Aliexpress, Dahua CHINESE cameras?

[badmop]

What's up with the Dahua line at the moment. Alot of the cameras are listed CHINESE on aliexpress.. Some are listed English, but if you message a seller and ask about the English listed cameras, if they are ENGLISH, they tell you that it is Chinese with Custom firmware. (Has this always been the case?)


Currently I'm looking to get a couple extra cameras..
MODEL: IPC-HDW4421C My current model has firmware: 2.400.0000.6.R, build : 2015-04-09 (I bought them late August)

A seller on ali has the same model, but Chinese with custom ENGLISH firmware. The firmware is: 2.400.0000.15R, build : 2015-08-30
I asked what the difference is and the seller said: "The difference is that you could not upgrade with Custom IPC"

Has that always been the case? Or with certain sellers? (I thought the region ordeal was limited to hikvision)
Is there any way to tell if my current HDW4421C cameras are custom English firmware? (I don't really care as long as they work fine with Dahua NVR and the menus are English. Atleast if there aren't any cons to it)

Thanks

 

[reverend]

The one I bought is Chinese firmware but if you access it with Google Chrome you can auto translate it all back to English to get everything set up.

If you access the camera in IE and it's all in Chinese and doesn't have an English language option in the firmware you know it's standard Chinese firmware.

 

[badmop]

If the language on the menus is Chinese, I know it would be Chinese firmware. haha
As long as the Chinese firmware cameras are compatible with standalone NVR's, I don't see it being an issue as long as there are no other negatives or cons to having a Chinese firmware camera hooked up with other possible English cameras to a Dahua NVR.

Thanks, I'm OCD about stuff, but how often and long do you really spend in the menus on the camera directly?

 

[reverend]

Ah ok I don't know about the standalone NVR compatibility as I just use Blue Iris for that - hopefully someone here will have tried it?

Once I've set a camera up I don't tend to ever use the menu until the next firmware update is out

 

[badmop]

I may test BI one day.
I was told there will be no issues, I would imagine there aren't any. I'm just curious of other issues before I get another camera. So if I have to try and track down a true English firmware, I will. If not, there's no point in spending more or more time searching.

 

[james99]

I also don't understand the majority of Dahua cameras (mostly all of them) on Ali are chinese firmware. What is the point of Ali trying to sell internationally, specifically to USA, if they can't accommodate to english menus/firmware? I understand that chrome won't interpret to english anymore with the new version (42?). This whole english firmware problem is unacceptable to me as a consumer in the USA. Badmop, I know that you are an expert in this field, but I cannot agree with your statement that having chinese firmware won't matter because "how often and long do you really spend in the menus on the camera directly" I for one, am learning by doing just that, tweaking the menus and observing the difference in the video. To me, it is just unacceptable to have chinese characters instead of an english menu. Am I supposed to learn to read and write chinese now?

 

[reverend]

Not sure where you read that about Chrome but I'm running 46.x here on Windows and it still auto translates to English