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Hi, noob here so a) please make allowances and b) big thanks to use-IP for this superb resource.
I'm about to upgrade an ancient (Bosch Eazeo) CCTV system and settled on Hikvision, primarily because their cameras claim to support my lifetime one and only operating system. Sadly, I didn't find this forum until today.
So, before spending my kids' inheritance I thought I would start by testing a single camera with no NVR, just a POE switch. So I bought a IPC-B640H-Z.
Of course, I discovered immediately that it is not supported by Safari (v12 or 13) or any other Mac browser I've tried (Chrome, Firefox or the execrable Seamonkey). I did download and install the Hikvision Mac web plugin but it made no difference and may not even be installed as I can't see it anywhere. I also upgraded the camera firmware to v5.5.82 bid 190130 but this didn't help. So this isn't my idea of Mac Os support. If anyone has a browser working under High Sierra or later, please could you put me out of my misery?
Undeterred, I downloaded iVMS-4200 for Mac and thankfully this does seem to work although it isn't at all Mac-centric. I have no idea what all the buttons and icons mean because there's no tooltip popup under the cursor when I hover over them. So I looked through the iVMS-4200 manual for Mac looking for clues - but for reasons which currently escape me there is no legend in there which names and identifies the buttons/icons. I wanted to test the zoom on this camera and only found the right button by trial and error...so Lord knows what I may have broken in the process. If someone can point me to a button guide for this software, I'll be so grateful.
One discovery which might help others: I thought I was getting no iVMS-4200 live feed on my main High Sierra computer screen as the window was solid back in the default view and stayed black when I clicked on other views/matrixes. But miraculously, when I eventually clicked (by accident) on the 9-screen view, my single camera decided to show up and double clicking the preview window took me to a full screen live view. Whatever.
I do seem to get constant popup error messages in the corner of my screen, many of which don't hang around long enough to be read…and if they do, I don't understand what they mean. So where might I find an idiot's guide to the error messages and how to fix the problems?
Then I wanted to adjust the brightness/contrast of my live feed so I went to the Remote Config tab and found the controls - but mysteriously there is no preview of the live feed on that page so it appears that I need to make a trial-and-error adjustment and then switch back to live view to see its effect? Since it would obviously be madness to offer image controls without a preview window, this surely has to be newbie error so I would be grateful to be put straight.
If Hikvision didn't make the only access control/video intercom system which meets all my needs, I would already have gone elsewhere, albeit other manufacturers may be no more Mac-supportive. So I would like to make progress, learn stuff and discover that Hikvision can work for me. Thanks for any help - and apologies for rambling on.
I'm about to upgrade an ancient (Bosch Eazeo) CCTV system and settled on Hikvision, primarily because their cameras claim to support my lifetime one and only operating system. Sadly, I didn't find this forum until today.
So, before spending my kids' inheritance I thought I would start by testing a single camera with no NVR, just a POE switch. So I bought a IPC-B640H-Z.
Of course, I discovered immediately that it is not supported by Safari (v12 or 13) or any other Mac browser I've tried (Chrome, Firefox or the execrable Seamonkey). I did download and install the Hikvision Mac web plugin but it made no difference and may not even be installed as I can't see it anywhere. I also upgraded the camera firmware to v5.5.82 bid 190130 but this didn't help. So this isn't my idea of Mac Os support. If anyone has a browser working under High Sierra or later, please could you put me out of my misery?
Undeterred, I downloaded iVMS-4200 for Mac and thankfully this does seem to work although it isn't at all Mac-centric. I have no idea what all the buttons and icons mean because there's no tooltip popup under the cursor when I hover over them. So I looked through the iVMS-4200 manual for Mac looking for clues - but for reasons which currently escape me there is no legend in there which names and identifies the buttons/icons. I wanted to test the zoom on this camera and only found the right button by trial and error...so Lord knows what I may have broken in the process. If someone can point me to a button guide for this software, I'll be so grateful.
One discovery which might help others: I thought I was getting no iVMS-4200 live feed on my main High Sierra computer screen as the window was solid back in the default view and stayed black when I clicked on other views/matrixes. But miraculously, when I eventually clicked (by accident) on the 9-screen view, my single camera decided to show up and double clicking the preview window took me to a full screen live view. Whatever.
I do seem to get constant popup error messages in the corner of my screen, many of which don't hang around long enough to be read…and if they do, I don't understand what they mean. So where might I find an idiot's guide to the error messages and how to fix the problems?
Then I wanted to adjust the brightness/contrast of my live feed so I went to the Remote Config tab and found the controls - but mysteriously there is no preview of the live feed on that page so it appears that I need to make a trial-and-error adjustment and then switch back to live view to see its effect? Since it would obviously be madness to offer image controls without a preview window, this surely has to be newbie error so I would be grateful to be put straight.
If Hikvision didn't make the only access control/video intercom system which meets all my needs, I would already have gone elsewhere, albeit other manufacturers may be no more Mac-supportive. So I would like to make progress, learn stuff and discover that Hikvision can work for me. Thanks for any help - and apologies for rambling on.
