Can't get cameras to sync correctly with proper time all the time

S

Schrodinger's Cat

Young grasshopper
Nov 17, 2020
54
23
USA
I want my camera feeds coming into Blue Iris to always have the correct time and self adjust for DST.

Right now, I have to log in to each camera from my camserver 2x per year and click "PC Sync" to fix the time on each.

There is an option to sync to NTP server with the default being clock.isc.org, but these cameras do not have access to the internet so they can't reach out to that time server.

I have set up a local time server on my BI machine running NetTime, which works except after syncing the time on the camera is still -1 hour from the correct time! The NetTime windows service I have running shows the correct time but when the camera pings it for time the camera ends up -1 hour from it!

I'm at a loss here for something I think should be simple. How can I just have my Amcrest cams always show the correct time?
 
Many of have noticed that some cams are somehow programmed strange regarding time zones.

You simply need to find a new time zone one hour off of the timezone you are in and change it to that time zone so that it then displays the correct time.

I have a few cameras that I have to do that with as well. But once set, I haven't had to touch them.
 
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Indeed, setting the camera to a time zone 1 hour off from mine displays the correct time. I'm worried that once DST ends I'll be off an hour and have to change it back, hopefully not!
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
Indeed, setting the camera to a time zone 1 hour off from mine displays the correct time. I'm worried that once DST ends I'll be off an hour and have to change it back, hopefully not!
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All I know is that as long as you don't look in the box, the cat is alive (and dead)...(college physics/chem 50 years ago be good to me... lol)

;);)
 
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wittaj said:
Many of have noticed that some cams are somehow programmed strange regarding time zones.

You simply need to find a new time zone one hour off of the timezone you are in and change it to that time zone so that it then displays the correct time.

I have a few cameras that I have to do that with as well. But once set, I haven't had to touch them.
Click to expand...

I have 4 NVRs and I had to set the time zone on 3 of them to Mountain Time. I am on Pacific Time. The 4th NVR works fine on Pacific time. Go figure. I still have one camera out of 20 that remains an hour ahead no matter what I do.
 
Womp! I missed the one sentence that mentioned it! Sorry! I'll take another look in the morning and see how I have mine configured as I had a similar issue when setting up the NTP server
 
I use Chrony add-on for Home Assistant. It's a local LAN NTP server. All of my network (router, cameras, computers, etc) check into it every 30 minutes. In each camera, I did setup DST (input the month and day). I am using Dahua cameras.
maybe I got lucky but all 25 cameras keep the same time: 4321's, 5321's, 5442's, PTZ, VTO, etc.
 
FIXED: I'm dumb.

I had been avoiding the DST setting in the camera because they require entering the dates manually. DST dates change every year so these would have to be re-set each year in every camera. That's only slightly more convenient than going in twice a year to change the time itself. This put me on a search to figure out some form of 2nd layer local time server solution that always fed the cams DST-adjusted time.

What I did not realize until just now, is there is another option in the camera to input the DST rule instead of start/stop dates, which in the US is 2nd Sunday in March 2 AM, and 1st Sunday in November at 2 AM. I input the rule into each cam, set the proper time zone, and everything reads correct and should automatically adjust for DST as needed without any intervention.

Thanks all
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
FIXED: I'm dumb.

I had been avoiding the DST setting in the camera because they require entering the dates manually. DST dates change every year so these would have to be re-set each year in every camera. That's only slightly more convenient than going in twice a year to change the time itself. This put me on a search to figure out some form of 2nd layer local time server solution that always fed the cams DST-adjusted time.

What I did not realize until just now, is there is another option in the camera to input the DST rule instead of start/stop dates, which in the US is 2nd Sunday in March 2 AM, and 1st Sunday in November at 2 AM. I input the rule into each cam, set the proper time zone, and everything reads correct and should automatically adjust for DST as needed without any intervention.

Thanks all
Click to expand...
there ya go's. Pain in butt to manually change the DST but I guess it does seem to change dates decade to decade (totally gone, would be my vote). Plus, Dahua cameras are sold all over the world so it makes sense for the engineers to rely on the local technicians to input the DST according to their region.
 
Hello, i have installed NetTime and im curious if i have it setup correct in my camera.. Does this look right?
 

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The idea behind NetTime is that you create your own NTP server and you can block internet acces on your cameras and still provide a proper time source for your cameras. The NTP server you entered is only accesible through the internet. So if you want your cameras to use your own NTP server (NetTime) you have to fill in the ip adres of the pc your running NetTime on.
 
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Kameraad said:
The idea behind NetTime is that you create your own NTP server and you can block internet acces on your cameras and still provide a proper time source for your cameras. The NTP server you entered is only accesible through the internet. So if you want your cameras to use your own NTP server (NetTime) you have to fill in the ip adres of the pc your running NetTime on.
Click to expand...
Ahh got ya.. so this should work?
 

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Kameraad said:
Yup!
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Hmmm.. still not updating. Nettime is running on my BI server with the status showing good and no errors. The servers ip is 192.168.1.100 so im not sure what im missing here. I have rebooted the camera and changed the time update period to 5 minutes.. so it should have updated a few minutes ago.. i did add nettime to my firewall for private network which is what im on even though it synced before that with no problems..
 
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