buellwinkle

My understanding is that the camera gets the device capacity, 3TB, but each camera thinks it has 3TB. There's a patch someone came up with that's floating around here. It's for 5.0 but people say it's the same for 5.1.2 and 5.1.6 (do not try it with 5.2).

This is weird, so I'm probably doing something wrong since I don't use NVRs that much but I plugged in 4 cameras into the NVR, 3 display fine, one does not display, not even on the list when you right click and select "single camera". I can play it in camera setup screen and it shows the live view, but not on the main display. Then I can go in with iVMS4500 on an iPad and it shows all 4 cameras. I can also see all 4 cameras via the web browser. I tried clicking on the empty spot on the displays, shows a + sign, click on that and says that cannot add anymore IP cameras, weird considering this is an 8 channel NVR. I tried upgrading firmware to 2.3.9 from Hik USA site and same thing. Rebooting does not help. Any ideas?

It's not the camera, that displays with iVMS, it's getting it to display on the window, doesn't show up, but shows up in camera setup and displays video from it, weird. I'll have to play with it more on Monday if the neighbor is up for it. He's just excited to see 4 cameras on his iPad and iPhone.

Will be interesting to see who pays for vendor camera specific software and will it be really cheap or compete with other commercial solutions.

Trial version? Does that mean they will start charging for their software or will there be a free version like iVMS4200 PCNVR?

Is the PCNVR version that can record?

Where you can you download iVMS5200? It's not at the usual sites and I got no comment when I asked Hikvision.

All my Hikvision cameras are English, otherwise they would be in Chinese with 5.20 as nobody has cracked the davinci code for that camera. For the 7600 and 7100 series NVRs, you should be at 2.3.7 or better. The latest NVR I got from Hikvision USA had 2.3.4 and that was less than a week ago. I had to get 2.3.7 from HikvisionEurope as it was not on Hikvision USA's site for the 7100 series. I have at least one camera with each of the past half dozen releases from 5.0 to 5.2. The best one so far is 5.1, it's what I run on commercial projects because it's stable and has the best color accuracy. I run 5.0.2 on some cameras as that works best with Macs. I think it's 5.1.6 they pulled from various sites due to problems with the camera getting bricked if you change the port number. It's a nice feature rich release, just don't change port numbers on the camera. What I truly hate about 5.2 is you can't easily go back to an older release if you run into problems with it.

There's some serious issues with 5.2 that people are just starting to figure out. It does not even work with their NVRs. They have a firmware update for their NVRs they just released, but imagine all the people that buy and their NVR and it won't even work with their own cameras. Even a newly purchased NVR, a new model direct from Hikvision USA I received a few days ago does not work with 5.2 cameras and none of the firmware updates on their site helped.

Looks like they have 2.3.9 (not beta) is on the Hik USA site. Has anyone tried it? Will it allow me to set WDR from the NVR settings? Just helping a neighbor, but hate to bring an injector over, set the IP with SADP, then go through each camera to set WDR, would be great to do it from the NVR.

Could be a lose connector, one not fully seated that's doing this. You can remove the dome cover check that all the connectors inside the camera are fully seated.

The more expensive one is a motorized varifocal, easier than the equivalent ds-2cd2632f to focus, albeit at twice the price, but if money is not an object go for the motorized zoom as it will save you several minutes on the install. I'm not a fan of the DS-2CD2232-I5, sort of a bullet with a separate single IR LED. What I find is yes, it shines further, but at the expense of width, so you use it for more wide angle, you'll only light-up the middle and sides will be dark. The ds-2cd2332-i or my favorite the ds-2cd3332-i is a fixed lens, meaning you pick 2.8mm, 4mm, 6mm, 12mm, easier because you don't need to focus, motorized or not, but not a bullet, it's an eyeball camera that Hik calls turret. Which one is better from a image quality, 3MP point of view, to me they are all the same or at least close enough. You won't get a better image from one vs. the other as they use similar optics.

On that camera, going wider means you'll likely get vignetting, which is really a cool look for some, like looking through a peep hole. My advice is to dispose of it, sell it, reuse it elsewhere and get the ds-2cd3332-i eyeball camera as it can be ordered with a 2.8mm lens. If you prefer the bullet shape, the ds-2cd2632f is 2.8mm to 12mm although not as wide as the ds-2cd332-i. What's funny is I need a dome that can go 20-25mm as 12mm is way too wide angle.

Of course the breakthroughs are on the very high end, but Bosch Dinion 8000 MP is a very impressive 5MP camera. ACTi should be releasing their 6MP which will surprisingly be their low light king, better than their current 2MP low light cameras. But eventually it filters down to the affordable. Also tech used in pro level digital cameras filters down the food chain but even they know their limits as you see more going to larger full frame sensors even at the prosumer price range.

Has to do with pixel density on the sensor. The more pixels you put on a given sized sensor, the smaller the pixels are, the less light they can collect. This is a broad generalization as new technology becomes available and there's better algorithms for noise reduction being written, low light sensitivity has been improving. For example, the typical 3MP Hik is rated by them as 0.1 lux, their typical 720P camera is 0.028 lux and I've seen the difference in real world use. That's not to say their 3MP are bad, they are quite good in low light, but not as good as 720P. Just hope the facts doesn't lead to a stampede on 720P Hiks as the truth is, the added resolution, even with the higher noise in low light is still an advantage in viewing detail at night. Maybe closer to a 30% advantage, not the 100% advantage people believe having double the pixels provides. Having been a pro photographer for years, you learn the difference between number of pixels and true optical resolution as the two get confused due to marketing. After all, I can go in Photoshop and make a 1MP image from a camera 10MP with a click of the mouse, but that does not add more detail, just makes the file bigger.

The best camera I've seen for long distance IR is the Dahua sd59230s-hn or sd59212s-hn. They are 30x and 12x 1080P PTZ cameras, but probably has the long range IR I'vre seen, good to light up an area a block away and the IR angle adjusts as you zoom in. Probably less expensive than the bullet you have at about $600 for the 12x. The best low light Hikvisions are their 720P cameras, but most people here get the 3MP which are good enough, but nowhere near the 720P versions for low light. There are also some really good 720P cameras from Axis and Samsung for low light. Again, not many people want 720P, just putting it out there if that's the priority. If you really want 5MP, there are two with very good low light performers, but no IR LEDs, so if it's very dark, you'll need to buy illuminators. But the Axis P3367-VE, very nice 5MP dome, good low light performance, comparable to me to many 1080P/3MP cameras. The Bosch Dinion Starlight 8000 MP, best low light camera I've seen outside of the 720P cameras, but it's a box camera, so plan on buying a housing for it for use outdoors. Both run in the $1,200ish range. If you need illuminators, they exists from $15 to $1,500, let me know and I can steer you based on your needs.

Has to be the software because I use Milestone and BlueIris with Hikvision cameras and I get smooth recorded video at the frame rate I specified. Iframe setting can affect video in weird ways, don't ask me why but if you set it too low you get this weird effect in items with fine detail like blades of grass or stone work, set it too high and it goes away but you could get some ghost trails on moving objects, but at no time did it cause frame rate to go lower.

Came across an oddity. I have Hikvision USA camera and MTD5 or for that matter MTD5RO is empty or all hex 'FF' but on my Chinese cameras there's the contents as described above and the dd command CBX wrote returns Chinese (or English after the CBX update). The MTD6 file shows up as expected, the dd command shows English/Chinese, nanddump or dd the file has serial number and stuff as clear text. CBX, wonder if you every encountered a USA version of the camera and seen this? Since it's not used in the USA camera, I wonder if mtd5 is referenced at all.

Installing firmware from another country will not make your camera not Chinese. There's a few ways to make it English. Google Chrome can translate for you. You can modify the davinci file in the camera, but it would be different than the raptor firmware people here use for their cameras that start with the number 2, so you would have to do it manually by extracting the davinci file, editing it and putting it back and there's instructions if you search. Also, a forum member CBX has a business of modifying the language flag on the camera's flash where it also contains the serial and model number. I doubt his fix will work for your camera model, but maybe he can figure it out for your camera. Also, depends how technical you are. Honestly, your best bet is to install 5.1.0 firmware, it's English even in the Chinese version. Just ask who you got the camera from to provide you the proper 5.1 firmware for that camera. There's things in 5.1 you can't do in 5.1.2 unless you have a reason to have the most current firmware with reduced features, you may want to reconsider the latest is better theory.

I use noip.com as that's why my router supports. So you can see the IP and ports are actie with canyouseeme but what happens when you use a browser, can you log inn but no picture, can't log in at all?

5.5W max in day mode, 7W with IR on. Also, that's 7W at the camera, not to be confused with 7W at the switch which does take line loss into consideration. For example, the 15.4W standard for PoE is really 12.9W at the camera. So you would need 8.3W at the switch to equal 7W at the camera but it varies by cable length.

Could be, but I bought it at Best Buy, but maybe it's a fake Best Buy, always been suspicious

Some of you have asked me how to setup camera side motion detection on Milestone XProtect as by default when you first add the camera, Milestone uses it's own motion detection, done inside the software. The downside is it uses more CPU, the upside is that it's easier to setup as you do nothing, it's automatic but you can tweak it. The instructions below show the 2013 version, but it's the same for the 2014 version. This is a brief guide on how to setup camera side motion detection on Milestone XProtect. This is all done in the Milestone XProtect Management Application. 1. Under Advanced Configuration on the left, then Events & Output, right click on Hardware Input Event and select Add New Input Event. Select the camera you want to do this for and check Motion Started on Camera 1 Window 1 and give this event a more unique name, like Driveway Motion Start and click OK. Then do the same for Motion Stopped on Camera 1 Window 1, you'll need both. You can also pick other stuff like Face Detection, Audio, whatever your camera supports 2. Then go to Cameras, select the camera, click the OPEN button and click on Motion Detect and uncheck Enable. It will give you some warning. 3. Now select Recording Properties on the left, uncheck built-in motion detection and check Event, select the Start event you created, select the Stop event you created and click OK. While here you can enable pre and post recording, I usually make it 3 and 8 seconds respectively As you go, you'll see it asking you to Save or Discard in a yellow banner on top, so click Save at anytime to save your work. If you try an exit without saving, it will prompt you again. To make sure it's recording, start Smart Client and see if it says "Recording" when motion happens.

Just doesn't format. Maybe either Sandisk fixed their cards or the cameras have better readers or you got lucky.

Yes, most NVR's and NVR software can record from a remote camera but the costs would be very high as for each 1080P or 3MP camera, you would need 4-6Mbps upload at the camera location. So if you had a few like 4, you can probably get away with the top tier service from your cable provider. Or you can scale back frame rate, resolution, increase compression significantly.