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I've just acquired a hikvision ds-2cd2132-i. I'm trying to set up motion detection recording on a schedule. I want to record to a NAS device. The camera has been set up on the same subnet as the NAS device and an NFS partion created on the NAS box. The camera's NAS settings have been made using the camera's browser interface, and I get a successful test result when I point to the NFS directory on the NAS box. I click on the Storage Management tab and sucessfully initialise the directory. At the end of the process, I get 4 directories set up on the file share with loads of empty files in each directory. However, if I navigate away from the Storage Management page, to Live View, say, end then go back to the Storage Management page, the file storage status says Uninitialized. If I try to re-format the share, the format completes instantaneously, but the status remains Uninitialized. I do manage about 10 - 15 seconds of recording when the file share initialization first completes, but that's all. If I delete all the directories created in the Format process and try again, the format completed and the status returns to normal until I navigate away from the page and then it's back again to Unititialized. I've tried this using an ordinary Windows share on the NAS box, and get exactly the same results. I've checked the camera firmware, but it's later than the firmware available in the HIKVision website. Need some help here

Thanks for the lesson, MindTwist: I'm well aware that the first rule of buying over the internet, and particularly from sites such as ebay, is caveat emptor. However, with all due respect to my supplier, my camera arrived in a sealed box complete with HIKVISION roundel, factory installed English firmware, and a CD with English documentation, applications, utilities, etc. (but sadly not a firmware image, too). Therefore I have nothing to indicate that it is anything other than a legitimately imported HIKVISION camera for use in English-speaking countries. I have also no guarantee that I would have not encoutered the same problems if I had got the camera from a local specialist HIKVISION dealer at over twice the price. If the product had worked in all respects as described in the manufacturer's specifications there would not be an issue. The fact is it didn't, and it is only subsequently as I browsed for issues with HIKVISION cameras that I came across a litany of problems relating to recording and event notification, and the subsequent horrendous procedures needed on occasion to get the functionality to work. Maybe I ought to have been more thorough in my research, but I have used cameras imported from the Far East before, and they did not have the same problems recording, indeed any reasonably competent person could set them up without any particular specialist knowledge. Maybe I should have returned the camera as soon as the problems arose - but I didn't, I tried to get the problems fixed using the advice posted here and on other forums and so now I don't feel I can legitimately ask my supplier to take it back. So, I'm going to make one more attempt to get the camera working as it should. If that fails, it's going back on ebay.

Actually, I got the camera through ebay from someone who imports them from China, but with full UK English firmware. I wanted a camera that would record to NAS rather than my PC, which isn't left on all the time for recordings to be made to. This camera fitted the bill perfectly, and I've no compaint about the build or image quality. However, the documentation and software leave - a lot to be desired, to be polite. The camera should be usable by anyone who has the capability of installing and configuring a broadband router at home, but having to use a hex editor on image files to change a configuration setting is way beyond all reasonable expectations. I've over 45 years of IT experience and even I find it challenging All I want to do now is get an English firmware version on the camera, and the it'll go on back on Ebay. Frankly, life's too short to have to resort to the lengths needed to get the camera to do what it's supposed to do if the manufacturer's specifications are to be believed.

Having seen a firmware update on the HIKVISION Europe site, I thought I'd download and apply it. Now the firmware is in Chinese. You would have thought that there would be some form of warning in the release notes, but there's none. I spent over 5 hours tring to get back to 5.1.6, but this has been taken off the download sites. Tried to re-instate 5.1.2, and now the camera is well and truly "bricked". Should have gone to Axis in the first place. Use them extensively at work - no problems.

Version specifics? Model: DS-2CD132-I Firmware: V5.1.6 build 140412 Encoding: V5.0 build 140411 Although I've just noticed that firmware V5.2.0 went up a few days ago ..