A couple of system questions...

[camguyutah]

My Dahua camera system is up and running. Everything looks great! Just a couple of questions:

1-I have my iDMSS app up and running, but would like to access my cameras on my phone while I am away from the house. As long as I create a VPN (thinking of adding Tomato on my Netgear R7000 and running the built in VPN) I will be able to change the ports and be safe, correct?

2-I have a Dell monitor connected to my NVR via VGA cable and the picture looks great. I have noticed that off and on the camera images on the monitor will go black, the green camera icons will disappear and then come back after several seconds. After looking at the playback, it seems the cameras disconnect for a few seconds as the camera recordings go black and then come back. Any ideas what could cause this?

Thanks

 

[camguyutah]

Just another item, I had SmartPSS open on my iMac and the cameras went black on the monitor that was connected to the NVR. I noticed the time stamps on my SmartPSS program camera windows paused until the image came back on the NVR monitor. Kind of an odd thing to have happen.

 

[fenderman]

My Dahua camera system is up and running. Everything looks great! Just a couple of questions:

1-I have my iDMSS app up and running, but would like to access my cameras on my phone while I am away from the house. As long as I create a VPN (thinking of adding Tomato on my Netgear R7000 and running the built in VPN) I will be able to change the ports and be safe, correct?

2-I have a Dell monitor connected to my NVR via VGA cable and the picture looks great. I have noticed that off and on the camera images on the monitor will go black, the green camera icons will disappear and then come back after several seconds. After looking at the playback, it seems the cameras disconnect for a few seconds as the camera recordings go black and then come back. Any ideas what could cause this?

Thanks

1. Yes, you dont have to change any ports.
2. What kind of cables are you using? Brand, model?

 

[camguyutah]

1. Yes, you dont have to change any ports.
2. What kind of cables are you using? Brand, model?

Very helpful, thanks.

I had a commercial camera system installer run the lines. They are Cat5e 24awg solid copper cables. He said they use them for their commercial installs. Not sure on the brand but

 

[camguyutah]

He said it’s a good quality cable and is trustworthy.

 

[fenderman]

Very helpful, thanks.

I had a commercial camera system installer run the lines. They are Cat5e 24awg solid copper cables. He said they use them for their commercial installs. Not sure on the brand but

How are you powering the cams, NVR? switch? if so what models?
What model cams?

 

[camguyutah]

How are you powering the cams, NVR? switch? if so what models?
What model cams?

I am using a Dahua NVR with my 4 Starlight cameras:

- NVR4108-8P-4KS2
- 2 of IPC-HDW2231R-ZS
- 2 of IPC-HDW4231EM-ASE

 

[fenderman]

I am using a Dahua NVR with my 4 Starlight cameras:

- NVR4108-8P-4KS2
- 2 of IPC-HDW2231R-ZS
- 2 of IPC-HDW4231EM-ASE

What are the bitrates set to?

 

[camguyutah]

What are the bitrates set to?

Is that a camera setting?

 

[camguyutah]

It’s Northern Cable Cat5E 350 MHz 24 AWG.

 

[c hris527]

Just another item, I had SmartPSS open on my iMac and the cameras went black on the monitor that was connected to the NVR. I noticed the time stamps on my SmartPSS program camera windows paused until the image came back on the NVR monitor. Kind of an odd thing to have happen.

If you are powering your cams through the NVR's built in POE, and you drop a cam for some reason, its common to see cams disappear until the POE power in the NVR can catch up and regulate power. Once everything is up and running its usually no issues but in your case it sounds like for some you have a cam dropping and restarting causing blank screens . Do you have your cameras set to re-boot , by default it is usually set to every Tuesday at 2:00am. You could try to disable that and see what happens. Its under system maintenance setting.

 

[camguyutah]

If you are powering your cams through the NVR's built in POE, and you drop a cam for some reason, its common to see cams disappear until the POE power in the NVR can catch up and regulate power. Once everything is up and running its usually no issues but in your case it sounds like for some you have a cam dropping and restarting causing blank screens . Do you have your cameras set to re-boot , by default it is usually set to every Tuesday at 2:00am. You could try to disable that and see what happens. Its under system maintenance setting.

Thanks. Based on your explanation, maybe it is just the POE power catching up. They don’t seem to drop for much more than a few seconds. I also checked the Auto Reboot and it’s sets to Never. Do most people with POE and NVR setups have their cameras disappear from the screen and come back after a few seconds? This is new to me and maybe it’s normal?

 

[c hris527]

Thanks. Based on your explanation, maybe it is just the POE power catching up. They don’t seem to drop for much more than a few seconds. I also checked the Auto Reboot and it’s sets to Never. Do most people with POE and NVR setups have their cameras disappear from the screen and come back after a few seconds? This is new to me and maybe it’s normal?

You can look at the log file on your NVR and see what cam is dropping out, usually once they start and everything is stable, they should not be randomly dropping.

 

[camguyutah]

You can look at the log file on your NVR and see what cam is dropping out, usually once they start and everything is stable, they should not be randomly dropping.

I am looking at the logs now and on 10-20 (when most of the issues were happening) there were IP conflicts. They have since been resolved and I do not see any other logs since then. Looks like I may be in the clear...

 

[camguyutah]

What are the bitrates set to?

Looks like the bitrates are just over 4,000 kbps. Everything is working great now.