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Glad to know you've got some of yours up and running I'll venture into hooking up the cameras later on today. I think the whole set up of the Hikvision gear looks good from the quality of cameras, etc - The only downside is the instructions are **** for people like me and not fool proof enough
I seriously think they have some great potential for the hardware but there not plug 'n play by any means at all. The people who I got my gear from and the guys who I initially spoke to don't know bacon from eggs. Such a let down tbh ... But with such great camera gear!
I seriously think they have some great potential for the hardware but there not plug 'n play by any means at all. The people who I got my gear from and the guys who I initially spoke to don't know bacon from eggs. Such a let down tbh ... But with such great camera gear!
Yeah, I can't knock the quality of the hardware, I was expecting plastic and got die-cast metal. The web interface isn't half bad either, for viewing and playing back recordings. It just setting the damn thing up.
There are some Hikvision .pdfs floating around the web which tackle/explain various issues, which has helped, why this documentation is better catalogued, I don't know, although most seems to be orientated to older models and firmware.
Couple of bugs so far; If I reboot, motion detection re-enables itself. Why? and of course not being able to use maximum resolution at a quality any higher than 'Low' during the daytime. I've worked around the latter by setting my substream to the highest quality settings (which is basically SD TV quality) and using that for live viewing. This mean that the recording is still on the higher quality settings.
I now know what my parents felt like when they tried to program the timer on the video recorder back in 1982
Oh, and as some reviews have mentioned...the fan on my NVR, yes its noisy. Luckily I have somewhere to place the NVR out of earshot; knowing how the noise from hard drives can travel through walls and floors...my NAS is in the attic, and I can here the drives clunking away in the rooms below. The NVR hard drives seem pretty quiet so far, but that could be the loud fan downing them out, and them being new...drive motors do make more of a whine as they age.
Last edited by ALi-B; 07 December 2015 at 10:25 PM.
Guys mates just got some of the 3m hkvision units ipbased and mentioned you can ip directly into them and configure them to drop the files or recordings onto on to a nas which I have, so in essence do aware with the need for a DVR. They also have sd card slots
QQ though what's a good free and a good paid software for Mac and pc that I can run to see what's going on...
Thanks think I'm going to get a few 2032 bullets 4mm and a reel or cat 5 and a poe switch should be enough
If you only want a few cameras and already have loads of storage, or only interested in viewing live footage, then there is no real need for a NVR. But of course, configuring it so it all ties together and places the footage where you want it is another hurdle....getting the motion detection working satisfactorily maybe a impossibility - even Smart evens (line crossing and intrusion detection are both thwarted by passing reflections from headlamps and when auto-switching from day/night modes). So glad I purchased the model with Alarm inputs as I've confirmed whats already been said by others earlier. I already have exterior PIRs that are far superior for this job. You can get the cams with alarm inputs/ouputs too; again you have to be very careful on which exact model model is which.
So far I've just used the NVR's web interface on the PC and iVMS4500 on the iPhone. You can get iVMS4500 for PC too - yet to install it though. http://overseas.hikvision.com/en/Tools_84.html
[ Posting this before my failing PC dies again...firefox saved everything I typed ...this time round ]
Last edited by ALi-B; 12 December 2015 at 11:15 PM.
I installed iVMS4500 on my laptop today...word of warning, it doesn't scale too well on win 10 with a UHD display (2560x1440)..icons and menu layouts are a bit messed up. Even in compatibility mode and with reduced display scaling disabled.
Its usable though, but a let down none the less. Compared to iPhone app and web interface which is pretty slick.
Got a cheap and nasty Android tablet somewhere (Archos thingy), will try it on that just to see what its like.
The web app is a bit restrictive on viewing recorded footage in that graph display on the bottom doesn't show alarms/event if the camera is continually recording, but you can view event logs which show the date and time and then switch back to the playback page and manually enter the time to see the footage.
You can't do this on the iPhone app...if its continually recording, it doesn't show any alarm/events.
iVMS4500 for the PC appears to be a bit more functional in that the event logs are on the right pane of the playback page which when clicked on will skip the footage to the relevant time points, problem is is the scaling on the laptop mean I cannot read the time stamps on the event logs.
With regard to the domes; it is advised that they suffer IR bounce back if the domes get wet/dirty. So bullets or EXIR cams are better if the camera is more exposed. My house has quite large overhangs on the eaves, so they are quite well protected, but they are quite low down so needed to be tamper-proofed. So far no issues with regards to weather or IR bounce back, except for a greasy finger print which cleaned off with a bit of spectacle/monitor cleaner.
Last edited by ALi-B; 14 December 2015 at 05:36 PM.
More glitches...seem the outdoor grade cat6 cable is a bit too stiff for the NVR's ethernet connections....Maybe its the quality of the RJ45 connectors I've used, but in disturbing the cables one plug became detached from the NVR as the cable has alot of "spring/memory" so its putting a side force on the connectors.
Then in reconnecting it I knock another cable and another RJ45 plug popped out socket...and it seems the camera connected to that has now spat its dummy out as it has power, but is showing incorrect password on the NVR and it now has a different IP address. Reboot didn't work. Think I'll have to press the reset button on the cam.
So something to bear in mind, maybe if using stiff cabling it maybe better to route it to a patch board then make the final connections to the NVR with normal patch leads.
And for anyone not sure on finalising camera locations; This is the "rig" I quickly lashed together to get a camera running, using iVMS4500 for the iPhone I could live view the camera so I could check that my intended positions were going to be ok before making it permanent.
One camera, an old wifi router, 12v PSUs (one for cam, one for wifi), Patch lead, extension lead, and a iPhone.
Last edited by ALi-B; 16 December 2015 at 12:01 AM.
Now all six cameras are all running. I can confirm that my model NVR (DS-7608NI-E2/8P/A) will only handle six 3MP cameras at a high bit rate and high quality settings. The NVR is rated at 80Mbps and is maxed out, I had to reduce the bitrate a little on two cameras to keep it happy; Turns out the problems on post #43 was not just a connection issue...but also I had ran out of bandwidth as I had all cameras set at their highest quality bitrates, resolution and frame rates.
So a lesson:...Because it has 8 POE ethernet ports...doesn't mean it'll have the processing power to run 8 cameras. The same applies to the 4 port models which IIRC has a 40-50Mbps bandwidth, so may only be good for three 3MP cameras on their highest settings. It also seems some older 16 port models also have a 80Mbps limit so still will only handle six 3MB cameras.
This isn't clear in the "engrish" specifications - as I highlighted on my opening post, they were confusing at best. Retailers and CCTV websites don't help clear up this critical limitation. And online bandwidth calculators don't take into account the extra overhead needed for network communications which is in addition to the image streaming data (the online calculators I used showed that I was well under 80Mbps with six 3MP cameras; my NVR begs to differ).
For me, its ok; An NVR with true 100+Mbps capability and alarm inputs would have been alot more money and would have blown my budget. But it does mean no chance of future expansion without a reduction in picture/recording quality.
Last edited by ALi-B; 20 December 2015 at 03:29 PM.
Playback grab of some pikeys nicking holly from down the bridle path (next time you buy a reef at a market/roadside stall - ask where the holly came from ) - faces and reg numbers were visible (just)
pikeys nicking holly
What the NVRs web interface look like from my laptop - quite nice and straight forward to use, although live playback can struggle a little when trying to play at fast speeds, plus it can on play at a x4 max which is a bit restrictive when viewing long video events. Live view will only work on the substream during daytime.
iVMS-4200 (PC version) on a UHD win10 laptop...oh dear. microscopic icons, the events pane on the right is too narrow so all I can see is the year (American date format...even though the NVR uses British date formats), it doesn't appear to be resizeable. Its also quite resource hungry (although with six simultaneous vids, I suppose its asking a bit much..even with a i7 - the wifi will struggle to keep up). Its overall clunky and non-intuitive to use, although I am getting the hang on it. I'm yet to try it on my Vista PC as its broken. Again live view only works on the substream during the daytime, but its less obvious on how to change the settings Another quirk is the blue boxes....these are my smart-event areas (line crossing an intrusion detection), also the green boxes are objects it detects that are moving - these all turn red when it triggers the motion detection. I have no idea on how to enable/disable these so I can just see the video footage
iVMS-4200
Last edited by ALi-B; 20 December 2015 at 04:58 PM.
As a FYi: If you think the "Shed cam" image looks distorted; there is a reason.
Its a 2.8 wide angle lens (they all are), but as its a narrow alley, the camera is rotated 90degrees. This means I can get more area covered by the camera as in theory its now 1536pixels wide and 2048pixels tall (1536x2048 instead if 2048x1536), however, as I rotated the image in the NVR's settings it appears to have scaled it back to 2048x1536, or at least a 4:3 format/aspect ratio.
So in situations like this you have a compromise in one of three ways:
1. Leave it at default and make do with less area coverage.
2. Rotate camera, but leave settings at default. This means your footage will have a larger area covered at the highest quality but the footage will be recorded on its side.
3. Rotate camera, and adjust camera settings to rotate the image. This gives more covered area and records footage in the correct orientation, but image quality suffers.
Last edited by ALi-B; 20 December 2015 at 05:07 PM.
Noob back again with an update, having learnt more about max bitrates and how retailers and even Hikvision mix up the max incoming bitrate and max outgoing bitrates. To confuse further, even the same model have different limits depending on when it was manufactured and what firmware.
Mine does 80Mbps incomming.....the older version was 50Mbps.
Now to put this into persepective...a 3MP camera with main and substreams enabled set on full resolution, full frame rate and on high quality settings uses about 13Mbps...do the maths..13 into 80= 6.4 and that's why you can't use any more than 6 cameras. You can get a 7th camera by reducing the max bitrates on both events (mainstream) and substream; I now have about 12Mpbs spare with very little loss in recording quality, although live quality view has been reduced. So in theroy I should be able to squeeze in a 7th camera...a 1.3MP camera should work with ease (but seeing its only £10 difference between the 1.3MP models and 3MP models you may as well buy the latter and reduce the resolution or bitrate settings )
Second noob discovery...And I should know better; other forum noobs (or not so noobs) can be as wrong as I am LOL; I had a bit of a moan earlier at not being able to individually access a camera's web-menu. As the POE switch essentially firewalls the cameras from the rest of your home network, and putting them on a totally different subnet just to make it even more awkward. The idiots way of getting round that is using an extra switch to act as a bridge between the networks and messing around with the network settings on your computer. You don't need to do this...all you need is to tick and option in the NVR's web menu:
Every so often, when rebooting, or when power is turned on/off, motion detection resets to factory default on all cameras. That's the entire area, enabled - I can't even begin to stress how annoying this bug is.
Bug 2; can't configure motion detection area via the NVR's web/remote interface.
Bug 3; Alarm input doesn't have any ability/option to adjust sensitivity or dwell time; My PIR system gives a 0.5 second pulse to 0volts everytime motion is detected...The NVR wants longer than that to sense that and trigger it...about 2 seconds is my guess...hence until I build a timed pulse/hold device (I'm thinking of a glorified NAND flip-flop, or maybe go analogue and do it with a few Op-Amps; Its been almost 20yrs since I last messed with logic gates and op amps ) the alarm input is currently a bit useless, so I still need the motion detection. So it resetting when the its rebooted is not good.....just as well I'm getting a UPS.
Oh, and if anyone has any idea how to get multi-casting working...help!
What I'd like to do is create a sort of streamed TV channel; bang in a IP adresss on any device on the same LAN and view its live stream without needing to log in etc.
Second quandary; distributing live feed to TVs throughout the house; I have a Smart Bravia, A not-smart Viera (has Viera Link so can view stuff on a NAS) and a few conventional TVs. What I want to do is push a button on the TV remote and quickly see whats going on outside.
What I have;
Distributed Coax for DVB-T (and analogue) via a loftbox which can accept analogue RF inputs.
CAT6 wired ethernet to all TV points (part of the LAN - so must be shared, so can't use dedicated Cat6 to Hdmi boxes ).
NVR has HDMi and VGA output. Its located nowhere near a TV.
A DVB-T modulator/encoder would be ideal. But they currently cost far too much; I'm looking for a sub-£100 solution.
Oh, and if anyone has any idea how to get multi-casting working...help!
What I'd like to do is create a sort of streamed TV channel; bang in a IP adresss on any device on the same LAN and view its live stream without needing to log in etc.
What's the main hurdle you're trying to overcome here, the fact that with the current setup you can only browse to and view the video on any given camera from a single terminal at a time (if it's common for CCTV cameras to suffer this limitation, I have to admit I'm very surprised), or that you have to enter a password to do it?
Originally Posted by ALi-B
Second quandary; distributing live feed to TVs throughout the house; I have a Smart Bravia, A not-smart Viera (has Viera Link so can view stuff on a NAS) and a few conventional TVs. What I want to do is push a button on the TV remote and quickly see whats going on outside.
What I have;
Distributed Coax for DVB-T (and analogue) via a loftbox which can accept analogue RF inputs.
CAT6 wired ethernet to all TV points (part of the LAN - so must be shared, so can't use dedicated Cat6 to Hdmi boxes ).
NVR has HDMi and VGA output. Its located nowhere near a TV.
A DVB-T modulator/encoder would be ideal. But they currently cost far too much; I'm looking for a sub-£100 solution.
You don't say if any of your TVs can still handle an analog RF signal, but if they can, you'd just need a vga to scart/composite converter and an analog scart/composite RF modulator. Even having to buy two separate items you should find plenty within the budget you've given here.
Otherwise maybe some kind of video to FM transmitter setup, but signal is likely to be a very hit or miss affair with one of those, and it would also likely need a VGA to scart/composite converter at the NVR end.
The multicasting is basically wanted to enable viewing via a TV stick or a Raspberry-Pi. But for now, if I can get it working with VLC player that'll be fine....If it works well I "may" have a TV-stick on every TV in the house which would negate the need for having to distribute using a format the TV's can receive.
All TVs are analogue RF capable, but I really want to avoid modulating composite video if I can as the picture quality is usually atrocious. But as a quick-cheap-fix for now I'm willing to give it a try...unless the multicasting works out.
Last edited by ALi-B; 29 December 2015 at 07:48 PM.
The multicasting is basically wanted to enable viewing via a TV stick or a Raspberry-Pi. But for now, if I can get it working with VLC player that'll be fine....If it works well I "may" have a TV-stick on every TV in the house which would negate the need for having to distribute using a format the TV's can receive.
All TVs are analogue RF capable, but I really want to avoid modulating composite video if I can as the picture quality is usually atrocious. But as a quick-cheap-fix for now I'm willing to give it a try...unless the multicasting works out.
You're certainly right there, the picture quality is unlikely to be amazing, but should just be adequate if all you want is a quick look at what the cameras are picking up. If you decide your budget can stretch a little over what you first said, after a bit more searching I've seen hardware hdmi to streaming network encoders (HTTP, RTSP, Flash, etc) starting at around £130, and hdmi to DVB-T encoder/modulators starting at around £180. I'll pm you links if you're interested.
Well the system hasn't even been in for 3months and its successfully provided evidence to support the arrest of two *******.
Black Corsa rental drove past 6 times (three each way as the road is a dead end loop). Parked up the last time, got out, went down bridal path. Came back, rang on door to see if anyone was in ( there was - pure luck though)
Two other houses nearby where burgled, one was witnessed by someone, with their ID description and my CCTV footage places them in the area at the time.
Downside? They probably won't see much jail time, and there could be reprisals -but my logic is this - every time someone tries something, I will up the security.
Doorbell camera configured to store image stills when the doorbell is rung is next. Bit tricky to obtain, mind.
Last edited by ALi-B; 10 February 2016 at 06:54 PM.
Its crossed my mind, but I've come across some obstacles....
Can't seem to get the current setup to store a still image anywhere (Still images would be quicker to flick through than video segments).
Can't get push notifications to work on the iphone "notify surveillance centre" is enabled but if I trigger the alarm input, I get no notification.
24volt AC doorbell; Will either need to replace it or use a relay to trigger the alarm input, the transformer is housed in the consumer unit which could make wiring interesting. The ERA "Ring" and Skybell both work with existing doorbell wiring and power supply, but they don't store pics (the ERA does but its $30 a year to use their cloud service).
Well the system hasn't even been in for 3months and its successfully provided evidence to support the arrest of two *******.
Black Corsa rental drove past 6 times (three each way as the road is a dead end loop). Parked up the last time, got out, went down bridal path. Came back, rang on door to see if anyone was in ( there was - pure luck though)
Two other houses nearby where burgled, one was witnessed by someone, with their ID description and my CCTV footage places them in the area at the time.
Downside? They probably won't see much jail time, and there could be reprisals -but my logic is this - every time someone tries something, I will up the security.
Doorbell camera configured to store image stills when the doorbell is rung is next. Bit tricky to obtain, mind.
ha thats excellent that the cctv is paying off ,,, usually its the same faces that rework areas that they have looted before so letting such teams know that area is now a bit trickier may well bring peace to your neighbourhood ,, i do hope so after what youve been through
ha thats excellent that the cctv is paying off ,,, usually its the same faces that rework areas that they have looted before so letting such teams know that area is now a bit trickier may well bring peace to your neighbourhood ,, i do hope so after what youve been through
Yep it's going to court, plod have also charged another person for renting the car that was used and they have caught someone else handling stolen goods but they don't think they can get the charge to stick on the latter. Some stolen items have been recovered though.
There's been a problem round here for a long time, I've been lucky in that they'd always targeted the "posh" area which is at the other end of the bridle path that crosses my house; the bridle path is a route used to gain access to rear of these properties. But for some reason in the past 18months they've took a shine to my house. It's strange as from the front the house looks the same as it did ten years ago (saving up to replace the softwood windows and soffits). I've had people trespass round in the rear garden (noted by broken trellising on the fence panels), but they never tried breaking in , however the house wasn't lived in at the time as tennants had moved out and couldn't rent it out as there was a host of issues that made it unlettable (no heating/hot water, no clean water contaminated tanks, conifer roots blocking the sewers, leaking roof etc). Ended up moving in myself.
What I'm hoping is maybe some neighbours cotton on and get their own CCTV kit, as there is only one other house in the area with a proper setup. The neighbour across the street wants it. Problem is it's difficult to recommend Hikvision because of the learning curve involved in getting it up and running. I'm happy to help a little but I don't want to be having to spend hours showing how to do this or that.
Had a look yesterday and found Hikvision have discontinued pretty much all of their 3MP cameras and no longer do 2.8mm lenses. There is now a choice of 2MP or 4MP with 4mm TO 8mm lenses; Not the end of the world but now it means I can't just give them the model number and say "buy this if you want what I have".
Last edited by ALi-B; 13 February 2016 at 09:58 AM.
07 December 2015, 09:11 AM
I'll venture into hooking up the cameras later on today. I think the whole set up of the Hikvision gear looks good from the quality of cameras, etc - The only downside is the instructions are **** for people like me and not fool proof enough 
) - faces and reg numbers were visible (just)
Another quirk is the blue boxes....these are my smart-event areas (line crossing an intrusion detection), also the green boxes are objects it detects that are moving - these all turn red when it triggers the motion detection. I have no idea on how to enable/disable these so I can just see the video footage 
) the alarm input is currently a bit useless, so I still need the motion detection. So it resetting when the its rebooted is not good.....just as well I'm getting a UPS.
).
