NVR doesn't show IP cam image + weird wires

[Joefrey Longueville]

Hello,

First, excuse my English but I am from Belgium and I speak French...

I would like to thank you for your forum and videos on YouTube. They were very helpful for me for making my choice and I finally bought a Hikvision DS-2CD2042WD-I.

I thought that it would be better to have something dedicated for recording and not use my computer hard disk so I also bought a Hikvision DS-7604NI-E1/4P/A and I will be receiving Tuesday a Western Digital Purple 3Tb HDD.

If all of this will work well, I will add one or two more IP Cameras.

Now, my problem. I will try to explain the best that I can but once again, excuse my English:

I am working on an iMac. The NVR is connected to my Provider's router with an Ethernet wire. The IP Cam is connected to the NVR port number 1 with an Ethernet wire.

The first problem was that the IP Cam is with the IP 192.168.1.64 and this is the address that my provider use exclusively for TV signal. When I go to my provider's router menu, I can see this list:

Gateway IP: 192.168.1.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
IPv4 Pool Start:192.168.1.2
IPv4 Pool End: 192.168.1.63
IPv4 TV Pool Start: 192.168.1.64
IPv4 TV Pool End: 192.168.1.127
Lease Time: 3600

Because of this, I was not able to see the IP Cam, and therefore not able to change any of the settings.
I don't have PoE injector or a DC 12V adapter so my only option to bring power to the IP cam is to plug it to the NVR.

After struggle for a while, I finally found on internet that you have to add an Ethernet wire from your router to the NVR in one of the port that is normaly use for an IP Cam. I don't know why, I don't know how, but this works. I was then able to finally see the IP Cam with iVMS4200 and could change the IP from 192.168.1.64 to 192.168.1.21 (my router gave the NVR the IP 192.168.1.20 so I wanted to stay close and have a logical list). I also activated it by clicking on the button.

I also change the password for a strong one (7 letters (with capitals) and 4 numbers)

I thought that this will be good but ...

When I use the web browser to see the IP Cam and enter 192.168.1.21 in the URL bar, I have a login screen and I enter the user name and password that I defined with iVMS 4200. I am then able to see correctly the video feed from the IP Cam, change the settings, image quality, time stamp, ... I also have the same thing on my iPhone with iVMS-4500.

Still with iVMS4200, when I check for online device I have the NVR and the IP Cam, both of them with a small image of what the camera is filming. So I just exported the NVR so that if I add IP Cam in the future I will only have one menu on the left part of the live view screen (much clear).

Back to the web browser...

When I enter the url 192.168.1.20, I am able to enter the NVR menus. At the beginning I could not detect the IP Cam. After adding the second Ethernet wire from the router to the NVR port number 4 I was able to see it.
I remembered having read somewhere that you have to have the same user name and password on all devices so I changed the password for the same as the IP Cam (user name is still admin on both).

I can go in every menu but when I try the live view, I have a grey screen, no error message regarding a plugin, and the small icon on the left with a camera 01 - picture of a camera - feed selection.
If I click on the "Camera 01" I have an error message in the lower right corner that says "Live view failed"

This is where I am now ... I can see the camera images with iVMS4200 on my iMac, with iVMS4500 on my iPhone, and on my iMac web browser if I connect to the IP Cam.
If I connect to the NVR with the web browser, it detect the IP Camera, says that the IP Cam is online (in Configuration-System tab) but doesn't show anything.

And last, if I remove the Ethernet wire that I add from the router to the NVR port number 4, the IP Cam is not detected anymore (web browser, iVMS4200 and iVMS4500)

I tried on both device a factory reset (and had to change IP Cam IP again with iVMS4200) and have the latest firmware but the problem remains.

To help you help me, these are the informations about my configuration:

Network Video Recorder DS-7604NI-E1/4P/A
Firmware: V3.4.90 build 161008
Version Encoder: V5.0 build 160924
Web version: V4.0.1 build 160930
Plug-in version: V3.0.6.8


IP Camera DS-2CD2042WD-I
Firmware: V5.4.0 build 160511
Version Encoder: V7.3 build 160401
Web version: V4.0.1 build 160324
Plug-in version: V3.0.6.1

Sorry for beeing so long but I don't really know what you need for helping me, and I hope you will find a solution for me.

Thank you very much.

Best regards,
Joefrey

 

[Joefrey Longueville]

Hi again,

I just found one of your past regarding an issue with Safari. I am using Firefox but I gave it a try and changed the protocol from TCP to UDP and it works !!

I am now able to see the video from the IP cam when connecting by web browser to NVR (192.168.1.20).

On problem remains: what about htat Ethernet wire that I had to add ? If I remove it the IP Cam is no more detected.

Thanks again.

Joefrey

 

[Kieran]

Hi Joefrey,

Thanks for all the information, helpful stuff! Glad to hear you also solved one of your issues - there will be a Mac OS web components plugin update soon that will fix the browser issues you've experienced rather than using the UDP method. It's still going through some final testing before a public release is available.

If you plug a camera directly into the POE ports on the back of an NVR, you will not be able to directly access it via iVMS 4200 / 4500 or a web browser, and will instead need to connect to the NVR itself to view the camera. This is because you're connecting the camera to the NVRs own internal NIC which, by default, is unreachable by the rest of your network and uses a 192.168.254.x address range. The camera will automatically be reconfigured to this address whenever it's connected via this Plug-and-Play method.

You've not done anything wrong, don't worry - this is simply how Hikvision NVRs work.

You might want to investigate a feature on your NVR called "Virtual Host" covered in this thread which should allow you to connect directly to the camera through the NVR.

 

[Joefrey Longueville]

Hello,

Thank you for your help and sorry for this delay in my answer.

This helped me in understanding how Hikvision works.

Now, I know what I have and just to be sure that I have understood everything, here is my setup:

My NVR is under the IP address 192.168.1.20 on my home network and I have assigned this fixed IP address in my Provider's Router. In the SADP Tools menu, I can see that it is also under the 192.168.254.1 IP address.

I have two cameras: one DS-2CD2042WD-I in my driveway and one DS-2CD2342WD-I in my Living Room.
The DS-2CD2042WD-I is on the NVR port n°1 and has the IP address 192.168.254.2 and the DS-2CD2342WD-I is on the NVR port n°2 and has the IP address 192.168.254.3

I can see both camera when I use web browser Safari/Firefox on my Mac and type 192.168.1.20
I can see both of them also when I use the EZIVIZ application from Hikvision on Safari/Firefox or iOS App. iVMS4200 or 4500HD doesn't work anymore.

I am able to change just a few setting (lightning, contrast, ...) because I am going thru the NVR. If I want to change more specs of the cameras (OSD, WDR, ...) I have to put a LAN cable between my Router and the NVR port n°4 and use SADP Tools to change the cameras IP address to 192.168.1.21 and 22 and then use Safari/Firefox and go to the Configuration tab. Then I need to swith theyr IP address back to 192.168.254.x and remove the LAN cable from port n°4.

That is a little heavy but I finally have found how to deal with this Hikvision stuff, thanks to you !!

If I can, I have on more question:

How do you do to have a nice clear image ?
When it is a non moving image it is ok, I can see details such as bricks patterns outside or magazines covers inside, but as soon as something is moving it is blurry. You can't even recognize a face if you don't know who it is. Is there a setup better than another ?

Thank again.

 

[Kieran]

That is a little heavy but I finally have found how to deal with this Hikvision stuff, thanks to you !!

Glad to hear you're up and sorted

As I mentioned in my earlier reply, you might want to enable a feature on your NVR called Virtual Host, which would mean you wouldn't have to physically connect to port #4 with a LAN cable - you could instead connect to the cameras directly via the NVRs web browser access.

It sounds like you might need to increase the bitrate settings of your camera. They may be too low for the amount of motion in the scene, causing the camera to overcompress the image to meet the bandwidth limitation.

Could you post a screenshot of your video settings?

 

[Joefrey Longueville]

Sorry but it is the first time for me with a video LAN setup ...

Here are two printscreen of the video setup of my configuration screens.

 

[Kieran]

Thanks.

For a test, would you please disable H.264+ encoding on both cameras, and increase the variable bitrate maximum to 8192kbps?

Make sure you double-check that the Main Stream (Event) settings (Type de flux) also have the same settings as the main stream for now. These settings ordinarily come into effect when an event is triggered on the camera such as motion detection, but for now it'd be best if they weren't lowering the camera's bitrate when motion is detected etc.

 

[Joefrey Longueville]

I changed what you said. It seems that the image quality is better but I have an horrible lag !
I takes forever to connect, then I have the first image of the two camera and then it doesn't actualise.
I took 2 printscreens each times because I have 3 choices for each camera:
Main Stream (Normal)
Second Stream
Main Stream (Event)
You have a printscreen of the 2 Main Stream options.

 

[Joefrey Longueville]

I changed what you said. It seems that the image quality is better but I have an horrible lag !
I takes forever to connect, then I have the first image of the two camera and then it doesn't actualise.
I took 2 printscreens each times because I have 3 choices for each camera:
Main Stream (Normal)
Second Stream
Main Stream (Event)
You have a printscreen of the 2 Main Stream options.