Accessing RTSP feeds from hiwatch hikvision NVR

I've been trying to do this on and off for a few months and I seem to be getting nowhere.
I'm a relative newb to the NVR hence the reason I purchased an entry level one (hiwatch by hikvision), I've just used local IP cameras before that were directly connected to the network (either wirelessly or via ethernet).
I'm trying to get to the RTSP feeds from my NVR so I can use them with other applications (firstly, home assistant) but I can't seem to figure out how to view them.
The NVR appears to be on a different subnet to my router (192.168.1.254 - router, 192.168.254.1 - NVR). The cameras are all working fine through the hikvision app(s) (ivms and hik-connect) but I can't seem to get the feeds directly.
I've tried hitting multiple url suggestions in VLC (i.e. rtsp://<NVR-IP>:554/Streaming/channels/101) but no joy.
I keep coming back to the fact that I can see the feeds in my app so I should be able to get them from somewhere!
Sorry for the brain dump, if there's anyone who can offer some assistance, it would be much appreciated.
Thanks

ppfearn said:

The NVR appears to be on a different subnet to my router (192.168.1.254 - router, 192.168.254.1 - NVR).

Click to expand...

It shouldn't be. What makes you think that?
That address is the usual default for a Hikvision NVR PoE interface, not the NVR LAN interface.
Have you plugged your router into an NVR PoE port?
Normally the NVR LAN port should be the one connected to the local network.

Maybe just my poor way of describing it. I'll try again.
The NVR has an IP on the same subnet as the router (192.168.1.186 in this case, and the router is on 192.168.1.254). The cameras have been given IP addresses on a different subnet (e.g. 192.168.254.3).
The cameras are all plugged into the POE ports and the LAN connection for the NVR is connected to the router.

OK, that sounds more normal.

I's speculate that the HiWatch NVRs do not provide RTSP streams, unlike the other series of NVRs.
HiWatch is the low-end entry level, missing quite a few features of the other models.

I thought that myself after doing some reading about it (the virtual host feature appears to be missing) but the web interface for the NVR does show rtsp ports which made me think it should be possible:

What model is that? I am quite sure that I have used the Virtual Host feature on many Hiwatch units.

Web interface shows: NVR-104-A / 4P
I've looked for the virtual host option and I can't find it. I assume it's not part of the firmware and I can't find any other firmware for this system.

I never even heard of that model, but it does seem it is as low end as it can get (it doesn't even support H265; which you probably won't be using anyway if you want to use RTSP).

I just checked a HWN-4104MH-4P and it does have virtual host. And it also does support RTSP, I tested it fine with the URL you posted above with the substream (main stream is H265, VLC does not like it, at least the version I have installed here).

rtsp://userass@IPort/Streaming/channels/102

Click to expand...

Well now I feel silly, that's got it working. I'm sure I tried that one, maybe I just missed it in my combinations (I seem to have gone through so many!)
Anyway, I can now see the rtsp stream of each of the cameras!
Thanks so much for your help (both of you), I can now start playing with the feeds for 3rd party apps

LOL the main stream sometimes might give problems if it is an unsupported resolution/codec...! Glad that helped.

Well, that's a good result.
Another example of how helpful this forum can be.

By the way - unless you want the whole internet to be able to have a go at your NVR and be able to hack it - best to disable UPnP both on the NVR and your router.

Yeah, done it now. Just going through resetting everything after the fiddling around I've been doing trying to get this working.