NVR4208-4KS2 vs 5208, IVS and fish eyes, on TaoBao?

[snovotill]

Wanting to bye a good English language NVR fer use with my Chinese-firmware HikVision cameras and misc English-firmware cameras. That clearly rules out HikVision NVR and leaves me pining for NVR4208-4KS2 ...I think. I'd like to ask a couple of questions if I may...

- 4208 datasheet says IVS feature is "optional". wtf? Isn't IVS a stock feature in all recent firmwares?
- I see 5208 adds fisheye dewarping, but I wisely wonder whether that will work with my Hickey cameras via ONVIF or any generic RTSP fishy camera?
- Does 5208 support more IVS chanells than 4208? Both are kwod-core ...any other compelling reasons to go 5 'stead of 4?
- I see a lot of legitimate whining on various forums about Duhau firmware un-availability, however it seems the recent IOT virus scare has blown the door off of Oahu's safe; is that 99.9% correct?
- Searching TaoBao.com yields lots of hits for DH-NVR4208-8P-HDS2 but none for -4KS2, so I wonder whassup with that and can I flash an -HDS2 to English so that my head doesn't explode using it in Chinese? No-where can I find any ChinGlish datasheets on the reclusive -HDS2 models.

I'm going to run and hide now, then check back in the wee hours of the morning while everyone sleeps so I don't spanked for asking all the wrong questions in the right places!
Many, many thanks ...upbeat and professional ...always =)

 

[nayr]

1. Optional as in you dont have to use it
2. Fisheye Dewarping only Dahuas, dont expect any play with 3rd party cameras
3. 5208 and 4208 require IVS to be on the cameras; no limit on channels.
4. meh, users having access to firmware results in bricks more than not, that was the reasoning.. if I had big bug I never had any issues finding firmware in the last 4 years.
5. Nope its new hardware not firmware

Buy from @EMPIRETECANDY and you wont get any run around.

 

[snovotill]

Wow, thanks! And jeepers, if IVS has to run on the cameras then is it really a feature or just a convenience? I'm not a creature of convenience AND I take cold showers, so I should be able to accomplish IVS functionality even on an NVR108 (save myself some watts), so long as I program IVS parameters directly in the cams, no? Optionally it looks like HikVision NVR's can process VCA natively: 7608N specs limit the number of VCA channels so perhaps their NVR's are actually doing some real work, if not just for their marketing department If that's the case then I'm willing to learn more Chinese UI and put a couple my cam's into RTSP mode to snuff out Language Mismatch Hick-ups. The stupidity f... I meant cool factor alone may be worth the trouble. Those Chinese time/date overlays feed nicely into my non-conformist persona and give me that out-of-this-worldly vacation-like feeling! Ahhhhhh...

 

[aristobrat]

so I should be able to accomplish IVS functionality even on an NVR108 (save myself some watts), so long as I program IVS parameters directly in the cams, no?

Usually that only works if the brand of the NVR matches the brand of the cameras.

When the brands don’t match, they use the Onvif protocol to communicate. Onvif covers things like “scheduled recordings” and “Motion Detection” recordings, but it doesn’t cover IVS (or “Smart Events”, as Hik calls them).

... so if you setup IVS on your Hik cameras, when they trigger, whatever the cameras send to the NVR to say "hey, I had an IVS event here!" only works with Hik NVRs.

This seems to put you in a situation where you a need IVS to run on the NVR, not the cameras. IIRC, Dahua does make a more expensive NVR that does that (for a limited number of cameras). I haven’t seen any posts from anyone on the forums with that setup, though. What’s more common is seeing folks here run the Blue Iris NVR software on a dedicated PC.

Personally, IVS is critical for my workflow. Works so much more reliably than Motion Detection. All but one of my cameras are Dahua, so I went with a Dahua NVR.

 

[snovotill]

Regarding the general lack of native IVS/VCA support in NVR's ...the penny has dropped during my drive home today: NVR would first have to decompress the H26x stream before performing analasses! That's one more step than what an analog-input DVR needs to do, and a particularly onerous one given that digital cameras run much higher than 525 lines. Processing power has to increase geometrically with number of lines! It is completely understandable that I'd have to pay through the nose for that level of functionality on a few measly channels.

And so I'll have to run with a HikVision NVR in Chinese, seeing that I'm only willing to pay taobao prices and want exotic Asian cameras! Given that a DS-2CD3935FWD-IWS ceiling mounted fisheye with audio, PoE and wireless costs only $65USD this way, I will neveR everR complain ;o) RRrrrr!

...hence I'm just going to pick up DS-7104N-SN and put up with not having alarm relay output (or de-fishing at that price point). Actually I'm going to run my relay off the internal BlEEPer via a transistor. It's really too bad that camera IVS/VCA events won't flow through to the NVR via ONVIF, or at least thunk through ONVIF as Motion events; clearly all is not well with the human species.

Anyone know the difference between the SN and SL models? I'm not picking anything up from my scan of the datasheets. The Chinese 设备升级程序包 website does not offer SL firmwares, only SN.

 

[snovotill]

Hmm, digging through the manuals, it seems the SL model is missing the Alarm function. I have not found any other difference. Awaiting arrival of my DS-7104N-SN, Chinese firmware downloaded and ready in hand!

Thanks guys for your helpful insights!

 

[slukster]

I am just starting to plan a camera system and I came across this Dahua NVR DHI-NVR4208-8P-4K
at Adorama:

Dahua DHI-NVR4208-8P-4K

This version looks different than the one on the website:
NVR4208/4216/4232(-8P)-4K

The price seemed reasonable for the specs. Is Adorama an authorized retailer for Dahua? I have had good luck with Adorama over the years so would feel confident buying from them.

 

[snovotill]

Just to finish this up, I've loaded Chinese firmware onto my DS-7108N-SN
which originally came with hacked English firmware:
Serial No: DS-7108N-SN0820170302AARR725570076WCVU
Original Hacked Firmware Version: V3.0.13 build 150503
Original Hacked Encoding Version: V5.0 build 150413
Original Hacked Firmware Languages: EN, IT, FR, Portugese, ES

I restored it to original Chinese FIRMWARE 设备升级程序包:
海康威视是以视频为核心的物联网解决方案和数据运营服务提供商，面向全球提供安防、可视化管理与大数据服务。
Latest version: NVR_(78_71_4_8路_SN)_V3.0.20_161126
Then reset to Factory Defaults.

It now works great with my Chinese cameras!

FIRST TIME NVR INITIALIZATION VIA LOCAL CONSOLE:
Boot with local monitor and mouse attached.
Set a new admin password by typing it twice: **********
Select the desired monitor resolution: lowest available
Unselect: 设备启动时是否开启向导？ (Whether the wizard opens when the device starts up)
Click button: 退出 (Drop out)
Right click the desktop and select Home icon at top of list.
Log on as admin with the newly set password.
Click OK button: 确定 Determine
Click desktop again to get out of the unlock pattern dialog.
Select the computer settings icon: 系统配置 System Configuration
Select the 3 computers icon: 网络配置 Network Configuration
Select first tab: 基本配置 Basic configuration

网卡类型 NIC type
启用自动获得IPv4地址 Enable automatic access to IPv4 addresses (DHCP)
IPv4地址 IPv4 address
IPv4子网掩码 IPv4 subnet mask
IPv4默认网关 IPv4 default gateway
IPv6地址1 IPv6 address 1
IPv6地址2 IPv6 address 2
IPv6默认网关 IPv6 default gateway
MAC地址 MAC address
MTU(字节） MTU (byte)
首选DNS服务器 Preferred DNS server
备用DNS服务器 Alternate DNS server

Finally log in via HTTP and configure. It has a choice of English or Chinese menus.
Note this is now a Chinese NVR and it will refuse to work with English cameras.