Firmware 5.4.x working with HikVision on bugs

[bamix]

Hey, new to this forum and hope that I may be adding something useful with this. I recently installed an independently branded system that uses Hikvision hardware, software and even documentation. The model numbers change a bit but 3 of the 4 cameras are [DS-2CD]2342WD-I that are running the V5.4.1 160525 firmware. The Customer has a particular requirement to run specific night time surveillance only and to review the previous night's events each morning. To lower the overall number of events to be viewed, I had limited the recording triggers to a combination of VCA Line Crossing and Zone Intrusion only. This worked well for 4 weeks and limited the number of recordings of moths and bushes moving triggering events needlessly. Then one night, those 3 same cameras just stopped recording. I visited and checked all the settings again, double checked it worked OK physically and then left. It worked great again but after another 3 weeks, again the very same 3 cameras stopped recording. All the settings were checked again and underpinned the VCA recording with general motion detection but that night it still failed to record/flag the VCA events. Strangely enough, 3 nights later it started to record the VCA events on all those 3 x cameras but I don't know why. Camera number 4 is similar but with 4.0mm lens, I don't yet know what version of firmware it is running but the NVR (basically a DS-7604NI-E1/4N) doesn't show an option for H264+ compression so I figure it is quite an old firmware. Anyway, in reading through your bug testing notes regarding sporadic issues with VCA event e-Mails not sending and etc. it occurred to me that this mysterious condition might be the same bug manifesting itself in a slightly different way. Any thoughts or feedback would be welcomed. The installation is remote and it's a standalone with no network connection so I apologise in advance if details are a bit vague but I am short of much more detail at this point. I have attached a screenshot of the configuration screen of this same model camera that I have set up to try and troubleshoot the problem. Thanks for your time in reading this.

 

[bamix]

I should add too that during initial setup I configured the NVR for H264+ encoding from the 3 subject cameras and the Live View effectively froze on the Monitor screen. I just returned all the cameras back to the uniform H264 and it came good. Also as I mentioned, because of the Customer requirement I have all the image quality values turned up high in order to capture the best image. As the system is only recording 20:00 to 06:00 each night and the number of triggered events has been set to minimise recording, HDD space is not such a high concern in this case. Thanks again.

 

[k_r_z]

I should add too that during initial setup I configured the NVR for H264+ encoding from the 3 subject cameras and the Live View effectively froze on the Monitor screen. I just returned all the cameras back to the uniform H264 and it came good. Also as I mentioned, because of the Customer requirement I have all the image quality values turned up high in order to capture the best image. As the system is only recording 20:00 to 06:00 each night and the number of triggered events has been set to minimise recording, HDD space is not such a high concern in this case. Thanks again.

You may want to try to reduce the snapshot quality to medium to see if that works. Alternatively you can wait until the new fw version comes out which should be in about a month and supposedly would remove the 1MB limitation.

 

[bamix]

Thanks k_r_z. Yes, I also found that if I confirmed the NVR to generate a picture at the NVR VCA settings then a search after the fact never found one. From reading through this post I wondered if the file size was the cause of that. Anyway, fantastic of andyblac and all you guys to share this insight and detail of these issues. Perhaps the glitches I have experienced (that I cannot otherwise explain) are linked to these same issues and that the additional feedback might be helpful from a development perspective. I will look forward to V5.4.4 and beyond in that case. Thanks again.

 

[Carcus]

Hi,

Does this issue happen when not using H264+? I have been having issues with the DS7608NI-E2 and the DS-2CD2342WD-I running the mentioned firmware as well as the DS-2CD2T42WD-I5 that has older V5.3.6 build 151229 not being able to load live view or being choppy. That is with and without H264+ however H264+ makes the worse.

The issue only seems to be with the 7608NI-E2 model and not with the 7608NI-I2 or 7604NI-E1 or 7616NI-E2

Only certain cameras have the issue. They seem to be in higher traffic areas like front yards rather than the static areas in alfrescos.

I have managed to "fix" the issues by playing around with bitrate and quality and framerate however not really able to lock down a solid resolution to the problem.

 

[bamix]

Hi All,

Referring back to my post Nov 16 I have been doing some more work with my test camera and have been trying all sorts of adjustments without any real consistent result. I am only running at H264 (not H264+) and the main concern for me is inconsistent results with VCA events. I will add though that I have had some experience of the ghosting problem attributed to the I-Frame issue that others have reported above. However, the issue of inconsistent e-Mailing and Recording remains as the biggest problem for me.

I set up the test camera with different bit rate, video and motion detection settings predominantly making changes on a daily basis and then checked number of videos recorded versus number of e-Mails received. In the end I settled on only Line Crossing Detection to 1: Trigger an e-mail and 2: Trigger recording of the channel. Given that a single event from a single measure would trigger both functions I expected, within reason, that the number of e-Mails would match the number of recordings. The result was far from that. Dec 01st was 16 e-Mails vs 49 Recordings, Dec 05th was 21 e-Mails vs 47 Recordings and Dec 01st was 5 e-Mails vs 27 Recordings. I tried to reconcile them according to times but I found that strangely sometimes the camera would trigger an e-Mail but not a recording and vice a versa. I also found that randomly the photos attached to the e-Mail would not include any OSD information. It seemed as though the camera was making up its own mind on what to do instead of following the set rules.

Wondering whether I was expecting too much of the camera and its processor, I replaced it with a Dahua IPC-HDBW2300R-Z which I had still in its box and tried the same experiment. The Dahua detection options are far less complex than the HikVision so I worked it on a small line of motion detection squares (roughly equivalent to a line as in the HikVision) and had it set to trigger both e-Mail and recording. On my first day during the Midnight to Noon period it is bang on 11 e-Mails vs 11 Recordings ! (Note: The Dahua sends 2 x e-Mails per event, start and stop so total number was 22 divided by 2) Double checking and as expected, all the times correspond too within a few seconds of each other.
As I mentioned, I tried a lot of settings changes with the HikVision, most of them yielding even worse results. Altering the Picture Quality settings in Storage-Capture made no difference to the picture file size, always around 570KB at day and about 220KB at night. Even changing the number of snapshots in Storage made no difference, always 3 snapshots. Choking the bandwidth to force a drop in resolution resulted in the snapshot process affecting the recorded video but did not have a perceivable impact on the result of e-Mails vs Recordings.

I agree that perhaps issues I-Frame intervals and Picture quality could have some bearing on this, but based on my testing it seems that there is something more fundamentally wrong with the firmware that the camera cannot perform functions simultaneously and consistently. If anyone else is experiencing similar issues and has any advice on what may be done it would be welcomed. Otherwise I hope that the OP might accept this as further feedback in his dealings with the HikVision development team.

 

[glfp]

Hello from Ital y!

I recently uploaded latest 5.4.3 firmware (HIKVISION EUROPE) that is presente since few days.

The issues on pulsating images is still present ! Hope that next 5.4.4 will resolve the issue !

At the moment I disabled H264+ but I want to use it because, if I uderstand well, it is very useful to reduce the amount of recorder bytes ! Is that true ?

Thank you !
glfp

 

[bamix]

Happy New Year to all !

It seems that v5.4.4 was set to live on Boxing Day. Here is the link: HIKVISION EUROPE

I have been trying v5.4.3 in the meantime and my event record vs e-Mail count was greatly improved. I will try again with the new version and see what happens. Hopefully the issue with exposure settings refresh after event snapshots improves the whole experience. One out of three useable images is not the best of looks....

 

[glfp]

5.4.4 resolve all the "flashing/pulsating" issues. That's good !

 

[manninca]

Hi all,

I have just bought a DS-2CD2142FWD-I dome cam and immediately updated firmware to V5.4.5 170124 because I wanted to use Hik-connect.
I have no experience with previous cams or firmwares. The camera picture quality day and night is really good but found the pixels move around, pulse slightly when using different video settings and have settled on 2688x1520 constant bit rate 6144Kbps 20fps H264 (not +). I 50
I think there are some issues but I'm not sure if these are normal and would appreciate any feedback.
When viewing remotely in hikconnect if I select any of the resolution buttons (basic, standard or HD) it sets the camera res back to 720P, If I leave these buttons alone its fine and stays at high reolution.
If I set motion detection sensitivity to 40 it resets itself to 60 every night.
Motion detection sensitivity can only be set in intervals of 20.
Picture capture resolution cannot be set to anything different than the selected video resolution.
Email notifications work with gmail server but couldn't get them to work using sky/yahoo email server. (turned it off due to way too many.
I only have the one camera with sd card in and configure it using inbuilt config software, ( no other software installed on PC)

Anyone using Firmware 5.4.5 and Hik-connect?

 

[baumi]

I have same camera, model DS-2CD2142FWD-IWS and also updated firmware to V5.4.5 170124 for the same reason. But now I have an issue with FTP - all files that are sent are 0 bytes. Before it worked fine...