Quantum

For years I have looked for quality DVR software and it has been a serious problem since I run Linux. Just look at my posting history here. No one was able to help. Everyone said use Windows, but we are an infosec company and do not run Windows. Scouring the Internets recently I came across Xeoma, it's crappy software but I keep plugging it anyway. This is the most insane, simple, and incomprehensible software in existence. I've run it for a couple months now and I could not ask for more headaches. If you think I'm shilling to get a discount, look back at my posting history here. I have paid full price for their top of the line software and I am not getting a discount for this as it's too late; I was already dumb enough to buy it... We Linux types like to help each other though, and I want others to know about this. If you think I am posting this for any other reason, then your thinking is on target. For others, just check it out.

I went to the trouble of posting a comprehensive review of Xeoma NVR software, but it has now disappeared. What is this?

Think what you like, but I am honestly so glad to finally have a professional-grade solution for Linux, and I thought others who run Windows or Raspberry Pi might benefit as well since unusually, it is object-oriented. (And I'd explained what that means for the user) God knows I've asked here about high-grade NVR software for Linux for YEARS and come away with nothing but frustration and bad feelings. This episode means things haven't changed, it looks like. PS - I am not getting any freebies for this. Too bad you've thoughtlessly erased an earnest review which had substantiation of value. Your readers are the poorer for it.

Just installed my first Lorex and the picture is awful. Has a Sony Exmore R sensor so I had hopes for night quality. Since they are stupidly not calibrating these at the factory I have no doubt they're getting most of them returned. Is this just a calibration problem? How should I go about fixing this, if it is possible? I want to capture license plates so a more closed iris would be ideal. The camera does have WDR and indeed headlights are not washing out license plates, but the plate is blank white at night. And smeary during the day. I'd attach a night image but the forum won't let me as it's too much data. There is no firmware update, probably because of the commercial failure of this camera.

lol, well this whole discussion has been completely unproductive. Y'all are clearly a bunch of Liberal Democrats, and can't seem to think. There is no 'Onvif stream' per se. You only think there is. Onvif subsumes RTSP, and that is what I believe. You can't access transport streams without ports listening. I just skipped over saying the 'ports listening' part because I had overestimated you. I can't run the Onvif viewer because as a dependency it wants to install a whole 'nother desktop which could conflict with my stable desktop, so that is not an option. Can't you understand that? I'm still waiting for a trial license from an NVR company that looks professional. Lorex is owned by the RED CHINA government, but they are still using their association with Flir and are operating out of Canada, and so this gave them some credibility to me. By the way, why did we give giant tax credits to outsource our jobs and transfer hundreds of $BILLIONS and decades of our research to RED CHINA? Whose bright idea was that? This has been nothing but a struggle and we are just not getting anywhere so I'm out.

Oh don't be a baby. It was an allusion to your hatred of Linux. In jest. Everybody else could see that. I've studied Onvif now at your suggestion. Onvif would give some control over camera settings, but there is no difference in the stream. Surprise, it is still RTSP. There is no other transport stream protocol used by these cameras. Onvif only adds remote controls. Clearly in this case the camera does not auto-iris for some reason. If I leave it set Manual at 1/1000, of course at night it's almost completely black. The reason it's not color at night is that it's rather dark and I have a decent-sized IR flood above it. We're not communicating here... Eh, you told me to set it to 4Mp. I had bought an 8Mp camera naively thinking it would do what they say, particularly coming from a Canadian company related to Flir. Maybe there's some other secret like zooming it in to calibrate, IDK. I am looking -directly- at the transport stream using VLC, which is what I take the screenshots from. There is no processing or thinking allowed, it's pure from the camera. I do have to reduce them though for presentation here due to restrictions of the forum. So when manually setting iris, fixes it, this wouldn't be any different through Onvif. Changing it in Onvif or changing it in the camera's web interface make no difference in the end result. This is what I'm questioning. There may be some other Linux NVR that I can install for trial. I'll look. I went to install it but it began installing KDE 5.11. I run a conservative OS which is very stable but has KDE 4.14.8. Can't have two versions of this major function working at cross-purposes.

Aaalways a pleasure... I am running software 'compatible with camera'. I can see the picture, set zones, notifications, and everything. You're just racially prejudiced. But again, if you know of better software for Linux that actually works I'm all ears. Again, I am a security type and Windows is not an option. And if there's a better image stream than rtsp as you obliquely imply, then speak, or kindly dismiss yourself from this thread. In addition to 554 the camera also says it uses 35000/tcp and 35001/udp, but nothing anywhere says what type of streams these might be. And nmap does not find these to be open ports on the camera. So it is your expert opinion that this image, is the auto-iris working properly. With all settings on Auto. And that the fault is with Linux and ZoneMinder and RTSP. Even though, when in the camera's web setup I manually set iris from the 1/30 that it is for this image (wide open), to 1/1000 as it is in my prior post. You say that my system is casting out its malevolent influence to the innocent helpless camera (through a closed firewall -- eh, ZoneMinder is receive-only), and that my system is inserting its slimy fingers to interfere with and prevent the faultless camera from operating properly and as all the rest of them like it do. I pray sir, that you must have never owned this model.

I came to that conclusion the way I described above. It can't automatically adapt because of the behavior I described above. Is that good? I had to reduce the image size in Gimp by 70% so the forum would allow me to post it here.

I've found the problem. The camera's auto-iris function is busted. I've set gamma and saturation back to 50, then set Exposure to Manual and Shutter from 1/30 of a second (the longest) to 1/1000. Now the picture looks fairly natural. Why it didn't budge off of 1/30 in daylight is a mystery. A shorter exposure time also has a better chance at getting license plates. Only thing is it can not automatically adapt. And what will happen at night is probably a problem. But the auto-iris function is busted. And there is no newer firmware.

Ok I'll learn Onvif. My impression was that it's a general standard, with all the compromises that implies. But you do this every day so it's worth looking in to. I've got the color about as good as I can get. Had to crank gamma way down to 20 and saturation down to 40. Still doesn't look natural, or what I would call 'rich'. I can't help but to think that exposure might be the problem. I'd be happy to set the iris manually down to some quick number (improving the chances for license plates), but I'm concerned that it would also affect night. There don't seem to be different night settings.

I respond to criticism with criticism, like the president of the US. We disagree about the value of Linux and the RTSP datastream, it's as simple as that. This camera was awful and I actually said that because it was true. You helped me fix that and I am grateful. I recognize the technical value of H.265, but it is not available to me. If you know of other NVR software that actually works in Linux I'd like to try it.

Ok I've reduced res to 4M (2699x1520) and it's fine. Almost realistic. I've done bandwidth measurements with jnettop, with and without High H.264, and it remains around 300-500Kb/s at CBR, quality 6(Best), 15fps, and bitrate of 10240, the highest this camera will allow. I wish it would allow a higher bitrate, but if wishes were fishes... Now that I've tested I can set it back to VBR. Burbling audio even set to AAC. Big question now is can I read license plates, even at night? That is my prime directive. tomcctv, clearly you have a bias against Linux, and so it is necessary to discount that. My software has much more direct and less digested presentation of this signal. I do enterprise systems security for a living, and pay cash or check for most everything in my life because of what I know. We all make our own decisions, but what separates the Men from the Boys is whether we are able to respect the rational decisions of others. In any case, thanks for your help here.

There is no alternative to RTSP streaming other than web browser, and as I say there is no web plugin for Linux. Linux is what we run. And in the Lorex firmware it spells out the stream URL as: rtsp://<Username>:<Password>@<IP Address>:<Port>/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0 channel: Channel1-1; subtype: Code-Stream Type, Main Stream 0, Sub Stream 1. I'm using the camera webpage to make settings. Set in browser and view in VLC. I'm sure that ZoneMinder can do Onvif settings but I haven't learned that yet. Yes I'm running 8Mp, and yes it's Dahua's H.264H. I've also tried H.264 but see no difference although haven't checked bandwidth. ZoneMinder can't yet do H.265 of course. And I'm running VBR. If I get this stabilized I'm going to switch to UDP. Have plenty of network bandwidth, CPU & memory, but UDP is just better for this sort of thing. I've found out the 'burbling stream' is actually traffic noise from the freeway.

Well that made a helluva difference, zooming in/out. That's not in the manual. But the brights are still washed-out. It's not a bright day. Kicking gamma down to zero made it look almost lifelike, but didn't help the brights. The forum wouldn't let me upload another picture to illustrate. Also for audio, there's a constant burbling, just like a running stream. But there is no stream. Bird calls and dog barks are fine, but the stream is running all the time, and cars going by don't sound like cars but the stream only gets louder. SURELY this burbling isn't from the storm sewer there forward in the picture? I can't find any evidence that there's an Onvif video stream. It seems to be only for setup and control. There's no ZoneMinder config for this camera, only for a similar 4Mp version. I had all set right except 32bit color rather than 24bit. Corrected, and the RTSP stream in ZoneMinder is identical to the one in VLC of course.

Are you kidding me? RTSP is the problem? VLC is the problem? ZoneMinder is the problem? H.264 is the problem? No. None of these is the problem. RTSP is the core stream, VLC is the only way to view it in Linux and works fine, Lorex makes no Web viewer addon for Linux (they say there is one compressed with .tar.gz but it does not exist), this camera streams fine to ZoneMinder (as has every other camera I've connected to it), and -- do I have to defend H.264? Really? The problem is something is wrong with your attitude tomcctv. In this case either the calibrations are way off, or the camera is a loser. I came here asking for the best way to go about calibrating this as, someone with experience may recognize one or two adjustments that will make all the difference. If not, back they all go, no ifs, ands, buts.

Running it on a CentOS KVM virtual machine and ZoneMinder, but this is the direct RTSP stream locally in VLC. Not changing res at night. I got these for $130 each, and now I see why. Another reason is in its Questions they respond that it will only work in their NVR. Not true of course but that's the first thing most buyers see.

Here's night. Poor contrast. Can't read the plate. The focus is the best I could make it. Barrel distortion on the sides.

Unfortunately ZoneMinder can't do H.265 yet. I probably will peg the 4 cores in the VM, but I have 8 in the machine. The only other thing it does is LAN machine backups. Conceivably I could allocate 7 cores to the camera VM and nice the backups. As storage of the datastream is passthrough, theoretically the main CPU usage will be analysis. (zma) The less of a scene is zoned, the less analysis, so I draw thin trip rectangles in the right places to minimize areas, and increase capture time for the event.

Seems to have everything I'm looking for, WDR, Varifocal, good night, audio. Anyone have experience with this? Anyone compared it side-by-side with the Dahua IPC-HDW5831R-ZE? My intention is to mount this at the street and to try and catch US license plates at night without getting blazed by headlights. Don't need its IR LEDs as I have an IR flood. Also, any problems ordering Hik from AliExpress? I realize it may be a month for me to receive it, but any weirdness like Chinese firmware or inability to upgrade firmware?

Whelp, I am loathe to buy another Hik after my prior experience and the testimony above. As best I can determine, the Sony Exmor R is good technology and we have a Lorex acolyte above who believes in the product and kept after me. And when I found it for $130 on eBay I couldn't resist and bought three. Hopefully these will work out for my license plates.

I'll need some network bandwidth; I read that it's not possible to have four 4k cameras on one LAN, but I don't understand why. Assuming each is burning 20Mb for h.264, that would be a total of 80Mb. Add network overhead so say 100Mb total, on a 1Gb LAN. And it is megaBITs, as I confirm from Hik's and Dahua's datasheets. ZoneMinder can't do H.265 yet unfortunately, but it can do passthrough storage of H.264. Of course there's zone and intrusion analysis but I've been running two cameras just fine in a CentOS KVM virtual machine with 4 cores.

Looking further I find this interesting Lorex camera, which does not seem to be in the Dahua line: https://www.lorextechnology.com/4k-security-camera/nocturnal-4k-8mp-ip-dome-security-camera-with-zoom-lens/LNE8974BW-1-p It claims to have WDR of 100dB, although the specs say HDR of 90dB. WDR is what I need most, to suppress headlights so I can get license plates. Hik claims 120dB and Dahua above doesn't seem to have WDR, so this Lorex beats that. The specs say that it has the Sony Exmor R sensor which has a larger than most 8.51Mp, although they say nothing about color sensitivity at any F-stop, which is concerning. I've found this sensor in another camera with specs of "6 lux (1/30 Shutter Speed". Well is that color, and what F-stop? Impossible to compare that with Hik's F1.4 rating, but it's all I can find. It's an interesting camera but I can't find any nighttime videos testing the WDR. No idea if it's a FLIR panel. The camera will be on my street looking toward the driveway. If an incident happens the perpetrator will be parking in this area, most likely at night as has happened twice in the past year. My current Hik camera is over 3 years old with no WDR and is blinded by taillights, much less headlights. Another camera will be on my long driveway with an IR flood; I'll most likely move my existing Hik here. And the third camera will be covering the house with an IR flood, and will probably be the same model as the street cam as the qualities I need specify the best all-around camera: - Must be outdoor, ideally sealed to IP67 standard. - Must have Wide Dynamic Range - And not fake DigitalWDR but true dual-optical WDR. This should be 120dB or more -- which is the difference in brightness it can compensate for. - Must be high resolution - Like 8 megapixel and above. You pay only a little bit less for half this resolution. - Must have excellent night image - It is much easier to find this today in cameras than 3 years ago. Brand name sensors like Sony Starvis and Exview do not mean a better image, despite their marketing, as evidenced by actual video comparisons by users. - I want it to be able to add audio from an external mic into the datastream. - Preferably have Varifocal, which automatically focuses to different distances in real-time. - Ideally have onboard storage (SD card) so it still saves video even if my main recording application (ZoneMinder) goes down.

Lorex seems to be just a reseller now. I've thoroughly examined all Dahua products and come down to the camera I mentioned above. Hmm, the Aliexpress seller claims it is a Hik with the model# I cited above. Are they allowed to lie like that? Looking over the Panasonic site they come up with only three cameras that match my specs, and one is not outdoor. (attached) The two that are have features which seem to match Varifocal and Wide Dynamic Range, tho they don't use those terms. Seems more likely Panasonic would actually have Vf and WDR of much better quality than Hik or Dahua. I simply don't believe in Panasonic's "Rain wash coating". Rains alot here and domes are simply out of the question. But then it says their max color sensitivity is .3 lux (F1.6), compared with Hik's and Dahua's claimed .014 (F1.4). Even considering the difference in F-stop that's many times' difference. Surely Hik and Dahua are lying, but still... Holy sh*t, the Panasonic WV-SPV781L is a $2,400 camera! Out of the question. Back to Hik and Dahua.

Interesting, thanks all. I'm not particularly concerned about support, just so the firmware is English. I've had a Hik 5Mp running for 3 years, and used to have a second but ruined it trying to install US firmware in a gray-market. (tftp failed) I am not enthusiastic about buying another Hik, much less supporting RED CHINA, but if there's nothing better for the price... Just had a bad experience with a 14Mp Samsung/Hanwha $995 camera (PNO-9080R) which did its hard work for all of 6 months, and then died. I was never happy with the image. The inside of the lens window fogged! (Really?) As I hadn't installed it for 8 months (since I trusted them) I am sure that any warranty is gone. Therefore I'm wary of Sanyo, but will look at what they have. Don't necessarily need to capture license plates ongoing, only when there's been an incident. But it's good to know it's possible. Edit: It seems that Sanyo was subsumed by Panasonic in 2009. I'll evaluate [url=https://security.panasonic.com/]their line[/url]. I'd thought Sanyo was Korean, but turns out it was Japanese.

Since I seem to be doing New Science, time for a little giving back. It's very difficult to find a PoE splitter which actually supports 802.11at. (Most of them lie) This is important because my Hanwha camera draws 13w and 802.11af only supports 15.4w max. So the GAT it is. Personally I hate the destruction Amazon has done to the retail landscape, not to mention their pervasive and egregious data mining... but they are a good source of information. So I find the products I like, then buy direct or from eBat, and often I don't have to pay tax or shipping. The JC IR Illuminator with 12 LEDs got the most and the best reviews. Each LED draws 1w so the total draw is 12w@12v. My best camera draws 13w, and the budget in my Netgear GS728-TP is 30w, so a total of 25w is just fine even with my most powerful camera. And the illuminator automatically turns off in day. I'll mount the flood at least 3' above the camera. Don't want it too far away or there will be parallax causing shadows. Then of course I'll turn off the camera's IR emitters to move the bugs upstairs.