Tapemaskamog

I've just got my new Hikvision DS-2CD2432F-IW setup and working nicely with my Qnap NAS, using SMB. Live view works great. Playback is fine if the camera is connected via ethernet (not so much if it's running on wifi). I like my setup, but now I'm a little concerned: Since the camera is functioning as the NVR, and the files on the NAS aren't stored in any obviously accessible way... Do I lose the ability to playback recorded video if the camera is stolen or broken? In taking a quick look at iVMS-4200 it doesn't look like it can be pointed to the NAS as a source for playback. So what are the options? Or am I overthinking this, not seeing some obvious solution? Edit: I realize now I can open the files directly from the NAS using any number of video players. (Even though the camera creates a whole mess of files on the NAS share, it seems like the ones containing real footage are always in "datadir0".) So that's at least a good backup. But I'd still like to find a way to view the files in an NVR-like fashion, with a timeline.

That's not a bad price and solution at all. I suppose the main downside is no internet = no footage. Too bad these cameras can't write to onboard SD and NAS simultaneously. Although you are now protected from a worst-case-scenario, like someone stealing all the equipment or burning down the place. Seems like a fair trade off. It's interesting mine showed almost a gigabyte of quota usage in formatting, with yours using a tenth of that. It makes me wonder if I simply read the units wrong...although I'm not sure how that would have happened. In any case a gig is a lot of overhead on a 10gb drive. I'm glad yours didn't take up that much on the cloud server.

5gb: Failed; reported completion of format instantly, but status "uninitialized"; used 732mb of quota used 10gb: Success; format took at least 20 minutes; somewhere around 780mb of quota 550gb: Success; format took more than an hour; perhaps 1gb used (tough to say because the camera started recording once finished) It is possible 5gb would have worked and it was just a temporary network error causing the failure. But I did try it several times. Something to note: when returning to the "Nas" settings tab and 'testing' the directory and user/password --which I did each time I changed the quota size, just in case-- each time the test failed; I had to reenter the password for it to work. I don't think it actually lost authentication to the NAS, but rather it is just a bug/feature causing the password to need to be reentered once you click to edit the NAS directory settings. EDIT: I tested a user quota of 550gb and it was successful. Details NAS: Qnap TS-212p; up to date firmware as of Jan 2015 Camera: Hikvision DS-2CD2432F; Firmare: 5.2.3; SMB/CIFS selected as NAS method

How small do you want me to try? Note that I'm limiting the size in my setup with a user quota (on the NAS), not a share/drive/parition quota. The camera seems to interpret that as a disk size, though, so maybe it doesn't matter.

It's amazing how many people have this issue, as have I. Hikvision must be underestimating how many people are using this feature for them not to have fixed this, or at least published a correct guide. I successfully got mine setup using SMB/CIFS setting on the camera to my Qnap NAS. I had a similar error scenario to what you report, until I added a quota to the Hikvision user I had created on my NAS. Then it worked. I've no idea how or if you can set per-user quotas on Linux. Perhaps you can try setting a quota or max size on the share/disk you're pointing the camera to? I would have tried that first, but QNAP only allow per-user/group quotas and not per-share. My post in another thread about this issue: I was able to get my DS-2CD2432F-IW setup and working nicely with my Qnap NAS, using SMB. I initially tried SMB and then NFS, failing at both attempts. I was repeatedly formatting the share/directory, but then immediately having the camera tell me it was "uninitialized," as many have reported. The trick to get it working (I think) was to - create a user account just for the camera on my NAS - then set the quota for that user to 300gb The specific number probably doesn't matter; I picked it because I saw some mention of hikvisions having trouble with NAS drives over 500 gb. It seems that the failures are due to the camera either seeing too big of a "drive" (in this case all 1.5 terabytes of my NAS) --which seems unlikely-- or because the camera looked at the share/drive and couldn't get any value for free space, only total space...or something like that. After setting the quota to 300gb, that value showed up right away as the disk size in the Hikvision setup screen.

I'm just getting started with ip cameras, so take this accordingly. I first tried a couple cheap cameras like you posted. The video quality was very good for the money. If I was using a PC and blueiris or similar, or even a Synology or Qnap NVR software I may have kept them. The issue was the cameras had next to no firmware features working. This means I got a good video stream but that's it - my NVR solution needed to do all of the work - motion detection, emailing, alarms, etc. Maybe that works for you, especially if you just need a couple extra cameras to cover low priority areas. One of the two I tried (Escam brand, but seemingly similar to the one you linked) had some basic onvif support and I got it setup in Blue Iris. EDIT: this is the one I tried and was marginally pleased with: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L7F62WW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 For me they didn't work, though. I need/want my cameras to handle motion detection and other features on the camera. The only other hardware or software I want to run is a NAS, functioning as relatively dumb networked storage for the camera. And for that Hikvision is working out nearly perfectly (I still haven't found a way to easily access video footage directly from the NAS, not going through the camera.) If you do want to try some of these cheap cameras look on Amazon. I found them for the same as eBay price, or maybe $5 more. But you gain very good return protection.

So I found a PDF user manual from Hikvision for "Local Playback Software v1.0" here: http://148.243.99.22/CCTV/HIKVISION/Utilerias/Visualizador_de_Informacion_de_Discos_Duros_en_PC/Local_Playback_Software_User_Manual.pdf But I can't find that actual software anywhere to install. There is of course "Remote Playback" in iVMS 4200 on both mac and PC. It gives the NVR timeline-type view, but it's just using the camera to access the files, not playing directly from the NAS source. I can also select "Open Video File" from iVMS. But then I'm back to blindly selecting individual video files to play one by one (I think. It didn't seem to work for the one file I tested). Here's a screenshot from that PDF. It shows the ability to select a drive in the top left left (it's labeled "Saving Path," though):

I suppose that would work. But there will likely be hundreds of files to sort through, open and play.

My solution to this might not be applicable to all in this thread as I am using a Qnap NAS. But here it is in case it helps some: I was able to get my DS-2CD2432F-IW setup and working nicely with my Qnap NAS, using SMB. I initially tried SMB and then NFS, failing at both attempts. I was repeatedly formatting the share/directory, but then immediately having the camera tell me it was "uninitialized," as many have reported. The trick to get it working (I think) was to - create a user account just for the camera - then set the quota for that user to 300gb The specific number probably doesn't matter; I picked it because I saw some mention of hikvisions having trouble with NAS drives over 500 gb. It seems that the failures are due to the camera either seeing too big of a "drive" (in this case all 1.5 terabytes of my NAS), or because the camera looked at the drive and couldn't get any value for free space. After setting the quota to 300gb, that value showed up right away as the disk size in the Hikvision setup screen.