ctbaker

Hi, I am just beginning to play around with a Hikvision setup. I am running one of the 3mp Hikvision bullets connected to a Hikvision NVR. The NVR auto-detects the camera and I can connect to the NVR from my main home computer (on the same network) but I cannot connect via web browser to the camera that is plugged in to the NVR. It looks like I get a lot more camera setting adjustments if I can connect to the camera directly. I am running on a 192.168.1.x LAN IP block. The NVR configures itself when I check for it to use the router's DHCP server and assigns an IP address to the camera but I can't ping the camera IP address. Also, if I try to ping the IP address of where the camera is supposedly at I get "Destination host unreachable" Any ideas? UPDATE: I installed and ran the Hikvision SADP software and it only sees the NVR. Does this mean that the only way to connect directly to the cameras is to use a POE injector so I can power the camera outside of the NVR? If I did that, can I make all the camera specific adjustments and then hook it back into the NVR? Not elegant but it is doable I suppose. Thanks! Chad

I recently purchased an AVTech AVN80X camera. I was messing around with it and everything appeared to be working fine. I updated the firmware to the latest version and everything appeared to still work fine. I moved the camera to a new location to set it up and am running into problems. The camera is directly connected to the router using a CAT5 cable. If I try to login to the camera using the web browser to http://192.168.1.10:88 a page will load which only says "File not found". I have confirmed that the camera is at 192.168.1.10 and that my router assigns IP addresses in that range. If I click on the configuration "gear" icon in the EagleEyes Android application I also get a page that says "File not found" in the application. I am able to view video using the Android application. I can connect to the camera and change configuration settings in the Windows VideoViewer software available for download from the EagleEyes website. I have reset the camera using the reset button on the back with that resolving the problem. How can I make the web browser connect to the camera? How do I fix the error in the android application? I wonder if this has something to do with the firmware update? UPDATE: Was an issue with my recent firmware update. I only updated one of the two files necessary. Was able to flash both files via the windows VideoViewer software and that fixed the problem. Thanks, Chad

Hi, I am not sure what is going on. When I first installed the cameras, they all looked pretty clear at night. A few weeks ago, one of the cameras starting showing a real noisy picture at night. All the cameras are running the same settings so I am not sure why one would be doing this. I updated the camera to the latest firmware (5.1) and no dice. I also logged on to the camera and did a full reset and have powered it down, rebooted, etc. with no change. The cameras are running into a Hikvision NVR. I have included some screenshots below to illustrate the problem and to show my settings (look around the area not lit up by the IR and you can see the noise, during live video it is very noticable). Daytime shots look great. Any ideas what is going on and how to fix it? Thanks! Chad Current night time picture from camera. Current night time picture from same make/model camera mounted at another location at house. Image Settings on cameras: Steam quality settings on cameras:

Update to original post. I have just been ignoring the problem because I didn't want to deal with it but my picture has been getting worse. I recently updated my NVR to the latest firmware (2.3.7) and that didn't help a thing. Today I updated all the cameras to the newest firmware (5.1.2) and that did the trick. From what I can tell, when the WDR setting was turned on, the camera setting was somehow either doing like 0 or 100 but nothing in between. The NVR firmware update allows you to adjust all the camera settings and updating the cameras to the latest firmware got rid of all the noise I was having. Happy once again.

Hi, You are going to need to get in to your router to redirect network traffic on port 80 to the NVR or pick some unused port and redirect that to port 80 on your internet network to the IP address of the NVR. Have you tried this yet? I only opened up ports 8000 and 5544 to get the smartphone app working. I use OpenVPN to get into my network if I need to get direct browser access to the NVR from my smartphone.

Do you have the substream option available? Without it, you may have issues getting any video appear in the smartphone app. I had that option disappear and had to do a couple of things to get it back. See this thread for more info-> http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=38038

Yes, I am recording all 4 cameras at 3MP, 10 fps, 4096 Kpbs bitrate.

What about the Hikvision DS-9632NI-ST? It is a 32-channel NVR. http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/Products_show.asp?id=5575 I have the DS-7608NI-SE/8P with 4 cameras currently hooked up to it for a month now and I don't have any complaints but then I don't know better at this point either!

I had this problem as well and it drove me crazy for a few days. I tried all sorts of steps and finally did this: 1. Log on to the camera directly (not the NVR) and perform a full factory reset of the camera from the Maintenance menu. (I did this by plugging a laptop into one of the NVR ports) 2. Once the factory reset has completed, power down the camera (I did this by unplugging the network cable to the NVR as the NVR switch includes POE). 3. Waited 30 seconds and powered the camera back up (plugged the network cable back in). If I remember right, this brought back the substream option for my cameras. Hopefully this will work in your case as well.

Hi, I have a Netgear WNDR3700v1 power supply (12VDC, 2.5A) that works to power my Hikvision 3MP bullet and dome cameras but I have no idea what the barrel size of the plug is. I want to get a passive POE injector that I can use to power a camera standalone of the NVR and want to confirm the power supply barrel should be 5.5mm x 2.1mm or 3.5mm x 1.35mm since these appears to be common sizes for the passive POE Injector adapters. Or is it something else? Thanks Chad

I would like to thank everyone who has responded to this thread. All the responses have been extremely helpful!

Hi, I have a Hikvision camera setup (3mp bullets and dome) and a Hikvision NVR. After some preliminary testing, I found that I can't directly connect to the cameras that are connected to the NVR and the NVR doesn't allow me to tweak all the camera settings. After some thought, it seems like I can go two routes as I can still return the NVR. 1. Keep Hikvision NVR and buy a POE injector for when I need to connect directly to a camera, taking the camera out of the NVR environment for tweaking purposes and then reconnect when done. 2. Return the Hikvision NVR and buy a NAS and separate 8-port POE switch and have all the 3MP Hikvision cameras record to that. This would allow me to connect to any camera at will and the camera firmware appears to support this option. Problem is that I don't know how viable the NAS setup is. Can I record 8 streams of 3MP data to the NAS w/ a single drive at once and it will keep up? How do you go about making sure the content gets overwritten properly since you have independent cameras sending to the NAS? I was looking at the Synology DS213 NAS enclosure ($300) and then I'd need some combination of gigabit switches (at least for traffic volume to NAS?) to tie it all together for another ($250-300). So the difference in options is like $425 for the NVR and POE injector setup or $600 for the NAS and switch setup. I'd really appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts on this topic. Thanks! Chad

Hi, I asked this question recently regarding a Hikvision NVR. Please see my thread regarding links on the forums here that may work for you plus a youtube video. http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=37471

Here is the list of tested hard drive with that NVR. http://www.hikvision.com/en/support_more.asp?id=236 I bought a Seagate 5900rpm 3TB NAS HDD (Model ST3000VN00) for mine but am wondering about returning it for a 7200 rpm drive. I looked at the Seagate 7200rpm 3TB Video Surveillance HDD (Model ST3000VX000) but the reviews on Newegg were pretty abysmal with a high rate of the drives dying in the first couple of months of use. Thanks!

Hi, Thanks for your reply and the valuable info about telnet-ing into the NVR. I found this thread... http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=35369&p=217655&hilit=telnet+nvr#p217655 ...regarding Dahua NVRs but I would expect the procedure to be the same as long as it is running some flavor of Linux. Thanks! Chad

Hi, Thanks for the reply. Can I use any switch for this or must I use a POE switch since the cameras need POE? I have a spare TRENDnet 8-Port Unmanaged Gigabit GREENnet Standard Switch laying around but it is not POE. You are describing something like this? CAMERA -> SWITCH -> NVR BUILT IN POE SWITCH If I would need a separate POE switch, could I use a power injector to take each camera out of the NVR setup, do all the camera specific configurations and then hook it back to the NVR? The reason I ask this is that I am thinking that once I get the camera set up, I shouldn't need to get back into it's settings again or at least not very often. Buying a 8-port POE switch is expensive. Thanks, Chad

I have been getting the firmware from Nelly's Technical Guide website. While I can connect to the Hikvision USA FTP website, I have no idea what the username/password is. Can I get a PM with that info? My camera and NVR are in the mail but I'd like to have all the firmware pre-downloaded to update the hardware. Thanks!

I just bought one of the 3MP bullets and the Hikvision 8-channel NVR and it is on-route at the moment. It appears the positives are that the NVR is low power and it is self contained vs. using a PC to do this. The only down sides I can think of is that you don't get push notifications (but email and FTP are there) via the Hikvision smartphone app and I don't know how good the NVR software is. I have helped a co-worker manage his DVR software on an analog Q-See system from Costco and it was a bit painful to use but not horrible. I am hoping these newer NVR setups will be a lot nicer to manage. Does Blue Iris provide for push notifications via a smartphone companion app? Is there another way to get push notifications from the Hikvision NVR? I'll post more info once I get my system and have done some basic testing with it. Thanks

Hi, I am finally ready to move forward with my system. At this point I'd like to buy a single Hikvision bullet for testing purposes and then go all in with the DS-7608NI-SE/8P NVR and additional bullets and a dome. My questions has to do with the bullets. I see you can get the DS-2CD2032-I w/ 4mm lens and swap it out for 6mm or 12mm lenses or there is a vari-focal camera available as DS-2CD2632F-I(S). I'd like to move the camera around from location to location to figure out what lens I need at each location. I don't see anyone selling the 6mm or 12mm lenses or the vari-focal camera. Are the lenses or vari-focal camera available in the USA anywhere? Thanks, Chad

Since the cost of a 4 camera Swann 2MP system from Costco ($1200) is the same price as buying the same setup using Hikvision 3MP cameras and the Hikvision NVR from Nellys, will the vari-focal Swann 2MP (Hikvision sourced) camera from Costco work on a Hikvision branded system from Nellys fine? Can I flash the Hikvision firmware to the vari-focas Swann 2MP camera? http://www.costco.com/Swann-1080p-HD-IP-Vari-Focal-Bullet-Camera.product.100070294.html Thanks, Chad

So, now that some time has passed since the beta release of the new firmware. What is the verdict of the night performance of the 3MP and 5MP E-series cameras? I am eagerly wanting to pick one up to begin my home camera build but the night time performance looks pretty grainy from the pre-beta firmware. The dahua ipc-hfw3300c looks to have much better night performance but is impossible to get in the US from what I can tell. Thanks!

I see that buellwinkle put up his review of the E33 camera (Thanks for the review!). By the looks of the long distance out of the focus area of the video having a "water color" or cell shaded affect, I am thinking that the 3MP cameras deliver a better quality picture. E32 daytime sample video E33 daytime sample video Is the issue with the 5MP video from the E33 something that can be addressed with firmware or is it a camera sensor issue? I am thinking of grabbing either the E32 (fixed lens) or E42 (vari-focal lens) 3MP camera to try out and then build the rest of my system with a combination or E-series or L-series cameras (once the L-series is released). I found another E33 video on youtube at 1080p and it looks much better than the E33 footage that buellwinkle posted. Comments? Thanks!

Thanks for reviewing the E32, can't wait to see the review of the E33 so I can go out and pick either 3MP or 5MP bullet up! Thanks, Chad

I am very interested in these as well. Thinking of picking up a bullet camera just to play with this setup before committing. I see on the domes at least that there is mention of "Basic WDR" and "Superior WDR" on some of the cameras. Any ideas as to what that means exactly? Basic WDR example: http://www.acti.com/product/detail/Dome_Camera/E83 Superior WDR example: http://www.acti.com/product/detail/Dome_Camera/E86 Also, is the ACTi Not For Resell Program open to everyone and what are the prices like? I'd love to try out a single camera first before jumping all in and getting one for a great price is even better. Thanks!

I have an AVN80X camera set up in vacation house with the PUSH Video alert set up and found out after checking on the camera that the push video alert was not being sent even though the camera was recording video of a guy living in the house for 2 weeks after breaking in!! Fortunately, we were able to get the police over there and they arrested the guy but he made a big mess of the house. Good news is it doesn't look like anything/much was stolen. So, I had to drive to the house (4 hours away) and download all the video and get it to the police. I took the camera down while I was over there and reset it in the same basic location as before and now once it gets dark, the camera has a "MOTION TRIGGER!" alert that is basically continuous whenever it is night time. The camera isn't rigidly mounted but it is in what I would consider a location that isn't vibrating or anything. I switched over to email alerts and now I am receiving hundreds of emails a night. This is obviously frustrating. I have tried changing the motion sensitivity between 1 and 10 and nothing seems to help and I painted over certain areas (windows and a lighted lightswich) that I thought could be triggering it but no luck. Looking at the live feed shows everything pitch black except the lighted lightswitch. Any ideas what is going on here and can it be addressed somehow remotely? Thanks!