DavidH

gibbo I bought from this company http://www.lionscctv.com/ guy called Allen Chou Email is allen@lionscctv.com I bought 4 http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/ipc-hfw3301c-357.html asked for them to be Dahua branded. They were well packaged, good communications with him and were sent from China to Scotland. Only problem is I have no idea how to set them up properly as I am new to all of this so another post will be asking the good people of CCTV forum for help as I don't understand what the manuals are actually telling me to do. No idea especially what the microSD card slot is for as its hard to access and use it for footage. Think I will go back to my original idea of running a PC 24/7. Cheers David

ah could it be because my ISP is not supplying me with a static IP address? was looking it up under http://www.whatismyip.com/ and it has changed since I rebooted the PC earlier to sort out my IE11 issues.

ok thanks will have to look into these power supplies once I get everything set up. Finally got IE 11 working with the cameras have to set it in compatibility mode that appears to work and also there were some missing tabs and buttons that you cannot see in Google Chrome. Still can't find out how to access footage on the microSD card. And even though I watched the youtube videos on setting up gDMSS I must be putting in some setting incorrectly as its not giving me access when away from home via my phone. Can anyone give me a bit of help? I think I am making a mistake at the IP, user name and/or password part. Thanks David

Appears only way of resetting is to push the reset button which in my case is not easy to access as the cable on the camera is no long enough to reach through my house wall so its unscrew camera from wall. Anyone got an idiots guide to setting up dahua gdmss for android so I don't lock the cameras again and how do you access the footage on the micro sd card I really think something must be missing as it's not obvious to me. Thanks fo any help such a novice in this. David

ok many thanks I will consider buying one of these. Just been trying to get into the cameras with IE 10 and now updating to IE11 but have managed to lock the cameras. I presume its just a turn off and turn on again to unlock? Google Chrome seems to work for these cameras but I am not convinced all the tabs are available such as the access to the path for video recording. Also I don't see any easy way of accessing the data from the microSD cards I have installed in the camera. David

its not likely to cause any damage to the cameras is it, running 12.9 volts into them?

oh did not know they even existed to be honest. Have you got an example of one that I could see?

Just an update it turns out it is a power issue even though the cameras are lighting up there was not enough power. I disconnected all cameras. Connected one at a time still only 2 worked. Decided to connect one of the non working ones and started to up the voltage. At 12.5V the camera stared to network and analogue output. Connected all 4 and 2 went out again. Put the supply up to 12.7V and all was ok until all the IR LED's lit up have upped it again to 12.9V at present and all are working well. Has anyone ever come across such a strange scenario the cables are about 15m long to the 2 non working cameras so maybe there was a bit of a voltage drop. Now how do I set these up well !!!

From china but an authorised dahua dealer definitely genuine have dahua etc on camera in silver writing. The config tool on cd only picks up 2 cameras. It gives me a ipv4 and ipv6 address for them. I can access them and change ip settings etc. May disconnect all of them tonight and power them up one at a time to see what happens. Strange though no analogue output from bnc output at all would have expected it to work no matter what was up with ip setup.

I have a power supply checked the voltage on that and its 12.1volts going into it. Its a pretty large power supply so should not have any problems powering them. Here is a picture on eBay of it http://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-10A-DC-Switching-Power-Supply-CCTV-110V-220V-OUT-/260739669030?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cb54b9c26 Power is definitely getting to it, it appears stable and its 10amp rated so enough juice to keep them running. What are you thinking could it be a power supply issue?? Thanks David

any recommendation for mic manufacturers or specifications? Buellwinkle are you on every post on this forum ? lol. Going to order up my dahua ipc-hfw3301C's tomorrow probably. The company says they have a cheap mic at $9 and an expensive one at $50. Plenty of places on eBay selling them just thought I would get a few from there instead. David

yes had a few email chats with her. Think there was a bit of a language barrier and she kept giving me her own product codes. I kept asking were these for their own make of camera or Dahua she finally said Dahua but my confidence had gone. Think she was $300 approx for the 3300 not sure if I ever got a price for the 3301 but all others have definitely been much more expensive. Like you say change in sensor appears to be main thing and addition of WDR although the 3300 has DWDR what ever the difference is I don't know except its a TLA to a FLA !!

TLA brilliant I was googling it and everything thinking what can that mean maybe its something I need to learn more about. Is that the HK one you mentioned to me before with the lady called Cherry?

companies over here in the UK are charging a load more for the 3301 though see http://www.ipcamerasuk.co.uk/bullet-ip-cameras/3-megapixel-bullet-cameras now these are high prices!! One of the Chinese companies is charging $330 for the 3301 and only $280 for the 3300 so what do you think the extra $50 really gets if the sensor is cheaper? Is there a difference between DWDR (D for digital I presume?) and WDR on the spec of the cameras? Sorry not great on the terms what is/are TLA's? Any recommendations on mics?

ah so no inbuilt mic just the ability to send it over ethernet. Will ask the company if they can supply mic's as well. Can you really record that much on a 32gb card though? Would be good if you could set it to record to card then when you turn on PC that the card video is downloaded to the PC where I have 5TB of storage. Edit : meant to ask have you looked at this new 3301 or do you think its pretty much a 3300 only with WDR?

guys probably mainly buellwinkle as you are always so helpful. I am just about to buy 4 http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/ipc-hfw3301c-357.html and bring them in from China. Question about this camera and the HFW4300S is, they all have microSD card slots in the camera. I presume you can record to this card directly but what is the real advantage of this? Can I maybe record to this without my PC being on (not using an NVR) then when I turn on the PC will the pc software download all the images from the SD card or is there some other reason for it? Does the audio come down the RF45 ethernet cable and is that recorded as well on the PC or do you have to connect audio cables separately? Many thanks for any information. David

I know its a while back now for this thread but have http://www.dahua-europe.com/contact gone under? Does anyone know or recommend a supplier somewhere in Europe for me for the dahua http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/ipc-hfw3301c-357.html or as given a good write up by buellwinkle http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=1258 the http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/ipc-hfw3300c--15.html After a recent and still ongoing problem with my last import from China of cameras, which are still stuck in customs back in china I would prefer to by a bit closer to home. Within Europe I should be able to miss most of the VAT customs etc. etc. getting them back to Scotland UK. Oh and in case Dahua are watching any chance you could respond to any of the emails I have been sending you. Your customer service is truly awful I hope I never have to contact you about a problem. David

I have just sent back 4 anran cameras http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171038455656?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 and I am waiting for a refund as after a firmware update they failed and said I was using xiongmai pirated software. The suppliers could not get them working and I had lost trust in the product. I came across this company http://www.hkvstar.com/category/ip-network-camera.html and they seem very professional and good looking cameras etc. Anyone bought one of their 3 or 5mp IP cameras? Not sure on prices as yet probably more than the anrans but hopefully they work. Any other suggestions for cheap cameras? I really can't afford most listed in the sticky such as acti, axis, arecont etc. etc. Thanks David

ah found a flaw with the hikvision after reading your reviews buellwinkle. They dont appear to have a BNC output. I want to run an analogue signal into my TV distribution system as I cannot see how to do that with a digital signal. The digital info goes to my PC where I record it onto a 2TB hard drive. I have set up a good fast LAN for this and the last cameras only used about 10% capacity for 4 of them on all the time and recording. I wanted to only record when motion was detected but again this did not work on the anrans. Or another option that I had on the analogue Ganz was to record only a few frames per sec then when motion was detected to record at highest fps and quality. Why the IP cameras I bought could not do this I don't know but that was when I got the firmware update and they all failed etc. David

Thanks buellwinkle for the reply. I would love to buy proper branded ones but they are a crazy price. I am either not looking properly in the UK or very few CCTV companies here realise there is something better than analogue. I was considering even trying to locate good companies in the USA or elsewhere to try yet another import. The anran ones appeared reasonable for the money as I paid as much for them as the Ganz analogue ones they replaced and the picture was better not miles better but better. However, I do see some pics on this forum from even 1.3mp ones that appear better than those 2mp ones. I like the sounds of the hikvision ones may need to start emailing companies world wide for prices. So far this new company seem very efficient quick with the live chat quick with price lists etc. and they say they are one of the largest suppliers of home security in China. Can anyone verify that? Just tried to attach their prices etc but pdf is not allowed on this forum.

Thanks very much for the information that has really helped me work some of it out in my head. Do you have any recommendations for a NAS or possibly an NVR instead of the NAS? Dlink, synology, Qnap etc.? and what sort of data throughput do you think I would need. I am planning on having the IPC ticking over at a low frame rate then increasing on motion detection to what ever they are able to max to. With my analogue system they record 4fps then jump to 30fps (i think) once motion is detected, this allows the present 500gb drive to last over 1 month. Cheers again David

Hi just new and need some advice as I really know nothing much. I am replacing a 4 x 720TVL analogue system and was thinking of 4 of these http://www.securitycamera2000.com/products/Outdoor-5-Megapixels-Sensor-Full-HD-1080P-Waterproof-IP-Camera-40m-IR.html?setCurrencyId=2 Are they any good in your opinion? I also need to store the data from them would that be ok to a PC or would I need a high performance NAS and what NAS do you guys recommend? Final one is there a way I can output the picture from the NAS/PC to my TV amplifier so I can see the CCTV picture on any of my TV's? At present I can do this with a second output from my analogue jpeg2000 DVR via an RF modulator but have no idea if that possible from the digital system Thanks for any information been reading a lot on here and really have a brain meltdown with far too much information. David