PoE Digital CCTV systems

[wjwren]

Lord Marylebone said:

I'm late to this thread, but 6 months ago I installed a 5 camera Reolink PoE system, on the advice of PH. I used 5mp turret cameras.

I am very happy with it. The quality of the images is excellent, even at night. I find the iPhone and iPad app very easy to use. Thats all I want from a system to be honest.

My only issue, and maybe someone can advise me on this, is that I only seem to get about 8 days of recordings, before the footage is overwritten. The internal hard drive is 2TB. Does this sound normal? (5 cameras, recording in 5mp, set to 'high' on the image quality recording setting)

Can I extend this if I add an external hard drive? Is there any specific drive I need to buy?

(The Reolink website says I can add a second 'external drive' via e-SATA, but I'm not entirely sure what this means...

Edited by Lord Marylebone on Tuesday 29th March 10:36

You can add an external hard drive or you could just pop the top off and put in a 6tb hard drive. They are not too expensive and it's only 2 connections so pretty easy.

[anonymous-user]

wjwren said:

Lord Marylebone said:

I'm late to this thread, but 6 months ago I installed a 5 camera Reolink PoE system, on the advice of PH. I used 5mp turret cameras.

I am very happy with it. The quality of the images is excellent, even at night. I find the iPhone and iPad app very easy to use. Thats all I want from a system to be honest.

My only issue, and maybe someone can advise me on this, is that I only seem to get about 8 days of recordings, before the footage is overwritten. The internal hard drive is 2TB. Does this sound normal? (5 cameras, recording in 5mp, set to 'high' on the image quality recording setting)

Can I extend this if I add an external hard drive? Is there any specific drive I need to buy?

(The Reolink website says I can add a second 'external drive' via e-SATA, but I'm not entirely sure what this means...

Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 29th March 10:36

You can add an external hard drive or you could just pop the top off and put in a 6tb hard drive. They are not too expensive and it's only 2 connections so pretty easy.

Thanks.

If it's easy to pop the top off and add another inside, then I shall do that

[anxious_ant]

There is an upgrade check feature on the NVR. Does this upgrade cameras as well?

I noticed I can manually trigger upgrade for cameras but it prompts for a location, which is currently blank.

Googled my camera model (IPC-B159H) but cannot seem to find any firmware upgrade files.

[OldGermanHeaps]

Automatic upgrade checker rarely works.
Is it official uk kit from an approved supplier or grey market stuff by some ebay or amazon marketplace cockroach?
Cant find it on the eu or uk firmware portal.
If its from a legit supplier they can call the vasp helpline if they can point you in the right direction themselves.
If its grey market stuff get a refund and support businesses that do things properly.

[S6PNJ]

anxious_ant said:

Googled my camera model (IPC-B159H) but cannot seem to find any firmware upgrade files.

I use this Hikvision portal for my IP Camera firmware updates - you might need to do some searching to find the right folder though
https://www.hikvisioneurope.com/eu/portal/?dir=por...
If you just end up at the 'root' directory, you want Technical material > Network camera > Product Firmware - then you are on your own as to which folder etc.

[anxious_ant]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Automatic upgrade checker rarely works.
Is it official uk kit from an approved supplier or grey market stuff by some ebay or amazon marketplace cockroach?
Cant find it on the eu or uk firmware portal.
If its from a legit supplier they can call the vasp helpline if they can point you in the right direction themselves.
If its grey market stuff get a refund and support businesses that do things properly.

The upgrade worked when I first powered up the NVR, however I am guessing that's for the NVR and not the cameras.
Bought it from a website recommended earlier on this thread, cctvkits.co.uk. I might contact the supplier and query this.

Amazon marketplace cockcroach

[anxious_ant]

S6PNJ said:

anxious_ant said:

Googled my camera model (IPC-B159H) but cannot seem to find any firmware upgrade files.

I use this Hikvision portal for my IP Camera firmware updates - you might need to do some searching to find the right folder though
https://www.hikvisioneurope.com/eu/portal/?dir=por...
If you just end up at the 'root' directory, you want Technical material > Network camera > Product Firmware - then you are on your own as to which folder etc.

Cheers! I will have a look

[julian64]

Register1 said:

Hikvision all the way.
I have 2 Speed Domes (PTZ)
25 optical zoom and 16 digital
4MP
Auto tracking.
The awesom bit is the 150 meters IR range.
Accurate human and vehicle target classification, alarm, and linked tracking based on deep learning algorithm
Face capture: Up to 5 faces captured at the same time
https://www.hikvision.com/uk/products/IP-Products/...

Got 2 of them,
One coveres left side and back, one covers right side and back

Do you have a recommended place to buy those cameras. Cctv kits seem to sell the kits but the PTZ seems to be trade only

[wjwren]

Agree those hikvision ptz are great bits of kit. Pricey but they are a world apart from swann etc

[Big Rig]

Slight thread hijack sorry guys, I've decided on a Hikvision system after reading this. Can anyone recommend me a system please? I need 4 cameras (prefer turret in a dome), don't need ptz and would prefer poe as it'll be a bit easier for me to install.

[normalbloke]

All I’ll say is avoid anything with a dome as IR performance will be extremely limited. The Hikvision turret cameras are excellent.

[anxious_ant]

anxious_ant said:

Also does anyone know a compatible junction box for Hikvision HiLook ColorVu Lite IPC-B159H camera? Google is not showing anything.

Quick question about the ColorVu camera. Noticed at night it has a bright white light. Is this for viewing night footage in colour?
Just worried about longevity as the light is pretty bright. Can I turn it down a little?

[anxious_ant]

anxious_ant said:

Also does anyone know a compatible junction box for Hikvision HiLook ColorVu Lite IPC-B159H camera? Google is not showing anything.

Quick question about the ColorVu camera. Noticed at night it has a bright white light. Is this for viewing night footage in colour?
Just worried about longevity as the light is pretty bright. Can I turn it down a little?

[cylon]

Anyone here used the batch configuration tool?

Having setup 5 colurvu cameras I need to upgrade them and not sure which folder to select and download from. The options are 'bp' and 'zx'

Hik linky to bp or zx

I have the 'DS-2CD2387G2-LU' models.

[cylon]

anxious_ant said:

Quick question about the ColorVu camera. Noticed at night it has a bright white light. Is this for viewing night footage in colour?
Just worried about longevity as the light is pretty bright. Can I turn it down a little?

In Configuration, go to left menu and select 'Image' then under 'display settings' go to Day/Night switch, I see two options to play around with
1. Light brightness control
2. White light - which has a slider.

I haven't tried these, as I just installed the cameras, might have play tonight and see if that controls the brightness.

[anxious_ant]

cylon said:

anxious_ant said:

Quick question about the ColorVu camera. Noticed at night it has a bright white light. Is this for viewing night footage in colour?
Just worried about longevity as the light is pretty bright. Can I turn it down a little?

In Configuration, go to left menu and select 'Image' then under 'display settings' go to Day/Night switch, I see two options to play around with
1. Light brightness control
2. White light - which has a slider.

I haven't tried these, as I just installed the cameras, might have play tonight and see if that controls the brightness.

Cheers, I've set the white light slider to the lowest setting but doesn't seem to make a huge difference
I don't think it's possible to turn it completely off, but I could be mistaken.
Interested in your findings.

[Chipstick]

anxious_ant said:

Quick question about the ColorVu camera. Noticed at night it has a bright white light. Is this for viewing night footage in colour?
Just worried about longevity as the light is pretty bright. Can I turn it down a little?

Yes they can be turned off entirely. Go in to settings, camera, display and under ‘day/night switch’ change ‘supplement light mode’ to OFF.

I bought a setup similar to yours off the back off this thread. There’s enough ambient night at light to give a decent colour image with the cameras without the light. I choose to have them off as I don’t wish to draw attention to the areas where they are installed.

[Crumpet]

Thought I’d raise this thread to ask a quick question….

I’m replacing a Dahua POE system that’s horribly unreliable and can’t decide between Hikvision (which I can get hold off with a trade account) and Reolink.

Main priorities are reliability and app usability to record vehicle and people movement events - preferably a screenshot or ten frames of footage rather than having to watch a 30 second clip like I do with Dahua.

But I also want excellent colour night vision and it seems like the Hikvision ColorVu cameras are far better than the Reolink cams.

Any suggestions?

[TwistingMyMelon]

Crumpet said:

Thought I’d raise this thread to ask a quick question….

I’m replacing a Dahua POE system that’s horribly unreliable and can’t decide between Hikvision (which I can get hold off with a trade account) and Reolink.

Main priorities are reliability and app usability to record vehicle and people movement events - preferably a screenshot or ten frames of footage rather than having to watch a 30 second clip like I do with Dahua.

But I also want excellent colour night vision and it seems like the Hikvision ColorVu cameras are far better than the Reolink cams.

Any suggestions?

Depends on how competent you are @ setting up etc Hiki are trade only and that is reflected in the config/options setting up. Still pretty straightforward

Reolink are aimed @ consumers so easier to config and setup, with apropriate support channels etc

Hiki are owned by the Chinese Government....make of that what you will

[V8RAW]

Crumpet said:

Thought I’d raise this thread to ask a quick question….

I’m replacing a Dahua POE system that’s horribly unreliable and can’t decide between Hikvision (which I can get hold off with a trade account) and Reolink.

Main priorities are reliability and app usability to record vehicle and people movement events - preferably a screenshot or ten frames of footage rather than having to watch a 30 second clip like I do with Dahua.

But I also want excellent colour night vision and it seems like the Hikvision ColorVu cameras are far better than the Reolink cams.

Any suggestions?

We use Uniview as they have a range of AI-powered cameras and NVR's Motion detect knows the difference between cars, animals and humans etc.

You can set alerts when people walk over a line or when an article is placed in or removed from an area.