Dahua recommendation

[chipa]

Hi,

Long time guest lurker, but I've finally got a question worth posting...

I've been running 5 Dahua camera's via NAS based NVR's for a couple of years, but feature sets and WAF usage are at breaking point.
Primary reason for going the NVR: 'simple' mobile access, iscsi expansion storage (I have a LOT of storage for offloading) and better event scheduling/notifications. FYI our wandering teenager is the source of some of this need.

I'm looking at either the NVR5208-XI or the NVR5208-EI.

Primary reason for the XI is that the 5 cameras I'm running are not full 'AI' series:
2 * IPC-HDW3841T-ZS-S2
2 * IPC-HDW3841TM-AS
1 * IPC-HDW3541TM-AS
I'm also considering 1-2 extra dumb (cheap) cameras for animal tracking - e.g. not concerned about quality, just basic 'AI' or object identification.

My concern is if the XI will not really give me much on top of the EI, considering the EI is almost 50% of the price for getting an XI landed.

Hopefully someone can tell me the XI is dumb, but I suspect I'll be better off with it compared to the EI.

 

[bigredfish]

I think @steve1225 can give you some feedback on the XI. From what I'm gathering not a lot of upside for the money

 

[steve1225]

Hi,

Long time guest lurker, but I've finally got a question worth posting...

I've been running 5 Dahua camera's via NAS based NVR's for a couple of years, but feature sets and WAF usage are at breaking point.
Primary reason for going the NVR: 'simple' mobile access, iscsi expansion storage (I have a LOT of storage for offloading) and better event scheduling/notifications. FYI our wandering teenager is the source of some of this need.

I'm looking at either the NVR5208-XI or the NVR5208-EI.

Primary reason for the XI is that the 5 cameras I'm running are not full 'AI' series:
2 * IPC-HDW3841T-ZS-S2
2 * IPC-HDW3841TM-AS
1 * IPC-HDW3541TM-AS
I'm also considering 1-2 extra dumb (cheap) cameras for animal tracking - e.g. not concerned about quality, just basic 'AI' or object identification.

My concern is if the XI will not really give me much on top of the EI, considering the EI is almost 50% of the price for getting an XI landed.

Hopefully someone can tell me the XI is dumb, but I suspect I'll be better off with it compared to the EI.

Three things:
- Your cameras have basic AI - mostly IVS (perimeter protection) with human and vehicle filtering.
As I understand You simply don't use this feature because Your actual VMS (synology surveillance station???) don't support them?
And probably You never configured them to work (selecting in Smart Plan IVS and then configure / draw tripwire or intrusion rules / areas?)..

there are many tutorials how to configure IVS on Dahua cams...

- I don't known does Dahua much not perfect mobile solution (DMSS) will fit Your needs? But You can test this without buying NVR.
Put in one camera any sd card (up to 256GB), format it in camera menu (web page on camera IP), enable P2P on camera (in network settings), download DMSS on mobile, add this camera using serial number (qrcode in p2p menu), configure IVS on camera, configure storing events on sd card on camera, subscribe to that "multichannel alarm" events in DMSS app in camera device configuration...

You should start to receive notification from IVS events on mobile app..
there is no difference in DMSS (mobile app) functionality with single camera with sd card and full NVR solution.

- 5xxx-XI / 6xx-XI line of NVR's have much higher AI performance and ability to run many AI models at once. Especially Video Meta Data (don't available on -EI) or Face Detection with Recognition. But question does You need that?

Biggest problem with -xi line of NVR's is that dahua abandoned firmwares updates for those lines. They received first actual firmware 18 months (6xx-xi) and 12 months (5xxx-xi) ago at product release and from that time there are only small fixes / empty releases. In that time we had 2 big firmware updates (30+ features more) in 5xxx-EI line...

 

[steve1225]

ps. animal support (dedicated AI models in IVS for animals) are supported only on 5xx2-S3 and 7xxx-X cams..
there is no NVR with AI animal models..

but if you have big dogs, most Dahua cams treats them as humans

 

[chipa]

No too concerned about animal models directly, "on NVR" motion is all that I want there really.

My primary detection need is person detection e.g beyond simple motion. Face detection and matching would 100% be nice to have. e.g. to ignore my face at 11pm but alert on unknown / others (teenager).
Scheduled notification: e.g. set of 3 cameras to alert only on person detection between ~8pm-8am, other cameras to alert based on zones (zone 1, detect no alert / zone 2 detect and alert either on AH schedule or based on face recognition.
The scheduled notifications is a big want.

I'm still working it out, but I did think my cameras had a fairly crappy level of IVS and would not be super suitable

XI Firmware is a concern for sure from the sound of it. The only issue I worry about with the EI is the limit for 2 camera central face detection. Nice to have was my thought process.