2/3/4 format, not FAT32/FAT/NTFS, etc). You'll need to let the DVR format for it's own filesystem. If it can't detect, then either there's a compatibility issue or there's a faulty component somewhere.

I think you are referring to Y-Cam IP Cameras. dmills913 is referring to Y-Cam Home Monitor Cameras. They are entirely 2 different range of cameras sold by Y-Cam from what I gathered. http://support.y-cam.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1661650-can-i-use-a-y-cam-ip-camera-with-homemonitor- Y-Cam IP Cameras may function like a normal IP camera where you can access through direct IP (LAN), etc. Y-Cam Home Monitor Cameras can only be access through their cloud services and not through direct connection like what you keep repeating. It'll be something like assuming Analog Cameras from Dahua can be access through internet without the network DVR when the Dahua have IP Cameras that could. I can't find any info regarding the Y-Cam IP Cameras on their website. Following the link from the previous page (https://www.y-cam.com/internet-services) reaches a page not found message. I would gather that Y-Cam IP Cameras are prob an early version of the products sold by Y-Cam that they had since discontinued at least since 2014. You prob encountered those earlier version which can be connected like normal IP Camera, which their later version can't. dmills913 got his in 2014, and it's those Home Monitor version, not those earlier IP Version. Then again, I don't have 33 years of experience to back me up. All I can do is browse the product website and actually read the FAQ of what they said the product could/could not do.

Did you try installing the cameras outside and not behind the windows and get the same results ? Otherwise, it got nothing to do with digital or analog system. Basically there's insufficient lighting the way you installed. Within the price range of the equipment you are looking at, it'll be difficult to get one that can get clear picture at low/no lighting without additional illumination.

Daryl733. This is the 3rd time you have surgested in a post that am not familiar with some types of CCTV. With over 33 years I think I do and another y-cam was a big seller in the uk so yes I have come across a few in my life time. Y-cam will work just like any other IP camera ...we have them on avermedia dahua and hik systems when people wanted upgrades. Maybe it will. We don't have them over here. Maybe you are more familiar with them than I do. What I know is only through their website and what dmills913 described. And coming from a software development perspective, there are systems designed in such a way. And those are the limitation imposed deliberately for some reason. As mentioned in their website, they don't support > 15 mins of viewing at a time. http://support.y-cam.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1661697-viewing-your-camera-live You just mentioned using y-cam apps or web version to view instead of using the 3rd party rokus app, which contradict what y-cam mentioned on their website. Maybe what you can do is to have a detail guide for dmills913 on what he should do to get it up and working, completed with some screenshots. I could learn something from your 33 years of experience as well.

You got this problem since 2014 ? I listed Dahua, HIKVISION, DLINK in my previous post. There are also a lot of others brand around. Look for one that have the whole range of product, i.e. NVR + IP Camera. Not those brand that just have IP Camera. Like what you mentioned in a previous post that you had look at Axis. They are one of the very well known brand in the IP surveillance market. One of the market leaders as well. But their equipment are a lot more costly compared to the rest. DLINK used to OEM their IP Surveillance Range of Equipment (i.e. they stamp their brand on someone else equipment). Not too sure if they still do now. But at least they promised 24x7 hours technical hotline in their website. I'll stay away from Samsung though. Not too sure of their direction and got into huge problems with their range of equipment few years back and stayed off them since. e.g. Software not compatible across their range of products, newer software doesn't support older equipment, h.264 dvr that only have a single stream for both recording and online streaming (means you want high quality recording, you'll need high bandwidth, otherwise you can't even view online), and lousy mobile apps that can't do basic things that even other cheaper range of equipment could, e.g. 16 channels system can only view 4 cameras at 1 shot, no playback, etc. But that was a few years back. Then again, once bitten... Same goes for another Taiwanese brand. Batches of lousy QC equipments that failed after 1 year plus after the warranty period, e.g. cameras losing colors, IR LED failed, DVR power regulator boards burnt, etc. It was also pretty popular in this forum, nowadays you don't see much questions posted on that brand anymore.

Btw, although i won't push for any brand, I would recommend you going for the more established and well known brand. You want something that you can get updates bug fix for.

Btw, http://support.y-cam.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1661697-viewing-your-camera-live It's specified in their FAQ. It's a deliberate system design. Doesn't matter how you view it.

I guess you had been working with standard CCTV equipment all the while and didn't encounter these type of equipment and services before. Unlike normal CCTV equipment where the video stream is direct from the NVR/Camera to the viewing client, these type (Y-cam or similar) stream the video to the their server (y-cam server). The app connect to their server. And the server stream the video down to you. There's no direct connection from the equipment to the app/web browser. As mentioned in my previous post, their server (ycam server in this case) cannot handle all the equipment they ever sold to have simultaneous streaming at the same time. To prevent the hogging of any users on their server connection, they limit each session to 15 mins (in this case) and cut it off and required users to reconnect. It's the same as POT (plain old telephone) setup. Where an exchange may serve 5,000 telephone lines, but is only able to provide 500 concurrent connection at the same time. In this case, whether using Roku apps, Y-Cam apps, Web browser, etc is not going to solve dmills913 issues as there is no way he can establish a direct connection to his camera. All cameras connection are to y-cam servers which will disconnect any connection after 15 mins of connection. Now, for Standard CCTV equipment. Yes, the Camera can be powered by the NVR Poe port if they are cabled to the NVR directly. But if they don't need to be. You can place an NVR in Location A and have the camera in Location B which are then link up by a suitable internet connection and have the camera footage record on the NVR and display to a TV monitor connected vie HDMI/VGA/Video In (Depending on which type of output the NVR have). As the equipment is meant for this purpose, switching on the power will allow them to start their routine automatically and establish a connection to view the camera on the TV. You don't have to click click click click to start the process to view. Just on the power, it should start (depending on your internet connection, it may be fast or take a while for connection to be established). There are a lot of brand in the market, i won't push for any brand. You'll have to do your own research. Yes, some brand/model does comes with remote. Most support mouse, and some have front panel buttons to push. Avoid mixing brand though if you are doing it "clean". Less problem.

From technical point of view, I would guess that rather than a hardware issues, it's more likely a deliberate system design. Unlike normal CCTV system where the streams are from your camera directly to your client (mobile app/browser/software), cloud services like y-cam stream the video through their cloud server, i.e. your cameras send the images to their server, their server send it to your mobile app. All servers have limited concurrent connections, be it hardware or bandwidth. To be able to scale the concurrent connections up for all their clients, it would mean huge investment on their backend servers. This is not economical feasible. So what most company does is they time limit each session, in case of y-cam, 15 mins. So they'll disconnect the session after 15 mins, and to continue viewing, you'll need to reconnect. This would limit concurrent connection on their server, discourage users from hogging the connection sessions (like in your case where you go frustrated after constant clicking to reconnect), and also disconnect inactive users to free up resources. Y-Cam is not the only one with such design. This, again, is another reason why I totally advice my clients against using system with such design.

Sorry, thought y-cam and roku are equipment and services from the same company. TomCCTV may be right. Most likely you are setup for Cloud Services now using Y-Cam cloud services, which they had tied up with Roku services to stream the video through them. That's also why you get laggy video even through some of the stream are internal through lan. You'll have to check if y-cam supports direct connection through direct ip instead of going through their server. Looking at the specs and a quick glance through their support site doesn't seems to indicate they do. Most likely it only stream through cloud. You'll then either need to use an android app with a android tv box or an apple tv box connected to the tv and have a ipad/iphone to run the app and cast it to the apple tv box. Everyday when you start classes, you'll need to have someone to run the app, and start all these thing to stream to the tv. You can configure it to start automatically, but it'll take a bit of tinkering on your android tv box (the y-cam app have to support auto camera connection when started). Equipment needed would be an android TV box. Some cheap one are available http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/android-tv-boxes-what-are-they-and-what-can-they-do/ But getting the app installed and them running might not be a sure thing. You'll have to check and see if it's doable. The cheap one might have slow processor and you might not get the streaming videos running smoothly. For apple tv, it's a lot more complicated. Start the apple TV, run the app on the iOS devices, cast it to the tv. You'll need an Apple TV box, and an iOS device (ipad, iphone, etc). I don't think apple tv box support the direct installation of the app now. For that kinda price, you might as well get a cheap laptop and run the pc version and hook it up to the tv with a hdmi/vga cable. If y-cam is onvif, you might consider using an NVR to do that. But it doesn't seems to support ONVIF and all streams seems to go through their server. If that's really the case (no direct connection available for the equipment), I'd stay away from such equipment. The equipment will not work if the company folded. 7 Days of rolling recording are too short to be of useful (they provided it for free), and 30 days of recording required subscription @ USD$4.99 per camera. http://support.y-cam.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2088753-how-much-does-it-cost-to-add-homemonitor-plus- Also, all footage are stored and transmitted through the company server. Are you absolutely 100% certain that no one could ever view any of the footage stored on a server that's out of your control ? I can't find any privacy policies regarding the storage and access of the recording in the website. http://support.y-cam.com/ https://www.y-cam.com/legal/ These type of systems are easy to install and designed for people who want to DIY and have limited technical skill to configure the normal systems. However, I normally would advice against such systems (If they really don't support any other form of connection except through their cloud services) as you are paying for something that's potentially junked if the company goes out of businesses, and also there's no control over your equipment and recording. For subscription services such as these, they are vendors that I know who just collect a refundable deposit for the equipment and refund the deposit for the equipment when they are returned upon the termination of the subscription. This is a fairer model for the consumer as the equipment are basically junk without the company backend services and support. For me, I would still goes the way of using IP Cameras with NVR. Preferably from the same brand for all equipment to reduce compatibility issues. If you need 24x7 recording, just leave the camera and nvr on. Otherwise, just switch them off and on them for lesson next day. All you need to do on a daily basis is to switch on power, monitor and the image would appear. Dun need anyone to click app, click connect, or cast to apple tv to get the image to stream.

You don't have to format it using your PC. Use the DVR to format it. Also, although the DVR may support most HDD, it doesn't mean it support ALL. There might be some HDD with compatibility issues. You may wish to consult the DVR menu on which particular brand/model it support. If it's not there, it might not be compatible. Check that that WD replaced the same model of HDD, not just the same size. Sometimes they don't have same exact model, so they replace with the later iteration of the model. But it's under their T&C of RMA, so i don't think you have any recourse there. You purchased the DVR last year, so it doesn't seems like you have the case of SATA 1/2/3 compatibility issues. If you had purchased it around 5/6 years back where there's no sata 2/3, you might encounter issues trying to replace a faulty hdd with a new hdd purchase recently. Also, sometimes it might be the connecting cables that's faulty, or even the power supply to the DVR (or in some DVR, the power regulator board in the DVR) that's faulty.

THIS is precisely the problem that I discourage people from using services that only runs off Manufacturer's own server and doesn't support direct connection. Mostly they are known as P2P or cloud services. If the manufacturer decide to stop the services anytime, you basically have useless equipment if it doesn't support any other kinda connection. Branded equipment doesn't mean anything. My Sony's Smart TV can't playback youtube video now coz Sony/Google decided to stop compatibility few years down the road after the product was launched. Now, back to your requirement. You can consider this type of cameras. They do have audio mic integrated. http://overseas.hikvision.com/en/products_161.html http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/ipc-c15-1442.html http://shop.us.dlink.com/shop/shop-security/camera/d-link-dcs-935l-hd-wi-fi-camera.html Streaming on TV can be done vie either the PC app or get a NVR or the hybrid DVR (depending on the number of cameras you want to see on the TV). The NVR will do the recording as well, or you can just record it on the SD Card on the camera (limited recording coz max sd card is only 128GB, some models only support up to 32GB recording). Some models can support RTSP streaming as well, so if your smart tv support those, you can use those. I would go for NVR. There's no menu to configure. Once you on and switch the tv to the correct input, it'll display.

It's call RF Modulator. http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F8V3063-RF-Modulator/dp/B00076FVP6

Can't find any documentation on that. Am looking for it as well.

Go to Tools->System Configuration->Image and turn off the VCA Rule. You'll not see the blue line then. Not sure abt the line crossing/intrusion detection searching though. Can't get it figure out as well.

Any CIA Operative here ? Just google. http://www.ebay.com/itm/HD-DIY-Module-Wifi-IP-Wireless-Hidden-Spy-Home-Security-Camera-For-Android-iOS-/182000408624 If $ not an issues, maybe you can buy a few different kind and give you reviews here.

The HIKVISION reset tool no longer work for the newer firmwares. If you are into HIKVISION, do you know how they generate the QR Code's Code ?

Never put IR cameras behind additional glasses. If you look in the camera, you'll find rubber separating the IR light and the lense. This prevent the IR light from reflecting off the glass back to the lens. If you put it behind additional glass, it'll be like standing behind a glass window and shining a torchlight in your lawn at night and expecting to see clearly. All you'll see is the torchlight reflecting off your glass and not being able to see the lawn outside. Turn off the IR light ? Basically you are eliminating the night vision feature of the camera. Without sufficient lighting, you'll either get dark images or blur images. You want better image quality, install the camera outside. No professional will recommend an installation of IR camera this way. Alternatively if you are afraid of stolen/vandalised camera, install a IR illuminator outside and switch off the IR function of your camera. It'll do the same thing. Other than that, you can also install a motion triggered floodlight. Personally, I find them very effective as a deterrence against potential intruders.

Providing the software you use, photos, screenshots would be helpful to assist anyone to identify the DVR. But if you are using those unbranded one, then most likely it's hard to find anyone with info on those as there are too many to identify.

Basically there's not enough lights where your camera is pointing at and the camera is configured to compensate by slowing the shutter speed. Did you manually adjust any settings in the camera configuration ? Try resetting back to factory default. Those 2 Cameras looks like IR Cameras. By right at night, most IR Camera default setting would means the IR light should kicked in and you'll see the images in black and white. Those that are out of range of the IR light would be too dark to be seen. If you are still seeing in colors, most likely you had manually adjusted the settings of the cameras to force it to still be in color/disabled the IR light, causing shutter speed to be slowed and resultant video would be blurred. It's basically the same as your HP Camera. Insufficient lighting results in blur images.