New to Hikvision. a few newb questions.

TheSniper

n3wb
Apr 20, 2017
2
0
Central Florida
All, Please forgive my newb~ness. (if thats even poss with 0 posts!)
few questions. and coming from a NON IP cam world. I have had numerous Dvr's. some dozen or so
Having bought 2 Hikvision HIKDS7716NII4
Im sure Ill be up to speed in no time at all but thought I. might ask a
Few questions.:

1: all this talk about China vs Intl vs US. Firmware update.
Is it really necessary to want or need to do a firmware upgrade? if so why?

2: What about mixing cams from other vendors? such as Dahua or other.
is this frowned upon? some of the cameras look identical say some HIK == Dahua or even some LTS models.
but the prices are quite different.
Thanks in advance for any useful input!
-S