buellwinkle

Wow, did you see that large thing on the pigtail? Dahua tried that and it failed miserably and they stopped doing it.

Trying to get this NVR setup and come across a weird problem. Half the cameras are on the internal PoE and half on a PoE switch. All install and configure fine, but on a few of them, we have no video and it happens with cameras connected to the PoE switch or ones on the NVR. Rebooting the NVR can caused different ones not to display and ones that did not display to show up. For example, camera 3 may not show video and camera 4 does. Rebooting it may make camera 3 show live video and camera 4 does not. Resolution, bitrate is being kept low at 720P, 2K to make sure we are not hitting a limit. The problem started when upgrading to 2.3.9 firmware, tried 2.3.10, same problem. Any ideas?

Did try that, bricked the NVR.

I didn't even get as far as you as I was able to enter an IP and directory, but the check box to enable it was grayed out. I was just doing it in the interest of science since I use Milestone XProtect, but would be interesting to see how it works. The camera I have does not have an SD card slot if that makes a difference. Also, I know Dahua talked about cloud at the last trade show I attended. Has anyone experience this with the Dahua cameras.

There's an interesting one they show at all the security cam trade shows but never took their info. They show you the conference floor with people walking around and it tags the people with their name if it can identify them and they estimate age based on their face. I don't remember their name and the next trade show is April, so if you don't get an answer by then, ask again.

Sure, because it's not an IR sensitive camera, so I would expect it to read red. It's all the IR sensitive cameras that have issues with red. Also, when they cruise the lot, I'm wondering if there's a search light or head light that shines on the plate or just light from the camera itself.

I too would prefer a Dahua NVR because it can record Hikvision or Dahua cameras based on motion detection where the other way around, not so much. Dahua also has some cool cameras that are priced well. With that said, I do like some of the Hikvision cameras too. I'm personally a fan of a single switch for everything wired in your home. I'm using a 24 port Netgear gigabit smart switch, 12 ports are PoE. The problem with using the internal PoE switch in an NVR is it creates a private network just for the cameras, so you can't get easily get to them via the NVR. But I'm not a fan of NVR's myself because they are limiting and proprietary, at least the cheap ones under $1,000. So I prefer a PC running software and that can be free software included by the camera manufacturer, low priced software like BlueIris or mid-priced software like Milestone XProtect Essential which is what I use.

So at .180mA it's 2.16W which seems low for that camera, I get closer to 3W on my PoE switch but lets say that's true. Your modem is 1.5W. What is your power loss going for the panel voltage to charging voltage. I assume with a small panel, like a 100W panel the sell on Amazon for $150ish is putting out 18V and of course varies based on the sun. So there's a load to convert the voltage and charge the battery and typical battery losses. I would think a 100W panel with a decent battery should keep that camera going on sunny days, but what if it's cloudy/raining for a few days, what if it snows and covers the panel, that is if you get snow, what if you don't have the panel aimed perfectly at the sun. Keep in mind, a 100W panel may only put out max power during 2-3 hours per day, then it drops off, sort of looks like a bell curve and even then, it will never come close to putting out 100W unless you have a sun tracker to move the panels to face the sun.

If you can ping the camera, try to telnet into the camera at that IP. You should be able to login with admin/12345 (if you haven't yet changed the default password). If that gets an invalid user, then try root/12345. If the /dav or /davinci directory is empty, that's bad. I found with their latest hardware revision, there has more than the usual amount of camera firmware failures. I've found no way to easily fix this. Maybe someone like CBX or iTuneDVR has come across this and has a cure.

So then you update the davinci binary? BTW, here's a better explanation on page 96 about Heat Map - http://www.hikvision.com/UploadFile/image/2014112514035966062.pdf

Does that mean you have the davinci source code?

The only 2 things I can think of if it's not the web pages is the database /davinci/ipc_db or the actual davinci code in davinci.tar.gz. I checked the database, a simple sqlite3 database, and could not find anything of value in there, just configuration parameters for each feature. I can't imagine they would hard code these values in the davinci code, so there must be a parameter file somewhere that has what features are enabled or not and it would have to be at the firmware level as it changes with firmware releases.

It will help a lot by removing that software as a choice, LOL.

I think if someone wanted heat map and the many other hidden features, one could telnet into the camera and take a look at the web pages in the /home/doc directory (this would be temporary change, but a start in the right direction). There's the /home/doc/page directory with .asp files that contains the html and the script directory with javascript. Somewhere in there the menu tabs as to what's hidden and what shows. If there's interest, we can work to find out how to do this now that iTuneDVR has shown it's possible. Makes more sense than arguing about it.

I think what he is asking is if you have a Klingon version. Now that would be very interesting. Frankly, if possible, I would like one in Pirate, like Aye instead of OK.

What does the camera have to do with Vera. I use mine to set the thermostat, control lights, set door lock codes. The least of which I use my Vera for is viewing cameras, but I can.

I never said you get what you pay for, actually the opposite is true as I pulled these cameras off a project and replaced with $300 camera because they were way better. It's just that these cameras have what you want, but don't pay over $150 for them or you'll be disappointed, LOL. DLink from my experience have also not been worth the money.

Can you do your region code magic on cameras like that, that say came with 5.2.0 hacked english firmware but the box says 5.2.5?

If you have a 5.2.5 camera in Chinese and want to change it to English and willing to provide telnet access to make the change, I can likely help if you PM me. Worst case, you can always install 5.2.5 again to undo anything I do. If it works out with a few cases.

How does the heat map feature work? Was this part of another firmware release or another Hikvision camera and you moved that feature to the raptor firmware?

Here's my criteria - Ultra low light capability like the Bosch Starlight 5MP but for an ultra low price like Dahua or Hikvision, motorized varifocal and focus for the same price as fixed lens and IP66 + vandal resistance. Built in PIR, mic, speaker and throw in 4K at 30fps.

Get a Mobotix D15 or M15, they have built-in PIR motion detection, two way audio with mic and speaker built in. Nothing to do other than install and configure it. Can record to NAS or SD card.

Any of their 5MP cameras that costs under $200. Want to see how Bosch competes with China.

Here's a video of a car going around the cul-de-sac. This pushes the limits of the what it can see because it's further away from my house than the first image, but the plate is still legible although not sure if YouTube artifacts make it less readable so I included a snapshot from Milestome. Watch it at 1440P (which is less than 3MP). At least you can see the cars are not parked, they are moving. And not only moving, but moving in a turn which is harder to capture than if you are getting cars more perpendicular to the camera without the lateral motion. For the picture you have to expand it to it's full 3MP to read the plate. Again, this is further than the first photo, maybe 2-3m further. Ideally if I wanted better capture at this distance, the 25mm would make it much clearer but I would lose half the FOV, so a trade off. Just showing what' possible.

I'm using the 12mm lens version of the camera. If you want to catch plates a little further or if LPR is your goal, you can get a 25mm lens and put it in this camera. PM me if you want more details on that solution. But start with the 12mm lens, nothing to lose if you want 25mm later. Yes, the cars are going slow around the cul-de-sac, they are not stopped, but likely going 5-10mph at most. We do LPR on cars going 20-30 mph without a problem with these settings at other locations and LPR is way more demanding than just plate capture.