Numb-nuts

You will NOT like the client software for that dvr, I can't understand why they dont change it Hikvision and QVIS both beat the AVtech hands down in all departments. The pice you quoted is a down to the knuckle price and frankly I doubt the supplier is likely to offer any form of real after sales service, How can they afford to? I am in Greater Manchester ,a full time installer and supplier of both Hikvision, and QVIS. I recommend the QVIS Atalantis or any budget Hikvision. They are easy to use great quality and hreat after sales and support. You just can't go wrong. Set it up and just go! Np complicated stuff very intuitive

Who's a CLEVER BOY then........?

You guys are discovering that CCTV is NOT plug and play, someone has to install it and although many people think that CCTV installers don't add value we are all sitting here and laughing because we all already know the answer to your problem. Firstly it's unlikely there will be cables or pipes running in the eaves, and if there are you need to simply be gentle when breaking through into the eaves. Many roofs are definitely too shallow to get into the edges near the eaves and there are three solutions to your problem, the third being call in a pro to assist you. I have often been out to help DIYers with their own install when things got tough, and I don't charge extra just my normal rate for my time. Reasons often given are working at heights worries me, I can't get into the roof space, I cant get the cable to go over the roof (YUK) and several others. It's often a great pleasure to help such people as they accept there are things a pro can do that they can't but still want to get involved. Some people just want the setup putting on the internet and haven't a clue, some want the DVR commissioning properly, some want someone to show them how to do it.On one occasion, I was asked by the wife of a DIYer to finsh his job. He had broken his arm and sprained his ankle falling off the ladder (which was unsafe anyway) and she paid me to do it. He watched and was very keen to be involved I am not trying to scare you or anything but accept there will be things you can do and things you can't. Struggling while working at height is dangerous so do take extra care and have someone there to hold the ladder for you. Hope it all works out well for you. TIP if you are using those "gadawful ready made cables", be sure which end you are feeding through, because one end goes to the camera and the other goes to the DVR and they are NOT the same. Clue look at the DC connector

You need to look through the menus there is a record, record mode or something similar where the user can switch on or off all cameras. Are you seeing the matrix layout i.e 4 empty boxes? Also check to see if the power supply to the cameras is unplugged, th alarm beeps yo heard may be a lost video alarm. Can't say I understand the message you quoted but I'm sure someone may recognise it, thats the advantage of pooling knowledge, learning from others experience. and don't be too scathing about engineers and CCTV professionals, I am sure you get paid more than enough for whatever it is that you do. Congratulations on the great start, and welcome to the CCTV forum Brian

Well have you at least searched for a website? If not able to update the firmware and I doubt thats the issue frankly, then you should look at the HDD, Som HDD weren't designed to work with DVRs and while the mmajority of HDD work well some do not. Try a Western Digital Purple drive. I have upgraded several DVRs with this issue (not as severe I have to admit) and using WD purple drives has always greatly improved the recording issue. WD Purple are specifically designed to work withing CCTV recording devices. DVRs and NVRs You should also look at the bitrate on each channel and if necessary cap the bitrates too.

Hello Chip, great name for an IT technician...

Oh that's what it stands for Dirty Miitarized Zone ..... By the way he means assign the DVRs IP to the DMZ a quick fix for sure but you still have to create rules. If your DVR came with CMS the default ports are 34567, 34599, 554, 80 554 is the RTSP port If your DVR came with PSS the default ports are 37777, 37778, 554, 80 I always open the RTSP port, they may not need it now but they won't be happy if it's needed later and have to pay you to come out and do it again. On a SKY router SR101 / 2 from what I remember provided the DVR is listed under attached devices you then need to go to the reserved address and reserve the DVRs IP address to remove it from the DHCP range and also to prevent any other device with that IP from using it. The original mac number is saved along with the device IP and therefore if you later changed the DVR and gave it exactly the same settings, it wouldn't work through the router. You'd have to either change the DVRs IP and reserve that with the new mac number and reassign your rules destination OR you'd have to remove the original reserved IP and restart the router and the DVR and stat a fresh, then the rules would work again having edited and re assigned them tho the reserved IP; You can also set the DDNS within the router but if they need a new router or replace it its a port forwarding job again (hopefully when business is a little quiet) you are enitled to apply a charge for that. Unfortunately this router is not listed with portforward.com

That would be too much trouble for the accountants, they do NOT understand that sort of logic.

OH Brother...?

That's a cold attitude! I agree, thats why I hate accountants they see the balance sheet but not the devistation to the lives of those who have given years of dedicated service watching the company's interest. They aren't people they are an expense on the balance sheet. I am glad to know that the company are reluctant to make this change even though they know it will save them a lot of money. That at least shows some compassion. Sometime for the greater good such decisions have to be made harsh at it may seem. I hope you can work out a way to at least reduce the job losses. perhaps making the night shift outsourced only? This must be a very heart rendering decision for the company.

I know that a get a LOT of emails from both and there have been some posts on her from buyers that have dealt with Cantonk. That was quite recent so look it up in the search I don't think that their both having the same equipment means they are related, there are alos hundreds of other so called manufacturers in China. They ALL claim to be manufacturers and maybe 10% if that, really are. I only buy from China when I cannot get specifically what I need here in the UK. Thats very rare.

Oh the cheapsters; are way ahead of you, there;s also CCA copper coated aluminium (aluminum to our American cousins) and the magnet ain't gonna reveal that. Same issue when using cat5 watch out for and avoid CCS and CCA, I use my electrical scissors and scrape the copper which soon reveals a copper coating with steel or aluminium core. A nice quality cat5 with solid copper conductors and suitable indoor or outdoor rating. Remember it should be UTP ONLY shielded doesn't seem to be as good "in the resulting signal its pants" If you have long straight runs you could use cat6 but not where there are lots of bends and turns as it doesn't handle as well as cat5. If you do use cat6 terminate it with proper cat6 RJ45s, the ones with staggered conductor arrangement called a loading bar. If you feed the pairs into a screw down terminal, then use copper end ferrules to ensure a great connection. Screwing down onto single solid conductors can often lead to fractured conductor and intermittent connection failures. Using ferrules (which have very malleable copper) allows the screw down terminal to have something to bite into instead of fracturing the conductor. I have proven the worth of ferrules time and time again. I prefer when I can to use RJ45 jacks at the receiver ends of a 4/8/16 way passive balun. BELOW, YOU CAN EITHER USE THE SCREW DOWN TERMINAL SECTION OR THE RJ45 INPUT, BUT YOU CANNOT USE A COMBINATION OF BOTH

Re boot the PTZ and make a mote of the settings when rebooted camera number Baud rate and protocol. Then double check these are the same settings in your DVR or control board or both and I am willing to bet the probable one is that the wrong camera number has been selected somehow and is set to the wrong camera number. I sometimes make this error on my PTZ keyboard and instead of selecting a preset I hit the camera number then nothing works. I usually set the camera number back to no1 (I only have one PTZ at home) and it restores normal working.

BEND OVER is RIGHT....

A PTZ menu is most commonly call+64 + enter Try a reset commonly call+54+Enter

When something is non-standard you cannot take anything for granted...... For a very small amount you can save yourself a real headache, get a 12v5A regulated PSU with four way output it will be better for you in the long run.

Change the name of this forum to HOW TO HACK CCTV

Okay this won't help you this time but if you did what I do that is create user accounts for your clients and reserve the admin account with your OWN password, stupid stuff like this would not happen. 90% of the stupid stuff that happens is down to the stupidity of clients. The number of times I have avoided this scenario by simply reserving the admin account as my own, is incredible. But rather than make a drama out of their mistakes, I can simply delete their account and set up a new account for them with a new password. I do not have to charge for this unless the client is extremely stupid and routinely forgets their password. This has ONLY ever happened once and faced with a charge every time, they quickly LEARN to make the required effort. The other point is that I lock users out of most functions that do not concern them such as network settings, netservice settings, record settings (in most cases). I always explain to clients that and small changes can be made free of charge remotely by me. Not one of my clients has ever demanded that I relinquish control and this works very well for me and for them. Typically a client will have viewing, playback and back up permissions. With very rare exceptions, this is sufficient for most home and business users. Suspicious clients first think I am attempting to have some form of hold over their equipment, but soon learn this is a very convenient way to avoid extra charges. On the one occasion that my control freak client demanded that I not do this, he ended up messing up my settings and not recording a crime that was perpetrated against him. Faced with a huge recommissioning bill he claimed to have NEVER once touched the settings, but I was able to show him the log proving that was a lie and reminding him that I did not have a user account on his DVR, Now he relinquished control to my normal way of doing things, he's a happy man and we have a great business relationship. I make changes to settings for him remotely on the odd occasion and he is grateful for that and can concentrate on his business knowing that I will sort out any problems without fuss. My point is that you as the supplier have a responsibility to your clients to ensure their experience is a good one and they are not the technician, you are and have that responsibility.You are the expert and must protect your clients from all these potential issues. Retailers are great at ignoring this moral responsibility as it's not enforceable in law. 'If you pay peanuts the best you can expect is monkeys'

I have networked 4 Hikvision DVRs a total of 64 cameras, These were on an industrial manufacturing site where there was a great 10/100 network with fiber connections so I piggybacked the CCTV on the LAN and the cameras can be viewed by any PC on the network Each user will of course require an account on each DVR but after setting that up they simply use the lan address of the DVR typically 192.168.0.201:88 and 192.168.0.202:82can log into teach DVR or they can use the IVMS software and view all dvrs simultaneously. Using a browser it is possible to open a tab for each DVR and click between them, of course only necessary if there is more than one DVR. Whats all this talk about latency, you merely have to watch the bandwidth to avoid DELAYS but there are no guarantees unless the CCTV has it's own LAN or you cap the bitrate. There are also two 32inch televisions in the main office which display the 64 cameras between them 24/7. These seem to work fine. I did reduce the fps to increase the speed a little but there was little effect. Each viewer needs a user account on each device with appropriate permissions set according to their purpose in logging in. Face it, you cannot 'invent a solution', you must use whats available, to your best advantage.

You could always demolish the wall or paint it..?

If these cams are on their own ground rod, that is probably part of the issue. You want everything tied to a common ground so all equipment is at the same voltage potential. Separate ground rods are going to be at different potentials during a surge event which is going to cause current to flow(unless they are tied together with some heavy copper) EDIT: just realized this is a pretty old thread....but still helpful for reference purposes Old or not, its absolutely fascinating!

Gb got it SPOT ON... as the load increases the voltage drops but if it doesn't the voltage is potentially too high for the camera. In other word the PSU is rated in watts ( a good indication that its unregulated) and the voltage will reduce to 12v ONLY when the load is equal to 4 cameras. Put just one on and the voltage will be too high. a regulated PSU can support one or 4 cameras without risk, therefore the removeal of a camera for say cleaning or servicing doesn't put the others at risk. Thats what happens when you go hunting for bargains. I'm willing to bet if you'd known that BEFORE buying you would not have bought it? Cut your losses and buy a 12V/5 amp regulated power supply from either a local electronics store or from ebay. The good news is these are not so expensive so you will only have lost a small amount on the unregulated switching power supply unit you bought. Thank goodness you came on here to ask. It could have potentially cost you a camera also

Won't be long before someone comes up with a crackin solution. The one you mention is common to those wifi inspection cameras that use your mobile smartphone as a viewer. All you need is to download th app to your smartphone and you're in business.

Thanks for your reply ... the reason I'm asking is that they are currently on offer at a price much lower than I could get the Hiks for ... I currently have a couple of the 3MP Hiks and they're great but want a couple of extra cameras where lower res units would be fine ... I could get two of these for less than I paid for a single 3MP Hik. Dave Well whatever you do, hope it al works out for you...

Reading online watching youtube videos and following this forum is probably a good start.