Hikvision OEM NVR - Flashing firmware experiment

[lewic]

I have a Hikvision OEM NVR. WH-N5204-P4 running firmware 3.3.1
Trying to Google it shows nothing about the unit or any firmwares available. I am guessing it is a Brovision unit according to a few hits on the search engine but the Brovision website doesn't work anymore. Well... Found out the unit is the same as the LTS LTN-8704-P4 and downloaded a few firmwares for it.

I got:

V3.3.2_150826
V3.3.2_150908
V3.3.2_151020
V3.3.2_151208
V3.3.2_161027

V3.4.92_170607
V3.4.92_170818
V3.4.96_171117

Put the firmware on the flash drive and plugged it into the NVR. Went into "Maintenence" and the "Upgrade" and selected the firmware and pressed upgrade while holding my breathe. Well.... It actually took the firmware. Everything looking normal. Went on to upgrade the rest of the firmwares. All went on without a hiccup. I am surprised... Usually Hikvision will lock the bootloader and give an error message. Maybe the OEM devices have an unlocked bootloader?

 

[alastairstevenson]

selected the firmware and pressed upgrade while holding my breathe.

Well done!
Nice to get a good result.

 

[lewic]

Well done!
Nice to get a good result.

Wonder if I would be able to put the official Hikvision firmware on it. Looking at the specs it would be equivalent to a DS-7604NI-E1. Anybody have experience doing this?

 

[alastairstevenson]

Wonder if I would be able to put the official Hikvision firmware on it.

If the firmware update code respects the OEM code that's burned in to the individual device 'bootpara' data the usual behaviour would be to reject the update attempt if the firmware header differs, as opposed to accept it and complain later.
But don't quote me on that ...

 

[Trax95008]

I’ve had some luck with this as well. I had an old trendnet NVR laying around that I knew was made by Hikvision because there was a Hik number printed on the circuit board. I found what Hik model most closely matched the specs and I was able to load the Hik branded firmware on it! It even registered on the Hik-connect server for cloud access

 

[lewic]

Must be on a case by case basis. Tried the same thing with a different unit and it gave "firmware mismatch" or "upgrade failed".