cwm123

In looking at the Hikvision Chinese web site I think the difference may be that the 3332 does not have a mount, but the 2332 does. I have the 3332 (love them) and they came without their own mount. I have not ordered a 2332 version so I can't confirm my theory.

There are several detailed discussions of this in the forum if you search back a few months.

Yea, there are clearly multiple issues here. One of them is an addressing/routing problem; because the addressing isn't right, there likely is a situation where there are both address conflicts and excessive traffic hitting the router LAN port (I'd guess the the address 192.168.1.1 is used by two devices - the server and the router LAN port). If you get the addressing right, the cameras won't be spraying the router with traffic... the network switch takes care of only sending traffic to the destination port it needs to go to (old hubs sent the packets everywhere). Beyond that it seems like the server is under spec for the traffic. But upgrading the router ports won't make any difference unless the WAN is faster than something around 100Mbs.

Right, if you are connected to the LAN side of the NVR through a switch (the normal way you would have your network setup), then you will not be able to access the cameras directly so you can only administer them through the NVR using the web interface to the NVR (not to the Camera) or the iVMS-4200 application talking to the NVR. In both of these cases you don't get the "advanced settings" options for the picture. If you want to access those settings you can either (1) hookup a computer to an unused PoE port, or (2) move the camera to the LAN side - I guess either can be a temporary solution until you get the settings as you wish. Chris

Thanks for all the feedback; was hoping for a quick insight on something I was being dense about ... so I could avoid the moving of cameras for testing. But seems like some side by side testing is in order. Will post those results, hopefully this week! Thanks again for all the suggestions.

It seems like you just have the addressing a bit messed up. You say the server IP is 192.168.1.1 & the DHCP scope offered is 192.168.2.1-254 But then that the subnet is 255.255.255.0; which means you are not getting both of those address ranges. Then you say all are pointed at the server which is the gateway but the gateway should be the router. Would suggest that the LAN interface of the router is 192.168.1.1 server gets a static IP of 192.168.1.10 cameras stay where they are DHCP scope 192.168.1.150-254 everything has subnet mask 255.255.255.0

I'm struggling with poor night image quality from my Lorex/Hikvision bullet cameras. As you can see in the first video below, the camera has a lot of noise and just generally poor image quality -- a daytime clip is at the end of the video. Compared to a the second video which is a Hikvision DS-2CD2332-I, the image is virtually noise free. I've fiddled with the camera settings and have become very good at making the image worse, but not better. Hoping someone here can offer me some insights on whether this is fixable or if I need different cameras in this location. yYUn1i4vwoA t2AKCuVgNR8

One shortcoming with the PoE connections, although not new, is that you cannot access the advanced picture settings, (WDR, Noise reduction, etc., etc.). You can only access them through a web browser or the iVMS-4200 software if the cameras are connected to your LAN (or your PC is connected to the PoE port of the NVR). Putting the cameras on the LAN will work fine technically. You have to setup the cameras manually so it is a little more hassle. The big drawback to me is security; with the PoE ports if someone grabbed my ethernet cable from a camera and hooked up a computer to it, they wouldn't get past the NVR; but with the camera on the LAN, my exterior cables become an easier access point into my LAN.

I upgraded my Lorex unit to Hikvision 2.3.4 today; I was able to do the update without problem through TFTP even though the onscreen update process has the same result others encountered of leaving the unit in a state where it had to be reset with a code from Hikvision. TFTP process is more of a hassle but is not that bad. Get the Hikvision TFTP tool, put the firmware .dav file in the directory with the TFTP program, set your IP to 192.0.0.64 and reboot the NVR. Just remember to turn off the TFTP server after it sends the firmware over, otherwise you just end up repeating it over and over... The PoE ports work fine. I had to reset all my cameras -- the Lorex firmware leaves them in a state that Hikvision doesn't talk to. I just set them to factory defaults with the 5.0.2 firmware and cameras were automatically connected on all 8 ports.

Buellwinkle, did you have to go through the serial/reset process to install 2.3.4 or were you able to get through the upgrade "clean"?

My stock Lorex screen looks like this:

Two thoughts on the PoE problem you mention based on this mention in the release notes: The Hikvision firmware expects a default password of 12345, not the Lorex default of 000000. Seems like this is the big deal using any none Lorex camera with the stock unit -- changing the password. Also, the release notes say the PoE network ports got an IP address change in 5.0. Although the NVR "should" find the camera regardless of the IP address range maybe changing them to the 192.168.254 segment will help. My follow-up questions: has anyone been able to change from Lorex to Hikvision firmware on these units without needing a serial reset code to get the NVR going again? Also, who/how did you contact Hikvision to get this code when you needed it? Thanks.

I've been trolling through the many postings here looking for a bit more specifics on getting and putting the Hikvision version of their NVR firmware onto the Lorex branded unit. Although this is mentioned a lot, I can't find real specifics anywhere. Can someone who has done this weigh in with a quick "how to"? Thanks!