'I' series NVR - setting the monitor display remotely

[cymruchris]

I have a couple of quick questions for those in the know about I series NVR's - I did a little community nature project a while ago installing cameras in the local church tower to be able to watch breeding owls. It's been amazing - and have learnt a lot from observing the first breeding season. There are some changes we'd like to make - and one of those is to be able to stream to youtube (We've been streaming on RTSP - and it's been great - but could do with being better). I've found a HDMI streaming device that works really well, and gives a stable connection to youtube - so that whatever the NVR is putting out though the HDMI plug shows on Youtube.

Here comes the 'question' - I have access to a couple of PC's on site via a remote connection - so can access browsers on the same network as the camera equipment.

Currently all the cameras in the tower are connected to the existing NVR which is also an NVR for the foodbank - so we can't share the logins with anyone outside. My recent post about how many connections were possible gave me some great info - but now want to find out the following.

With an I series NVR - my understanding is that as long as it's on the latest firmware, and has GUI 4 installed, that it can be accessed via browser, and the 'display' seen on the monitor can be amended accordingly - so that it doesn't need someone to go into site and change the display as and when needed. (There will likely be 6-7 cameras fitted once we've upgraded a few more bits - but there'll be times when we want to show say cameras 1-4 on a quad live feed (eggs time) - and then cameras 4-7 at a later date (flying out the window time).

Has anyone got an I series that can confirm the above is possible? (And whether it's possible to turn sound on and off remotely as well? I can see there's a tickbox on the config screen on an online video - but has anyone tested the process?)

Here's one of our recent videos showing Mother owl, and two baby sister owls (they all look the same size) at feeding time.

And food delivery time:

And the four owlets inside their owl box in their early days:

 

[JB1970]

I have a couple of quick questions for those in the know about I series NVR's - I did a little community nature project a while ago installing cameras in the local church tower to be able to watch breeding owls. It's been amazing - and have learnt a lot from observing the first breeding season. There are some changes we'd like to make - and one of those is to be able to stream to youtube (We've been streaming on RTSP - and it's been great - but could do with being better). I've found a HDMI streaming device that works really well, and gives a stable connection to youtube - so that whatever the NVR is putting out though the HDMI plug shows on Youtube.

Here comes the 'question' - I have access to a couple of PC's on site via a remote connection - so can access browsers on the same network as the camera equipment.

Currently all the cameras in the tower are connected to the existing NVR which is also an NVR for the foodbank - so we can't share the logins with anyone outside. My recent post about how many connections were possible gave me some great info - but now want to find out the following.

With an I series NVR - my understanding is that as long as it's on the latest firmware, and has GUI 4 installed, that it can be accessed via browser, and the 'display' seen on the monitor can be amended accordingly - so that it doesn't need someone to go into site and change the display as and when needed. (There will likely be 6-7 cameras fitted once we've upgraded a few more bits - but there'll be times when we want to show say cameras 1-4 on a quad live feed (eggs time) - and then cameras 4-7 at a later date (flying out the window time).

Has anyone got an I series that can confirm the above is possible? (And whether it's possible to turn sound on and off remotely as well? I can see there's a tickbox on the config screen on an online video - but has anyone tested the process?)

Here's one of our recent videos showing Mother owl, and two baby sister owls (they all look the same size) at feeding time.

And food delivery time:

And the four owlets inside their owl box in their early days:

Yes that's correct. You can do that in both the I series (with latest firmware) and the M series NVRs. The below shows the 'Live View Configuration' Screen in my M series:

I've just tried altering the setup using a browser on mine while simultaneously viewing the HDMI connected TV. As soon as I make a change and click 'save' the HDMi connected screen refreshes and updates immediately.

 

[cymruchris]

Yes that's correct. You can do that in both the I series and the M series NVRs. The below shows the 'Live View Configuration' Screen in my M series:

View attachment 9649

Thanks for confirming - that's really helpful. Have you tried 'turning on' the sound remotely for a camera - so that it actually comes out at the monitor end? (Does that question make sense?)

 

[JB1970]

Thanks for confirming - that's really helpful. Have you tried 'turning on' the sound remotely for a camera - so that it actually comes out at the monitor end? (Does that question make sense?)

Ok I've just tried that for you. If I enable the sound on one of the cameras on the 3 x 3 multiscreen (camera 5 for instance) I get audio so long as 'Enable Sound Preview' is on. If I change that switch to off (via the browser), the screen refreshes and there's no audio. Toggle it back to on and the audio is restored from camera 5 again. What I can't do from the browser that I can do with the mouse is switch the audio on to another camera unfortunately. If I change from the 3 x 3 to a 2 x 2 layout camera 5 is still outputting audio when I move to page 2 (cameras 5-8). When I go back to the 3 x 3 split camera 5 is still selected for audio.

 

[cymruchris]

Ok I've just tried that for you. If I enable the sound on one of the cameras on the 3 x 3 multiscreen (camera 5 for instance) I get audio so long as 'Enable Sound Preview' is on. If I change that switch to off (via the browser), the screen refreshes and there's no audio. Toggle it back to on and the audio is restored from camera 5 again. What I can't do from the browser that I can do with the mouse is switch the audio on to another camera unfortunately.

Thanks for helping be a guinea pig

Can I just clear it in my head?

If you have a 3x3 display - and you click 'on' to sound in your browser - you say it's taking in your example sound from camera 5 - is camera 5 the first one on your screen - or the middle one as per your screen grab above? How does your NVR choose which sound/mic/camera channel to transmit?

I'll be going 2x2 - and at least 3 of the 4 cameras have mic's - I just want to ensure that the most central camera in the tower has the audio feed transmitted, so if it always takes sound from the first displayed channel on screen - I would need to be sure that camera is top left as it were.

I think what you're saying is that through the browser you can't select which camera's microphone becomes the 'sound channel' - but you do get sound.

So trying to work out how it selects which channel/mic to output. (And appreciate your time and effort experimenting on my behalf!)

 

[JB1970]

If you have a 3x3 display - and you click 'on' to sound in your browser - you say it's taking in your example sound from camera 5 - is camera 5 the first one on your screen - or the middle one as per your screen grab above? How does your NVR choose which sound/mic/camera channel to transmit?

In this case I started the sound first locally. When I first brought up my multi screen, no sound was output as all of the 9 cameras in the 3 x 3 were muted. Once you start audio on 1 of the segments locally, that's the sound that is output if I disable/enable sound preview. If I mute all of the cameras locally, then disable/ re enable sound preview via the browser, all of the cameras remain muted. So it looks as though you'd have to unmute the sound on the channel you want locally at the outset and it should remain on that channel which is probably not ideal.

 

[JB1970]

I'm just wondering whether it's possible to send xml via http put that could switch the sound...

A few weeks ago I started messing with a few things using node-red on a Raspberry Pi. I use node-red to integrate my alarm system with my smart home hub but saw that there were possibilities with Hikvision cameras.

I've set up flows that will alter the text overlays on my cameras. For instance I have one of my cameras displaying the temperature from an external sensor that's connected to my smart home hub, updated whenever the sensor gives a changed temperature. I also set something up that will manually switch modes on the camera (manual switching rather than auto allows different gain and shutter settings etc which is helpful). There might be a means to switch audio similarly....

 

[cymruchris]

In this case I started the sound first locally. When I first brought up my multi screen, no sound was output as all of the 9 cameras in the 3 x 3 were muted. Once you start audio on 1 of the segments locally, that's the sound that is output if I disable/enable sound preview. If I mute all of the cameras locally, then disable/ re enable sound preview via the browser, all of the cameras remain muted. So it looks as though you'd have to unmute the sound on the channel you want locally at the outset and it should remain on that channel which is probably not ideal.

That would be ok I think then - not ideal - but workable - locally the monitor could be 'turned down' on the unit directly, so that although the NVR was 'Sound on' it couldn't be heard locally - just through the stream.

So as long as we initially enable 'sound-on' for the most appropriate channel on-site - it should always be on as long as we keep the 'sound on' browser option selected.

We just can't turn off or on our chosen 'sound' channels remotely with the screen config tool. That would have been nice - but we can't have everything.

 

[cymruchris]

I'm just wondering whether it's possible to send xml via http put that could switch the sound...

A few weeks ago I started messing with a few things using node-red on a Raspberry Pi. I use node-red to integrate my alarm system with my smart home hub but saw that there were possibilities with Hikvision cameras.

I've set up flows that will alter the text overlays on my cameras. For instance I have one of my cameras displaying the temperature from an external sensor that's connected to my smart home hub, updated whenever the sensor gives a changed temperature. I also set something up that will manually switch modes on the camera (manual switching rather than auto allows different gain and shutter settings etc which is helpful). There might be a means to switch audio similarly....

View attachment 9650

That's interesting - I've often wondered for example as to how they (Hik) didn't have scheduled switches linked to sunrise and sunsets - and with my owl bell cam - I would like different settings day and night. Although I know the Pi - I've never looked into one beyond knowing what it is.

 

[cymruchris]

View attachment 9650

Interestingly I could only see your attachment when I hit reply - I can't see it just by reading your post.

 

[JB1970]

That's interesting - I've often wondered for example as to how they (Hik) didn't have scheduled switches linked to sunrise and sunsets - and with my owl bell cam - I would like different settings day and night. Although I know the Pi - I've never looked into one beyond knowing what it is.

One thing I'm hopeless with is code of any sort - I find it mind bending. However node-red isn't too bad. You can download node 'palettes' and these contain pre configured nodes that you just need to enter info into. So in the Hikvision palette there's a 'text overlay' node that allows you to send text to the camera (even if it's on the PoE port of an NVR). There's an 'xml' node - that will allow you to paste in raw xml that node-red will send. That's how you can change image parameters based on time. I have the Hikvision document that gives all of the ISAPI commands. As I said it's way above my skill set but I tend to never give up until I have something working!

 

[cymruchris]

One thing I'm hopeless with is code of any sort - I find it mind bending. However node-red isn't too bad. You can download node 'palettes' and these contain pre configured nodes that you just need to enter info into. So in the Hikvision palette there's a 'text overlay' node that allows you to send text to the camera (even if it's on the PoE port of an NVR). There's an 'xml' node - that will allow you to paste in raw xml that node-red will send. That's how you can change image parameters based on time. I have the Hikvision document that gives all of the ISAPI commands. As I said it's way above my skill set but I tend to never give up until I have something working!

View attachment 9651

We have similar mindsets and capabilities