Hikvision DS-2CD2132-I - Branded EPCOM

Aug 1, 2015
15
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Curious if anyone knows what this is about.

I bought this from Amazon from the seller CCTVONE. I was disappointed at first because it came in a brown box, but after checking the serial number, it has CCWR in the serial number and not CCCH. However, I did notice that there is no Hikvision anywhere on the camera besides a sticker that is on the bottom. Instead, it is branded with epcom.

I wanted to see if I should be weary of this at all. I attached a picture of what it shows up as using Hikvision Tools program.

I did inquire with them about the lack of Hikvision and this was their response:
This is a new shipment we received. Hikvision has changed their policy to allow us to sell brown box instead of color retail box only. The product is Hikvision multi-Language version with English as default, not Chinese. It also allows unlimited firmware update! Epcom is Hikvision's authorized distributor in US but we don't know the camera has EPCOM on it. It is indeed manufactured by Hikvision.

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If you want to check it out for sure you'd need to examine the contents of mtdblock5 & 6, and check the out put of the command 'prtHardInfo' at a telnet prompt for language=x.
With that version of firmware, you should be able to enable telnet and / or SSH and grab a copy of the mtdblocks like so:
This can be done when the camera has booted normally, at the configured IP address, using telnet or SSH if you've enabled it. And having one of several ways to get the data off the camera.
My favourite is configuring a NAS destination in the camera, then checking the path that you can 'cd' to using 'mount'.
Then something like:
cat /dev/mtdblock5 > mtdblock5_orig
cat /dev/mtdblock6 > mtdblock6_orig
The using a hex editor such as HxD, check out the value of the byte at offset 0x10 (16) from the 'SWKH' magic number. There are 4 locations - one in mtdblock5, 3 in mtdblock6
Not as hard as it may seem.
 
If you look at their website it sounds legit..They seem to sell various brands including hikvision...they are simply rebranded hikvision, like LTS cameras..
 
If you want to check it out for sure you'd need to examine the contents of mtdblock5 & 6, and check the out put of the command 'prtHardInfo' at a telnet prompt for language=x.
With that version of firmware, you should be able to enable telnet and / or SSH and grab a copy of the mtdblocks like so:

The using a hex editor such as HxD, check out the value of the byte at offset 0x10 (16) from the 'SWKH' magic number. There are 4 locations - one in mtdblock5, 3 in mtdblock6
Not as hard as it may seem.

Thanks for the info!

After running prtHardInfo, I see language = 1. Not sure what that means.

Also, regarding checking the values, I'm not 100% sure what you mean. So if in SWKH starts at offset 0, do I check offset 0x10 or 0x14 (i.e. am I checking from the start of the magic number, or the end?)

In mtdblock5, I see one offset for SWKH:
644

In mtdblock6, I see 3 offsets for SWKH:
0
20000
40000
 
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After running prtHardInfo, I see language = 1. Not sure what that means.
That means the camera thinks it's region 1, English. But it's possible that's due to modified firmware masquerading the result.

If you can add a NAS or PC destination to the camera Storage menu, that makes it easy to move files in and out. The path is shown in the 'mount' command.
Otherwise, this command pasted into the PuTTY telnet or SSH session will interpret the region byte directly within the camera:
VAR=`dd if=/dev/mtd5ro skip=1620 bs=1 count=1 2>/dev/null` ; if [ $VAR == $'\002' ]; then echo Chinese ; elif [ $VAR == $'\001' ]; then echo English ; else echo Unknown; fi
 
It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, so it must be a duck.
Looks legit (English) on all fronts!
So you figured out how to pull the extracted files off the camera, good. What method worked for you?
 
It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, so it must be a duck.
Looks legit (English) on all fronts!
So you figured out how to pull the extracted files off the camera, good. What method worked for you?

Yeah I figured out the NAS route. Just added an SMB share from my personal NAS and then copied the files to /mnt/nfs00/.

Thank you for all your help! I think I'll be purchasing some more cameras from this store, as they seem to be fairly reliable from other stuff I have read, and their prices are hard to beat.