Heuer

I have one of these cameras(the 2CD2332-I European version at least) and I wanted it mounted outside on a wall. I decided the easiest option was to buy the associated DS-1239ZJ aluminium wall bracket/junction box. This is the one listed under accessories in the DS-2CD2332-I brochure and also cross referenced as being correct on the Hikvision web site. Beautifully made and VERY expensive (50% the cost of the camera!) so imagine my disappointment to find the (six) mounting holes on the bracket in no way match up to the (three) mounting holes on the camera. No idea what camera this bracket was originally intended for, but certainly not the 2332. In the end I elected to drill two holes in the camera mount casting that aligned correctly with two of those on the bracket. Even then some fettling was required along with a countersunk hole to clear the camera cowl. Camera looks and works well on the mount but you would think Hikvision would at least verify the compatibility. Other than this one there is no other mount available. I also had to drill a hole in the side for the Cat5 cable.

For V5.1 you need to search for 5001DCC09DE54900001A0B005CE14700001A and change it to 5001DCC09DE5000000000B005CE100000000

+1 - great information. Anyone tried to patch V5.1 so it does not lose the NAS share during change or reboot. The hack works for 5.0.

Am I correct in thinking this is a 'cosmetic' change and will not overcome the issue of upgrading the Chinese camera with EU/US firmware via the browser?

Yes, I looked at that one but it seemed far too comprehensive for a home CCTV system that everyone in the house could use if need be, without training. XProtect Go just needs a new registration each year to get the latest version and remains free AFAIK.

I have Hikvision dome and turret in 2.8mm and unless you are concerned about vandalism my recommendation would be the turret DS-2CD2332-I with EXIR because it can be tilted and adjusted to any angle (it is essentially an eyeball). It also does not suffer from IR bleed and the IR light is extremely powerful. Bear in mind you will need the associated (expensive!) mounting bracket DS-1239ZJ-1 if you can't mount it direct to a ceiling or other horizontal (ish) surface. The VF cams are OK if you can't decide what field of view you need but that adds to the cost and you lose some image sharpness.

I am a DIY'er (aka "Billy Joe Bob") and I have bought cameras from a local supplier and from Aliexpress for half the price. No difference in quality and the service from the Aliexpress dealer I chose was superb. I also tried a good few security software packages as trials from the Hikvision supplied software to the topend Pro products. In the end I opted for Milestone XProtect Go because it is logically laid out, easy to use and the mobile app is the best I have found. There are two limitations with Go I found wearisome - 5 day retention of data limit and the lack of choice of output format of recordings. For a home system though it is unlikely you are going to need longer history and the video evidence, if ever required, is still there in a format the Police can use. I would also have liked archiving to a NAS but you need to step up a couple of rungs on the product ladder to get that. XProtect Go is a bargain product and if you buy your Hikvision cameras (my chosen vendor after much research) from Aliexpress you can have a state of the art security system for a really good price. Currently my favourite camera is the Hikvision DS-2CD2332-I EXIR turret for both day and night resolution and ease of set-up (select Hikvision 8x3 in the device pack). Have to admit I eventually opted for the Xprotect Essential licence but with hindsight I wish I had not bothered as I am unlikely to go beyond four cameras.

Does that mean you need one partition per camera or can you use a single partition with multiple shares, each dedicated to a camera?

You just renew every year by downloading the latest version for free.

Thanks. As far as I can see the ReadyNAS Ultra supports shares but does not allow you to partition the disk space so I am somewhat stuffed. XProtect Essential does not support archiving to a NAS. I only started using the Hikvision f/w to record to the NAS out of curiosity and it does work with the earlier f/w, albeit with the hack. I have two more cameras coming and they will have 5.1 so I was trying to get a common standard - guess I will give up on the NAS until Hikvision decide to do something to help us out.

Did you download and install the latest Device Pack V7.1? You can also manually search for your cameras by putting in the IP address and XProtect will do the rest.

Yes, I created dedicated shares (with quotas) for each camera on my ReadyNAS Ultra 4+ so they should only see the disk space dedicated to each. The HDD list shows 5543Gb capacity and 2427Gb free space. Each share has a quota of 500Gb. I have to say I have a 32Gb SD card in one camera and once formatted it does remain so regardless of f/w or stop/starts. Does this still happen using SMB/CIF? Stupidly I forgot to run the hex editor on the 5.1 davinci file to see if the hex string was the same and could be changed to eradicate the problem.

Having upgraded my Hikvision cameras to V5.1 and been hugely disappointed with the game of HDD format/uninitialised on my NAS I tried V5.1 again on both my cameras for the hell of it. About the only interesting thing for me in V5.1 was being able to set the frame rate from 12 to 20. The firmware is very flaky especially when using a NAS for storage (NFS in my case). Having "formatted" the HDD via the web browser I then went into the iVMS 4200 Client only to find opening the software uninitialised the HDD immediately. I then formatted the HDD from within the Client only to discover that if I tried to format the HDD share for the second camera the first immediately switched to 'uninitialised'. If I formatted the HDD from the client simply opening the camera via the web browser caused it to initialise the HDD again. None of this matters I suppose if you are using a third party Client (Xprotect Essential in my case) but I was using the Hikvision storage option to keep a safety copy on the NAS. I have reverted back to V5.0.5 because you can't have this sort of behaviour anywhere near a security system. On the plus side going back to V5.0.5 has left the cameras with the frame rates set at 20 which was not previously available. I am also seeing a better day/night image when the WDR level is set to 20 for both. Previously 20 worked for night but 7 was about as high as I could go in day so I had to leave it at the lower number. So worth upgrading to V5.1 choosing your settings and reverting back to the earlier f/w and seeing what extras you have been given! Otherwise wait until Hikvision get their act together and release V5.1.1 to correct the issues. I have still had to hack the V5.0.5 f/w to prevent the HDD being re-initialised during a reboot or power down. Followed the instructions for the hack I found on another site. Basically you need to telnet into the camera (I used Putty), copy the davinci file to your NAS, use a hex editor (I used HxD) to find: 5001D4C09DE52C00001A07005CE12A00001A and replace with: 5001D4C09DE50000000007005CE100000000. Save and copy it back. You can then reboot the camera and the NAS will still show up as 'normal' rather than 'unitialised': 1. Telnet in to camera ip address with username and password. Type 'mount' to find the NAS: 2. Copy file to NAS. Open with hex editor, find and replace string, Save and copy back to /dav folder. You may need to set r/w permissions on the davinci file (I had to on one camera but not the other). The camera must be able to access the NFS share before you do the hack. Do this at your own risk!

The 2332 is a PoE camera whereas the 3332 does not support PoE and requires an external PSU.