Thanks Alastair. Very quick reply.
I do believe it would be unusual for 'hacked firmware' to also masquerade the region as well as the language.
Was the camera purchased with a 'do not upgrade' caveat?
Unfortunately, I bought this camera used and do not know if there was a caveat. But I do know all the firmware I downloaded from the EU site will not allow to be upgraded. Always return the "The type of upgrade file mismatch" Henc, I think it is locked from upgrading the easy way.
What is the detail of this problem?
It could be something like an SMB/CIFS version incompatibility for example.
Does the NAS support NFS?
I think that would be a complete shot in the dark. I've not seen recent release notes specifically mention NAS problem fixes.
I search this forum and it seems there were 2 or 3 other users with the same model and fimrware having the exact same NAS issue. I tried both NAS with NFS and SMB/CIFS supposedly be supported by Hikvision. Both type is detected and I was able to initialize it ("FORMAT" - what it does is create the folders datadir).
Everything seems to be mounted and the status is "Normal". However, whether I am Continously or Motion Detected video or snap shot will not work. It starts to do something as soon as I click on apply (like create the file hiv00000.mp4 268.4MB then a little later the file is 0MB then recycle back to the 268.4MB file). The file does not get detected in playback or can I play the mp4 from my Linux VLC.
Similar this happens with jpg snap shot too.
That is a bit odd.
There are no specific settings to allow SADP to operate.
Is the PC running any unusually strict network access protection?
Doh! Palm to the face. Just as I posted the original question, I realized my VM was set to NAT and I was on a different SUBNET. Even though the VM had a route to the camera network (I can browse to the web configuration), SADP was only looking at the current network. I can see the camera now.