NVR5208-8P-4KS2E with Hikvision cameras

[kouma]

Hi all,

I have this NVR NVR5208-8P-4KS2E with 6 cameras, 4xIPC-B5442E-ZE and 2xDS-2CD2087G2-LU. I do not like the fact that I should use ONVIF when I connect the HikVision cameras (DS-2CD2087G2-LU) this is because none of the feature work with it, even something as simple as motion detection doesn't work. And these two cameras are filling up my storage by constantly recording everything 24/7.

Is there anything I can do about this?

Thanks!

 

[wittaj]

That is why every manufacturer, along with us here say it is best to match camera brand and NVR if you want/expect full functionality.

All ONVIF really means is that you can get the video feed, but there is no guarantee that any of the other features will work with it.

One solution is to replace the Hikvision cameras with something Dahua OEM

 

[kouma]

This sucks, there has to be a better solution. I have invested good money into these

 

[wittaj]

Every manufacturer uses different firmware, software, what not, so of course they will try to tie people into their systems.

While ONVIF is supposed to make it easier to mix/match, the truth of the answer is depends.

Even though they may both be ONVIF compatible, that simply means it will pull in the video stream.

Advanced features may not be compatible and may not work.

Even as a standard, there is no "standard" that every manufacturer follows.

Audio rarely follows a standard. Things like AI triggers, heat mapping, people counting, etc. rarely follow a standard.

In reality, ONVIF is a paid designation, so a camera can set up their protocol however they want, but if they belong to ONVIF, they can slap ONVIF on their stuff. Some manufacturers are better than others at providing a standard that can be used with other devices.

https://www.onvif.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/onvif-brand-standards-20220315.pdf

@Parley and @alastairstevenson and @bigredfish are our resident NVR experts, but I suspect they won't be able to offer that magic solution either.

A Blue Iris/PC combo for an NVR is another route that many find stand the best chance of at least using the motion detection from the camera with it, but obviously that will cost you some money.

 

[kouma]

Thanks wittaj if I have known that I would have picked my cameras wisely. The thing is I was using BlueIris first and all cameras worked as they are supposed to, I am really only looking for motion detection to not fill my disk space quickly, no super AI features just basic motion detection. However, BlueIris just was too annoying to run in terms of resources (dedicated PoE switches and server), networking configurations for remote connectivity and other advanced features that I do not really need, that I opted for an IVR. I recently upgraded my storage to 2x12TB disks but I still cannot get over a month of storage thanks for these 4k hungry Hikvision cameras.

 

[alastairstevenson]

I do not like the fact that I should use ONVIF when I connect the HikVision cameras (DS-2CD2087G2-LU) this is because none of the feature work with it, even something as simple as motion detection doesn't work.

As @wittaj has clearly and often stated - for best functionality IP camera brands should match the NVR brand, though even that isn't totally guaranteed.
Going back quite a while, in order to tackle the serious interoperability issues that multiple proprietary standards caused, the concept of ONVIF as an open standard was conceived.
The level of feature support was initially very limited, not even motion events were specified, but it's gone through multiple versions and is quite mature now.
Hikvision, although no longer an ONVIF member as far as I know, has good ONVIF support, generating motion events and also smart events and others..
And you should certainly get ONVIF motion events, amongst other types, from your DS-2CD2087G2-LU cameras.
Whether your NVR will react to them is another matter, I can't vouch for that model's capabilities.

Here is how you can check the cameras :
In the DS-2CD2087G2-LU web GUI, enable 'Open Network Video Interface' (aka ONVIF) and add an ONVIF user, as shown in the screenshot below.
Enable Motion events, and draw the areas that you'd like covered.
This will enable the camera to generate ONVIF motion events, and also any other event types you have configured in the camera.

To confirm that the camera is generating motion events, download and install ONVIF Device Manager from sourceforge.net (download site may have changed, there should be a copy here somewhere).
Give ODM the ONVIF credentials (top left of the window) and it will find ONVIF device on the same IP address segment as the PC automatically.
Your camera should appear.
Navigate to the Events page and check out the entries, while creating some motion in the camera view.
Below is a sample set of events, where you can see that the camera is generating not just ONVIF motion events, but smart events also.

 

[alastairstevenson]

none of the feature work with it, even something as simple as motion detection doesn't work.

@kouma Just a thought - did you use the camera's 'ONVIF credentials' or the regular admin credentials when you added the camera to the NVR?

 

[kouma]

I have the same ONVIF configuration as you posted above and that is that I used to connect the NVR to the IPC (admin account). I am trying your suggestions above to see if I that changes anything. Thanks for the help

 

[kouma]

Here is what I have so far:

IPC:



NVR:



After doing the above, now I do not see anything new being recorded although there is definitely a lot of activities.

 

[kouma]

You can see that since I have changed the two Hikvision cameras to Motion Detection they stopped recording whereas other Dahua ones are recording Motion fine:

 

[alastairstevenson]

I don't see any motion detection areas drawn on the screenshot of your motion detection configuration.
And the sensitivity is set to 0.

I don't actually use motion detection on the example camera I showed earlier - but I've just added a configuration as an example, creating 2 areas, see below:

 

[kouma]

Yay! thank you, it seems to be working now

 

[alastairstevenson]

Great! Problem solved.

It might be interesting to see if smart events such as line crossing or intrusion detection could be made to work, if unwanted motion events become problematic.