Lorex

Does anyone know if the 8 channel NVR is capable of adding another camera or two by installing external POE camera?
 
dannieboiz said:
Does anyone know if the 8 channel NVR is capable of adding another camera or two by installing external POE camera?
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Hi @dannieboiz

Do you mean you want to:

Have a 8 channel NVR become a 9 or 10 channel NVR by attempting to add +1-2 more cameras beyond the 8 which are already configured to it?

i.e. NVR w/ 8 cameras, max of 8 channels + 1-2 more camera channels.
 
mat200 said:
Hi @dannieboiz

Do you mean you want to:

Have a 8 channel NVR become a 9 or 10 channel NVR by attempting to add +1-2 more cameras beyond the 8 which are already configured to it?

i.e. NVR w/ 8 cameras, max of 8 channels + 1-2 more camera channels.
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That's exactly it... I installed a Lorex NR818 kit for a friend (his choice) well... with 8 channels, you get 9 squares when viewing on the monitor. His monitor is always on mounted on the wall in the family room. It's kind of bugging him (it would bug me as well) so I thought, can't we just ad another dahua camera in the mix and power them with injectors or something.
 
dannieboiz said:
That's exactly it... I installed a Lorex NR818 kit for a friend (his choice) well... with 8 channels, you get 9 squares when viewing on the monitor. His monitor is always on mounted on the wall in the family room. It's kind of bugging him (it would bug me as well) so I thought, can't we just ad another dahua camera in the mix and power them with injectors or something.
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Hi @dannieboiz

Unless you know how to hack the firmware to add additional channels - no.

Basically, the vendors will lock down the number of channels on a NVR so that the embedded device ( NVRs are lower powered embedded devices compared to a PC ) does not get over loaded. As is imho most NVRs are underpowered, especially now with "4K" video streams available. Most nicer NVRs were doing OK with 1080P - so with 8 1080P cameras a NVR is handling 1/4 of the pixels as one with 8 "4K"/8MP streams, and iirc NVRs have not kept up with the power needs.
 
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mat200 said:
Hi @dannieboiz

Unless you know how to hack the firmware to add additional channels - no.

Basically, the vendors will lock down the number of channels on a NVR so that the embedded device ( NVRs are lower powered embedded devices compared to a PC ) does not get over loaded. As is imho most NVRs are underpowered, especially now with "4K" video streams available. Most nicer NVRs were doing OK with 1080P - so with 8 1080P cameras a NVR is handling 1/4 of the pixels as one with 8 "4K"/8MP streams, and iirc NVRs have not kept up with the power needs.
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thanks, that's a bummer! maybe someone else know how to hack the firmware can chime in. :)
 
dannieboiz said:
thanks, that's a bummer! maybe someone else know how to hack the firmware can chime in. :)
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Hi @dannieboiz

FYI - in all the reading I have done here, I have not seen such a hack mentioned. If you do find one, please do let us know.
 
Likely not possible to hack the actual firmware since all the firmware is signed now and without Dahua's key to generate the new checksum it will reject any modified firmware. Not saying it is impossible though and I have an idea of how mit might be able to be done but I'm not going to discuss it publicly as that is how you get Duhua (or any other company) to make changes to prevent something like that. Even with what I am thinking, it probably still would not work.
 
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You could certainly hack the firmware (or in reality the device descriptor block) to extend the number of channels beyond the design value.
But there is no point.
The end result will be an overloaded and unreliable device.
In a model series going from 4 to 8 to 16 channels, the installed RAM is the main component that changes with the models.
Even when operating near the rated load, performance gets pretty marginal, affecting multiple aspects of how the device behaves.
 
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The Lorex 4k system will do only 1-7 fps regardless of resolution. The manual notes better but not reality. I just purchased it from Costco and returning it.

DmaxDually said:
Hi,
Sorry this is a little long...I would like to start a Lorex thread to get feed back from anyone who has a Lorex system installed and how they like it and post some video footage from your cameras.
I am new to the forum and surveillance camera systems. I am looking to install a outdoor 16 camera IP nvr PoE system on my house in the near future. I've been doing a lot of reading and learning on this forum about the different brand systems and cameras. I like the Hikvision and Dahua systems. But they are hard to find and only seem to be sold thru local authorized deal/installers and they don't really have any complete systems available. From what I've been reading on this forum the majority of Hikvision and Dahua products sold on Amazon or Ebay are grey market cameras and to stay away from them because they may or may not work. I called the one Hikvision dealer/installer in my area to see if they carry any cameras that I could come in and look at. They told me that they don't don't carry stock that they build to order when they do an install.
Ok all that being said I came across Lorex's website and they seem to have what I am looking for. A great selection of complete systems. I am looking at Lorex's 4K 8MP 16 bullet camera system. I would replace some of the cameras with Dahua dark fighter turrets or PTZ. This seems the best cost effective way to do it.
I am looking at the Lorex 4K Ultra HD IP NVR system with 16 Outdoor 4K 8MP IP cameras. Model number 4KHDIP3216
Any feed back from anyone who has these cameras or A Lorex system would be greatly appreciated.
Thx.
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In my opinion that is a bit of a misleading blanket statement as they have multiple different NVR/DRV's that are capable of 4K. The specific "system" in the post you quoted, Lorex 4KHDIP3216, is a kit. The NVR in that specific kit is a rebadged Dahua NVR 5232-4KS2 NVR. That NVR is capable of up to 320Mbps recording but the actual frame rates will depend on a number of factors like the encode mode, bit rate, frame rate, whether you have one or more sub streams enabled, recording audio, along with the settings for each of those. If you try to connect 32 cameras all with audio capability, dual sub-streams, and everything set to absolute maximum quality and frame rates possible you are going to be hard pressed to find any off the shelf NVR capable of sustaining that much data input. Even if you were to build a BI pc and tried to send that much of a load to it you would end up likely needing a dual socket Xeon (or AMD) system with gobs of RAM and a RAID array capable of a pretty massive sustained write rate.
 
TheDude said:
In my opinion that is a bit of a misleading blanket statement as they have multiple different NVR/DRV's that are capable of 4K. The specific "system" in the post you quoted, Lorex 4KHDIP3216, is a kit. The NVR in that specific kit is a rebadged Dahua NVR 5232-4KS2 NVR. That NVR is capable of up to 320Mbps recording but the actual frame rates will depend on a number of factors like the encode mode, bit rate, frame rate, whether you have one or more sub streams enabled, recording audio, along with the settings for each of those. If you try to connect 32 cameras all with audio capability, dual sub-streams, and everything set to absolute maximum quality and frame rates possible you are going to be hard pressed to find any off the shelf NVR capable of sustaining that much data input. Even if you were to build a BI pc and tried to send that much of a load to it you would end up likely needing a dual socket Xeon (or AMD) system with gobs of RAM and a RAID array capable of a pretty massive sustained write rate.
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The one at costco is Model LHV516410B. When setting up the cameras (1 or 16) the max fps available is 7fps. The Technician told me a way to modify that is not in the manual. Going through the pan and tilt adjustment, change the system to 2k. Now you can get a max of 15fps. She also said that the 1080 resolution was substandard because of a software problem that they do not plan on correcting. I told her I was primarily interested in wildlife and needed 30fps to reduce motion blur.She said their best system will only do 19fps. The online manual shows you can get 30fps at 1080 which she said the system will not allow you to set the system at that setting. The online manual would be easy to correct but they have not. BTW I used the Costco concierge to get to the Lorex technician. Both were very helpful which is contrary to what I have heard about Lorex support. BTW another way around the massive data input is multiple NVRs. I have a large home that I plan on multiple NVRs rather than running cables hundreds of feet. The Kit I bought was a 16 channel, but I was only going to use 6 with 4 spare cameras for replacements. ( comes with 10) Currently I am using wireless IP cameras that have 5-10fps at night. Search frankenfoamy on youtube for over 500 wildlife videos.
 

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Yeah looking at that model I'm not sure that one is one of the OEM Dahua models. The interface looks more like some of the lower end DVR's I've had in the past. It is also only H.264 while most all of the current stuff is H.265 which cuts the required bitrate needed pretty much in half due to a much better compression technology.

Regardless - if you do go with Lorex, on their website you can select 30fps real time as a search criteria. This is one for example

16-Channel 4K Ultra HD IP NVR System with Four Outdoor 4K (8MP) IP Fixed 30FPS Real-Time Format Nocturnal Cameras with Color Night Vision and Audio Recording

I know for certain the NVR with that model is one of the higher end Dahua ones, specifically the 5216-4KS2 as I have the exact NVR and even cross-flashed it with Dahua firmware which enables a lot more features.
 
TheDude said:
Yeah looking at that model I'm not sure that one is one of the OEM Dahua models. The interface looks more like some of the lower end DVR's I've had in the past. It is also only H.264 while most all of the current stuff is H.265 which cuts the required bitrate needed pretty much in half due to a much better compression technology.

Regardless - if you do go with Lorex, on their website you can select 30fps real time as a search criteria. This is one for example

16-Channel 4K Ultra HD IP NVR System with Four Outdoor 4K (8MP) IP Fixed 30FPS Real-Time Format Nocturnal Cameras with Color Night Vision and Audio Recording

I know for certain the NVR with that model is one of the higher end Dahua ones, specifically the 5216-4KS2 as I have the exact NVR and even cross-flashed it with Dahua firmware which enables a lot more features.
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Thank you
Is there a way I can confirm it will really do 30fps?
The tech said none of their systems will do better than 19fps, the spec sheets are not accurate.
The NVR did not show higher than 15fps so it was not a matter of a false 30fps setting.
I went with Lorex because it was sold at Costco and I like their support. Proved to be helpful this time.
 
No idea if it is something I can really confirm myself as I have loaded Dahua firmware on mine..... I know I can select 30FPS though.
 
michaelb said:
Thank you
Is there a way I can confirm it will really do 30fps?...
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michaelb said:
The one at costco is Model LHV516410B. ...
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HI @michaelb

Note: That is a DVR kit - the DVR kits from Lorex are more affordable kits and do not perform as well as the NVR kits. fps on many of the DVR kit cameras is significantly less than that of the NVR kits. If you want better fps on the cameras you will need to spend a bit more on a better camera / kit.

kit in question:
Lorex 16CH 4K DVR 4TB 10 UHD 4K Bullet Camera Security System
Model LHV516410B
 
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