I guess you could say I was not going out without a fight on this one. This was my first time using a Hikvision product, and I guess bricking your device is a right of passage. I was really happy that I also found the exact firmware in that FTP under the Latest folder so I at least knew it was going to have a firmware I was confident belonged on my NVR.
I used the standard host ftp.hikvisionusa.com and the hikfirmware and Hikvision123. I am thinking maybe they are using some sort of geo-filter if you can't connect.
I used a straight cable from the NVR to my laptop, which to make things way more challenging was running OS X 10.11 with a Windows 8.1 VM using VirtualBox. So eventually I simply started the
TFTP, chose the Option menu and clicked on the folder the firmware was located in, which was the default, but I did it anyway, then I fired up the NVR and it worked on the last try I was willing to do. My plan was to boot it, and walk away and let it sit for a while as I read on another forum that even after that AV2000 error the TFTP will try again and sometimes the second go is the winner, I was never being patient enough to allow that to happen. I was too burned out to even try connecting a camera, which will be the project this evening.
Since the camera will have the same IP as the NVR I will use a PoE injector to boot the camera and then use the straight cable to the laptop so I can web into it and change the IP and the set the password to a complex password being going PoE into the NVR.
I am hopeful this will get me my proof of concept so I can then order the rest of my cameras and start pulling wire.
Thanks.