After several months of playing around with various hardware, software and network configurations, I have finally arrived at a setup that works well for me. I am writing this post to share what I have learned about setting up Hikvision cameras, NVR and the various software packages available.
My journey began several months ago with a Ring Pro Doorbell. I quickly realized the Ring products were woefully inadequate for my needs. The video quality was poor, the WiFi connection was spotty, and I could not directly access the feeds without the Ring software, or record 24 hours. I quickly returned the Ring and looked into various surveillance options. I settled on Hikvision vs. Dahua mostly by 50/50 chance as they both seemed to be popular choices with similar price points and feature sets.
I started with a Hikvision 2CD-DS2142-FWD-IS camera. I set up the camera without an NVR and used QNAP QVR Pro software on my NAS to record 24 hours with various motion, intrustion and line crossing alerts. This setup worked pretty well, but the QVR Pro alerts did not work well. The QVR Pro Client software for the Windows PC was fantastic, I will say, much better than Hikvision's software. The ability to playback and view live/recorded footage was very intuitive. There was a single timeline that showed the continuous playback with lines drawn for every alert/event, and it was very easy to cycle forward and backwards through the alerts, something Hikvision's software lacks (sort of possible through iVMS-4200, but terrible interface).
As good as the QVR Pro client software was, there were shortcomings with recording to my NAS and sharing storage with other features of my NAS, as well as taking valuable processor time from my NAS, so I decided to ditch QVR Pro, and purchase a Hikvision NVR (DS-7608NI-E2 / 8P).
I purchased 2 more cameras and began using them with the NVR. I realized that connecting the cameras directly to the NVR POE ports, limited my access to the cameras directly, unless I did some tricks such as changing subnets, or using the virtual host option of the NVR to directly access the cameras. I was not happy with either of these solutions so I ended up connecting the cameras to a POE switch, and manually adding the cameras to the NVR, instead of using the POE ports of the NVR. This has several advantages, and I highly recommend it to anybody using an NVR with POE. POE switches can be purchased for as little as $30-35 ()
Having direct access to the camera allows you to fine tune your settings dramatically over what you can do from the NVR:
Software
iVMS-4200 (desktop app)
I personally can't stand iVMS-4200 for the desktop (Windows version). It is slow, clunky, and has WAY more options than any of my hardware supports, so there are hundreds of tabs, buttons, and screens that are pointless for me. The app takes a long time to start, long time to close, and uses a LOT of processor. It is powerful software, but I no longer use it for anything. I use the Web GUI for the NVR and for the cameras to do all of my setup, and occasionally for playing back video, although I usually use the phone apps for this.
Web GUI
The Web GUI is actually pretty good with one major drawback, and that is the ActiveX plugin that requires Internet Explorer for viewing the feed. Other than that, I find the Web GUI is much more suited than iVMS -4200 for making changes to my cameras or the NVR.
Hik-Connect (mobile app)
Just say no. The Hik-Connect software is terrible and buggy. The Hik-Connect software allows you to add devices using the Hik-Connect platform, as well as manually adding devices by IP address and ports. If you add devices using the Hik-Connect platform, you can enable PUSH notifications which work reasonably well, although they are sometimes delayed by a minute or more, which I find unacceptable. I think the reason for this is that alerts are sent from your device, up to the Hik-Connect servers, which then send them to your phone. There is a delay in using Hik-Connect as the middleman and I imagine they have some sort of queuing process for sending out PUSH alerts, and if there servers are busy, you have to wait a bit. Either way, Hik-Connect's interface is not easy to use, and playing back video has artifacts and pauses that do no occur on iVMS-4500. If you set up camera's manually by ip address/port using Hik-Connect, you cannot receive PUSH notifications.
iVMS-4500HD (mobile app)
Just say no. This app is terrible, and from what I understand was basically iVMS-4500 (non HD) but designed for tablets, so the orientation is always landscape instead of portrait. I don't think iVMS-4500HD is updated anymore, so it lacks features of the regular iVMS-4500.
iVMS-4500 (mobile app)
This is the app to use for mobile. It works reasonably well, and allows you to add phones manually via ip address/port, as well as using Hik-Connect (the platform, not the app). If you add via Hik-Connect, PUSH notifications will be turned on, and you cannot turn them off. If you add devices manually, you can turn alerts on/off at will for each device separately, which is very nice. There is an issue with PUSH notifications on the iVMS-4500 app. When setup correctly they work pretty well, but it takes some effort to make it work. I will go into more detail below in the PUSH Notifications section.
VLC (desktop app)
I know, VLC is not a Hikvision app, but it works great a simple live viewer for the desktop. I setup a playlist with several RTSP streams on it, and saved the playlist to my desktop. Now I can double-click the playlist, and cycle through all of my cameras easily. One tip is to enable channel zero on the NVR. This allows you to view an RTSP stream of all the channels at once. I make this the first track on the playlist so I can see all of my cameras at once. Then I add the main stream channel for all of my cameras. The "N" key cycles to the next track, and the "P" key goes to the previous track, so while I am working, if I notice motion on channel zero, I just hit "P" the appropriate number of times to pull up the HD feed of the camera I spotted motion in. Works great, and uses a lot less processor and bandwidth than the WebGUI, and iVMS-4200. (see attached image). I have also attached a sample playlist (rename the extension from .txt to .xspf for VLC to recognize it as a playlist). Just edit the file and insert your own credentials, ip addresses, and ports, and you will be on your way. Hitting Ctrl+H in VLC will remove the controls and give you a cleaner display.
Push Notifications
I spent considerable time getting PUSH notifications to work properly and there are several things you need to know in order to get them working consistently.
Once notifications are setup you can start receiving PUSH notifications when events on the camera are triggered. However, I noticed I would only sometimes get the PUSH notifications. When I wouldn't receive a PUSH notification that I expected, I noticed if I went into the iVMS-4500 app the notification was there in the APP, it just didn't alert my phone as a PUSH notification. So clearly, the app was receiving the notification, it just didn't make my phone ding, and show up as an alert. I spent hours scouring the internet, and I was not alone in this, it seems to be VERY common, and most of you have probably noticed this as well. I did NOT want to use Hik-Connect, because I hate the app, and the notifications were delayed, so I spent a lot of time playing around trying to get them to work all the time in iVMS-4500 and I am happy to say I have figured out a method that works for me basically every time, and without a delay. The trick is to CLOSE iVMS-4500 when you exit the app. Don't just exit it, but close it afterwards. I think what happens is iVMS receives the PUSH notification and thinks it is open in the foreground, not the background, and decides not to alert the phone because it thinks you are already in the app. If you close the app, every time you exit it, you will receive PUSH notifications pretty much all the time.
TL; DR
If you use a Hikvision POE NVR, power your cameras via a POE switch and manually add them to the NVR so you can gain fine tune control over your cameras, as well as the ability to record events to the SD card (or NAS drive), while continuously recording to the NVR. This allows you to easily view events only by connecting to the cameras, or view continuously when connecting to the NVR.
Close iVMS-4500 when you exit the app, and you will receive PUSH notifications more reliably.
My journey began several months ago with a Ring Pro Doorbell. I quickly realized the Ring products were woefully inadequate for my needs. The video quality was poor, the WiFi connection was spotty, and I could not directly access the feeds without the Ring software, or record 24 hours. I quickly returned the Ring and looked into various surveillance options. I settled on Hikvision vs. Dahua mostly by 50/50 chance as they both seemed to be popular choices with similar price points and feature sets.
I started with a Hikvision 2CD-DS2142-FWD-IS camera. I set up the camera without an NVR and used QNAP QVR Pro software on my NAS to record 24 hours with various motion, intrustion and line crossing alerts. This setup worked pretty well, but the QVR Pro alerts did not work well. The QVR Pro Client software for the Windows PC was fantastic, I will say, much better than Hikvision's software. The ability to playback and view live/recorded footage was very intuitive. There was a single timeline that showed the continuous playback with lines drawn for every alert/event, and it was very easy to cycle forward and backwards through the alerts, something Hikvision's software lacks (sort of possible through iVMS-4200, but terrible interface).
As good as the QVR Pro client software was, there were shortcomings with recording to my NAS and sharing storage with other features of my NAS, as well as taking valuable processor time from my NAS, so I decided to ditch QVR Pro, and purchase a Hikvision NVR (DS-7608NI-E2 / 8P).
I purchased 2 more cameras and began using them with the NVR. I realized that connecting the cameras directly to the NVR POE ports, limited my access to the cameras directly, unless I did some tricks such as changing subnets, or using the virtual host option of the NVR to directly access the cameras. I was not happy with either of these solutions so I ended up connecting the cameras to a POE switch, and manually adding the cameras to the NVR, instead of using the POE ports of the NVR. This has several advantages, and I highly recommend it to anybody using an NVR with POE. POE switches can be purchased for as little as $30-35 ()
Having direct access to the camera allows you to fine tune your settings dramatically over what you can do from the NVR:
- Fine tune image settings
- Fine tune your alerts (NVR doesn't allow you to draw min and max size boxes which dramatically help you reduce false alerts)
- Allow you record events only on the SD card of the cameras, while recording continuously to the NVR
Software
iVMS-4200 (desktop app)
I personally can't stand iVMS-4200 for the desktop (Windows version). It is slow, clunky, and has WAY more options than any of my hardware supports, so there are hundreds of tabs, buttons, and screens that are pointless for me. The app takes a long time to start, long time to close, and uses a LOT of processor. It is powerful software, but I no longer use it for anything. I use the Web GUI for the NVR and for the cameras to do all of my setup, and occasionally for playing back video, although I usually use the phone apps for this.
Web GUI
The Web GUI is actually pretty good with one major drawback, and that is the ActiveX plugin that requires Internet Explorer for viewing the feed. Other than that, I find the Web GUI is much more suited than iVMS -4200 for making changes to my cameras or the NVR.
Hik-Connect (mobile app)
Just say no. The Hik-Connect software is terrible and buggy. The Hik-Connect software allows you to add devices using the Hik-Connect platform, as well as manually adding devices by IP address and ports. If you add devices using the Hik-Connect platform, you can enable PUSH notifications which work reasonably well, although they are sometimes delayed by a minute or more, which I find unacceptable. I think the reason for this is that alerts are sent from your device, up to the Hik-Connect servers, which then send them to your phone. There is a delay in using Hik-Connect as the middleman and I imagine they have some sort of queuing process for sending out PUSH alerts, and if there servers are busy, you have to wait a bit. Either way, Hik-Connect's interface is not easy to use, and playing back video has artifacts and pauses that do no occur on iVMS-4500. If you set up camera's manually by ip address/port using Hik-Connect, you cannot receive PUSH notifications.
iVMS-4500HD (mobile app)
Just say no. This app is terrible, and from what I understand was basically iVMS-4500 (non HD) but designed for tablets, so the orientation is always landscape instead of portrait. I don't think iVMS-4500HD is updated anymore, so it lacks features of the regular iVMS-4500.
iVMS-4500 (mobile app)
This is the app to use for mobile. It works reasonably well, and allows you to add phones manually via ip address/port, as well as using Hik-Connect (the platform, not the app). If you add via Hik-Connect, PUSH notifications will be turned on, and you cannot turn them off. If you add devices manually, you can turn alerts on/off at will for each device separately, which is very nice. There is an issue with PUSH notifications on the iVMS-4500 app. When setup correctly they work pretty well, but it takes some effort to make it work. I will go into more detail below in the PUSH Notifications section.
VLC (desktop app)
I know, VLC is not a Hikvision app, but it works great a simple live viewer for the desktop. I setup a playlist with several RTSP streams on it, and saved the playlist to my desktop. Now I can double-click the playlist, and cycle through all of my cameras easily. One tip is to enable channel zero on the NVR. This allows you to view an RTSP stream of all the channels at once. I make this the first track on the playlist so I can see all of my cameras at once. Then I add the main stream channel for all of my cameras. The "N" key cycles to the next track, and the "P" key goes to the previous track, so while I am working, if I notice motion on channel zero, I just hit "P" the appropriate number of times to pull up the HD feed of the camera I spotted motion in. Works great, and uses a lot less processor and bandwidth than the WebGUI, and iVMS-4200. (see attached image). I have also attached a sample playlist (rename the extension from .txt to .xspf for VLC to recognize it as a playlist). Just edit the file and insert your own credentials, ip addresses, and ports, and you will be on your way. Hitting Ctrl+H in VLC will remove the controls and give you a cleaner display.
Push Notifications
I spent considerable time getting PUSH notifications to work properly and there are several things you need to know in order to get them working consistently.
- Notifications through the Hik-Connect platform are consistent, but often delayed, I do not recommend using Hik-Connect the app or the platform
- You must forward not only the SERVER port but the HTTP port as well using iVMS-4500 in order for the PUSH notifications to work. I recommend not using port 80 or 8000 for any of the ports as those are defaults and more likely to be used in a hacking attempt. Once you have forwarded the Server and HTTP port (it HAS to be HTTP, it will not work over HTTPS port for some stupid reason), you can go the alarm menu, and click "Set Alarm Notification" at the bottom. If your ports are forwarded correctly, you should be able to enable the notifications for your devices.
Once notifications are setup you can start receiving PUSH notifications when events on the camera are triggered. However, I noticed I would only sometimes get the PUSH notifications. When I wouldn't receive a PUSH notification that I expected, I noticed if I went into the iVMS-4500 app the notification was there in the APP, it just didn't alert my phone as a PUSH notification. So clearly, the app was receiving the notification, it just didn't make my phone ding, and show up as an alert. I spent hours scouring the internet, and I was not alone in this, it seems to be VERY common, and most of you have probably noticed this as well. I did NOT want to use Hik-Connect, because I hate the app, and the notifications were delayed, so I spent a lot of time playing around trying to get them to work all the time in iVMS-4500 and I am happy to say I have figured out a method that works for me basically every time, and without a delay. The trick is to CLOSE iVMS-4500 when you exit the app. Don't just exit it, but close it afterwards. I think what happens is iVMS receives the PUSH notification and thinks it is open in the foreground, not the background, and decides not to alert the phone because it thinks you are already in the app. If you close the app, every time you exit it, you will receive PUSH notifications pretty much all the time.
TL; DR
If you use a Hikvision POE NVR, power your cameras via a POE switch and manually add them to the NVR so you can gain fine tune control over your cameras, as well as the ability to record events to the SD card (or NAS drive), while continuously recording to the NVR. This allows you to easily view events only by connecting to the cameras, or view continuously when connecting to the NVR.
Close iVMS-4500 when you exit the app, and you will receive PUSH notifications more reliably.
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