adamxp12

Okay so I will start by saying I personally hate all NVR software Why? their all either expensive or just plain garbage. I am looking for someone to guide me here. Have been running xprotect essentials+ 2017 which was working great until I had an issue with the server an had to nuke the VM. so in the mean time I used zoneminder which I absolutely hated. the interface is worse than anything on earth but it helped me stay recording. so just sat down to try and re-install xprotect but the 2017 installer no longer works and the 2018 version just wont install. it needs like 8Gb of memory which is crazy considering 2017 only needed 2gb. So I am now at a loss I have dismissed the following Xprotect (2018 is broken) Zoneminder (kill it with fire) Avigilon (nice but would have to re-mortgage the house to buy a single camera) BlueIris (wasnt keen on it) Luxriot (wont install in a VM) March Command (not installing silverlight) iSpy (awful UI) My requirements are simple. I need 8 cameras. and have a mix of manufactures mainly Axis, Panasonic and Honeywell. I would like to use on camera motion detection if possible but not a huge requirement. Am I missing something here? is the a free/cheap solution to my problem that is not junk. it seems all NVR/VMS software companies want is to charge the highest per camera price these days and the free offerings just feel like toys. I am only dealing with a home setup but I like to use quality hardware I am a proper geek and nothing I have seen seems to come close to being usable in a home unless I take out a loan for Avigilon or Exacq

Ok so I have been scrtaching my head for past few hours on this and I am hoping someone here has a better idea (would ask on xprotect forum but they shut it down...) Running xprotect essential+ 2017 R2 and its been hit and miss. my front door camera is a panasonic dome and xprotect wont do camera side motion detection but server side is fine and recording good. I then have 2 Axis video encoders hooked up to analogue cameras one static just until I get a new HD camera up and one ptz which will stay a PTZ as IP PTZ cameras are crazy expensive. the problem is with the static one. got a motion detection zone in the encoder (Axis 241s if it helps) and when used with another peice of NVR software (March Networks Command Lite) it worked flawlessly So imaginge my surprise when I go to xprotect add the camera, disable server side motion detection and add the events for motion start and motion stop and... absolutly nothing in the event settings on the cameras web interface I can see xprotect has added a server with its IP and 2 events for motion start and stop and looking in the encoder log files I can even see the events triggering but nothing on the xprotect playback screen. I have the default on motion start rule enabled so I assume either essential+ does not support this (makes you wonder why I can select it) or something is horribly broken here. clean install on a empty windows 7 VM so I highly doubt its a installation issue. event server is running and with nothing suspicious in the log file. Also if this helps the Output terminals on the encoders will not switch, I add them into xprotect and try clicking them in the management client and it stays gray and does not activate so that might be connected. Also would love to know how to do continuous recording with the abbility to go through the timeline and select motion events as recording only on motion in my eyes is stupid as you could miss vital footage and how can I explain to the police "oh the crook moved out the motion zone so it didnt record" Would love some help from someone who knows xprotect inside and out. getting better at it and I do like it more than last time I tried it but if I cant fix the camera side motion detection then I will have to ditch it.

actually Axxon Next has a windows mobile app, so the are options out there but they dont seem willing to sell it or at least not in UK anyway Will try that, haven't got gateway installed at moment but will give it a shot

looks really neat, unfortunately avigilon don't have an app for windows mobile which sucks but maybe a future addition? they can quickly convert their IOS app to windows phone with some tools microsoft makes available, but will see about that if I decide to go Avigilon, but so far I have found little I don't like about it and to answer your follow up question of why not use Android or IOS IOS: gave up on apple, IOS is stale and boring, and battery sucks Android: just feels tacked together, the way each manufacture installs bloatware and its quite easy to get a virus, feels like windows xp on a desktop more than a phone and android runs Java and as someone who once coded Java I can see why its such a meh OS

You can install the client on an unlimited number of computers. Any limits are simultaneous connections, and cell phones are not clients. FWIW, ten homes in my neighborhood have Avigilon. I use the client to monitor all ten servers and dozens of cameras at once. One word of caution. If you don't plan to go with Avigilon, then don't try the demo. The Avigilon video server is exceptionally fast, and if you try the demo, then you will be disappointed when you install something else. Best, Christopher Thanks Christopher, been talking with ak356 about Avigilon and have tried the demo, and am very impressed and pricing is decent too so out of everything I have tried I will probably go Avigilon unless someone can trump it but somehow doubt that after 5 minutes of playing about

fine with paying as I hear good things about it, but the big question is how much will I have to pay, I was under assumption that avigilon was enterprise not really designed for home or SMB usage and with that assumption I assume a price tag of 4 figures which is out of question for home use Edit: had a look over at avigilon's site and a few things stand out as weird 1) with Core edition max of 2 client licences, so how does that work, is that per computer or per device total as I will have at least 3 computers and maybe 2 phones that would need connecting and if I need a client licence for each then I would need to go for standard edition which I would assume if more expensive which is fine but bit weird charging for clients if I am understanding that correctly 2) Alarm search is only on enterprise, might be wrong here but does that also count for I/O on cameras as I plan to use a few PIR's and would like to be able to see when its trigged and see events, but that might count as event search 3) Saved layouts again only in higher tier versions, seems like such a simple feature that I personally think should be standard across whole range, not a deal breaker but just confusing, and kinda annoying, want to quickly log in and get view of cameras not have to drag them all into the view like the demo I saw on youtube 3) Interested in some of their cameras, I haven't bought anything yet except the 4x existing panasonic non hd cameras I own, I saw that on ebay a 1 megapixel box style aviglon is about £150 (I assume new) if thats true then I am very interested as cheapest hikvision equivalent would be £300 if I remember correctly overall looks really good, and the use of in camera motion detection is great as my plan is to install it on a ESXI host so not as much CPU horsepower as a bare metal server and if the PIRs wont work in core edition then I guess in camera motion detection would still be a huge bonus over other offerings

So gonna start by saying what I have tried just to prevent people posting about stuff that does not fit my needs Blueiris, no windows phone app, no external event support (as far as im aware) but I do like the one small payment approach Xprotect Essentials, its free for 8 cameras, but Milestone in their horrible money grabbing ways force you to have a 5 second nag screen on smart client, for what they would call a small upgrade, 8 extra cameras, and some support contract for the low price of (put your coffee down) £400 a year, I wouldnt mind but at least let me turn off your naggy prompt, I wont be giving them any money also no Windows phone app Axxon Next, Windows phone app is nice change, but free version only does 4 cameras and they dont seem to want business as have no way to buy it without going thorugh some other 3rd party company (companies are stupid doing that if you ask me) so despite liking it from the demo lack of being able to actually buy it prevented me Zoneminder, No Synology DSM, not software NVR so requires a seperate nas unit despite having a home server sitting unused with loads of storage, camera licences are to lunch and back and the web interface is nasty if you ask me So now onto my needs to see if someone here can recomend me something I can actually buy, has what I want preferable windows based but am ok with Linux Software not hardware NVR Cheap or free and would like to avoid per camera fees as they drive me crazy with rage Min 8 camera support External alarm events, either through a HTTP call or through camera I/O Supports range of cameras, Panasonic, JVC, Axis, Hikvision, Dedicated Micros, all cameras I have or plan to use but not many software supports all of them them especially some of the pro brand which dont support ONVIF Windows Phone app would be nice but can live without as long as I can get a MJPEG feed from it to use in some other app is there anything that fits the criteria?, or maybe someone can point me in direction to where I can buy Axxon in UK as it looks quite hopeful sorry for the ranty post but want to upgrade from analogue system but if you ask me all the NVR solutions out there are just about scamming the buyer with per camera licensing, never had this with analogue, imagine buying a 32 camera DVR but only being able to use 2 inputs until you pay some ungodly fee per extra camera thats just my 2 cents, maybe someone has a link to some golden NVR solution not on first 5 pages of google

Got a NetVu DS2AD 6 channel recently but it is suffering quite badly it seems, got many issues A: It always defaults to NTSC despite having PAL cameras hooked up B: The time on DVR resets to the year 1931 every time you boot it up???? C: but main issue is it wont see any IDE devices, i.e the cd drive or the hard drive if it helps the front indicator lights have the live light lit constantly spot, record and playback are flashing also constantly I have a feeling the motherboard is fried but cant find a decently priced one. Any ideas??

In response the app I would try it locally before you try getting it working outside the network if you just put the ip and web port (80) of the dvr in and leave everything at default it should auto detect settings leave username and password blank if you do not have a remote user setup if you need a password to use NetVu observer on pc then obviously use it otherwise leave blank I HIGHLY recommend you create a remote user as this will prevent any one connecting without a password then to get it working outside the network you just port forward the correct ports (can be found in one of the settings page on the webpage) at least the web port and telemetry port (if you want ptz outside network) i got the app working with my SD but that's a newer generation of DVR so has a different menu system and such. I have had the app working on a DVR running NetVu compatible software (not converted) so it should work fine with a converted unit

Sounds like the power supply is shutting down into protection, this can either be a bad power supply or faulty motherboard (unlikely). You mentioned you replaced the fans, have you tried unplugging the fans to see if the unit works without them, it wont harm it to test it without fans What model DS2 is it, DS2P?

You can try removing the other drives and just have the C drive, it will work just fine with only a C drive installed, I have seen computers totally lock up due to a hard drive failing so it may be giving you issues, maybe save the log from serial and pastebin it so I can see whats happening

Okay it looks like it does support NetVu despite what one dm rep told me a year ago the steps that start with m\ must have an esc key before the m so you would press the esc key then type m\username\BX2 when you press the escape key you will prob get some weird character, that is normal when you press enter it should just reply back with OK like this http://prntscr.com/8asme7 The NetVu software does not automatically unzip the files like the older pre NetVu software, your best bet is to unzip them at the serial or telnet console, this is easy as typing unzip c:/(zip file) c:/ that's just a guess on the command as I only have one dvr running NetVu software and its an SD and they don't use drive letters but if you have some experience with command lines you should be able to figure out the correct command for a BX2 The dm website defiantly has the downloads for adding full NetVu to that DVR (despite being named wrong, should be called "BX2 (DVTX) NetVu Connected" but they must of named it wrong as its not in the BX2 part of menu I may have to do the upgrade to my BX2P

The BX2P can only go up to firmware 3.1 (164) and the only BX2 that can be converted to NetVu is the BX2CA and the is the BX2D and BX2DCA which are fully NetVu like the DS2P Confusing naming schemes the BX2P does have the partial NetVu viewing as I can view cameras on my BX2P when using the latest firmware ( 3.1 (164) ) http://cctvrepairs.tk/pdf/dedicatedmicros/NetVuCompatibilityReference.pdf This PDF file shows which DVR's support NetVu and which DVR's have partial NetVu Support and which version they should be running to benefit from the NetVu software I have contacted DM support about my DVR before as the drive did have remains of NetVu software, and they pretty much told me the BX2P cant be upgraded to NetVu and should not be attempted? But I did not even notice that option on the firmware website, I usually use the BX2 options near the top I will have to investigate into that, will contact DM support about it, maybe they can enlighten us, as they did tell me it cant be done before but that would explain why my BX2P drive had NetVu software (non functioning software) when I got it. Last thing we would want is to fry a DVR I fried a DS2 DVTU trying to upgrade to NetVu, as all the documents from DM said that a DVTU can be upgraded, that is not the case, and it basically killed the motherboard. that was a fun afternoon was the BX2 working with the NetVu software before you wiped the drive?

Yeah the CD drive on BX2P is solely for archiving footage but loading the latest software onto an older BX2 is relatively easy Just format the C drive using the formatter tool from the dm website download the latest firmware for your DVR (BX2 DVTX on dm website) and copy all the contents of that zip file onto the c drive when you boot up the dvr it will automaticily install everything and that would be running the latest software which is partial NetVu i.e it allows you to view/control in NetVu observer but it lacks the easy web interface like the DS2P has The iPhone app has been a pain to use but I find it easy to setup just put in the ip of your dvr and the port (usually 80) if you want to access it outside of local network you just forward port 80 to your dvr and use your external IP in the app that way has always worked for me, but I have only ever used it with SD series DVR's

The DM document referred to above gives a name to their flash memory 'chip'. It has the word 'disk' in it. This is probably the 'disk' mentioned during the bootup procedure. I would try using telnet to get into the DS2P but, without the installer p/w, I cannot easily determine the IP. I'm betting there is some kind of command, when connected to the dvr using a serial connection, that would display the ip. I'll look into that. Thanks for your patience and for putting up with my DM newbie efforts. You could try putting the dvr into bootloader mode (select shutdown from the menu but hold down camera number 2 instead of number 1) then connect with serial wait for it to boot then do the +++ to get the console and type Userdef never had to use this on a dvr but the SD and older dvr's seem to store passwords on the hard drive