QNAP NAS and QVR Pro

[Oceanslider]

I already have a QNAP NAS TS-453Be that comes with QVR Pro free version. Are QNAP/QVR Pro setups discussed here?

Link to QVR Pro webpage

 

[alastairstevenson]

Are QNAP/QVR Pro setups discussed here?

Yes, but infrequently.

Search results for query: qnap qvr pro

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Oceanslider]

Yes, but infrequently.

Search results for query: qnap qvr pro

ipcamtalk.com

I did search. And actually didn't find one mention. I assume from looking around a bit that this is a forum who's focus is Blue Iris?

I assume one of the reasons for not much discussion is because QVR Pro is relatively new?

 

[alastairstevenson]

The link above should yield some search results for you.

I use QVR Pro, but just as a secondary to a couple of Hikvision's NVRs.
Whilst there is s lot about Blue Iris, there is also a lot about NVRs and individual cameras.

 

[Oceanslider]

Found that Reddit has a good Qnap forum.

Here was a good blog that was linked Build Your Own Surveillance System

My NAS comes with an 8 camera license.

 

[aristobrat]

Found that Reddit has a good Qnap forum.

Here was a good blog that was linked Build Your Own Surveillance System

My NAS comes with an 8 camera license.

Motion detection is a frequent reason folks will "abandon ship" and jump from one surveillance system to another. I was curious how QVR Pro handled motion detection so I watched the "QNP351 - QVR Pro Guide - How to Setup Motion Detection" video on the link you posted above.

It looks like QVR Pro handles motion detection the same way that Synology's Surveillance System app does ... it can either use a camera's built-in motion detection or QVR Pro can do motion detection itself. The video mentions that if QVR Pro does the motion detection itself that it's limited to two cameras, presumably because of the load it would put on the processor. So looks like if you're going to have more than two cameras, you'll be using the camera's built-in motion detection on at least some of them.

This is worth verifying, but it does NOT look like QVR Pro supports the separate advanced motion detection features built into Hikvision (called Smart Events) or Dahua (called IVS) cameras. Smart Events/IVS can significantly reduce false motion alarms. Their newest cameras are starting to coming with "AI" filters <their term, not mine> that will only trigger alarms if a vehicle and/or person is detected.

Here's an example of some of the IVS motion detection abilities built into newer Dahua 'AI' series cameras:




If QVR Pro limits you to only using the camera's basic built-in motion detection, here's what you get to work with:



The general issue with basic motion detection is that if you start getting a lot of false alerts you only have two options to tweak (sensitivity and threshold), and the usual conundrum is that once you tweak them to avoid the false alerts they're often set so low that they start missing real motion. IVS/Smart Events helps reduce false alerts with a much less risk of missing real motion.

If you're going to be using outdoor cameras and you need ones that work the best in low-light, chances are high that you'll land on a Dahua Starlight+ or Hikvision Dark Fighter model. Dahua and Hikvision are the brands that seem to get the newest low-light camera tech and it tends to stay with them exclusively until something better comes along, then the older stufft may trickle down to consumer brands like Amcrest, Lorex, etc. For that reason, I'd really really really suggest keeping Dahua/Hik's advanced motion detection in mind when building out a surveillance system.

If you go with a PC-based VMS (like Blue Iris, Sighthound, Milestone, etc), since they run on boxes with more processing power than most NAS/NVR setups, their built-in motion detection often has features more advanced than a camera's basic motion detection. Of my nine cameras, I let Blue Iris do motion detection on six them of them, and BI monitors the built-in motion detect of three of them (two of which have the AI features built in, and one had a PIR sensor built in).

Although I'm on Blue Iris now, I started with Surveillance Station on my Synology NAS and also had a few months of using a Dahua NVR in between.

 

[alastairstevenson]

It looks like QVR Pro handles motion detection the same way that Synology's Surveillance System app does ... it can either use a camera's built-in motion detection or QVR Pro can do motion detection itself. The video mentions that if QVR Pro does the motion detection itself that it's limited to two cameras, presumably because of the load it would put on the processor. So looks like if you're going to have more than two cameras, you'll be using the camera's built-in motion detection on at least some of them.

Yes, that's correct, QVR Pro motion detection is quite new.
But not that well suited to the average NAS CPU processing capability.

This is worth verifying, but it does NOT look like QVR Pro supports the separate advanced motion detection features built into Hikvision (called Smart Events) or Dahua (called IVS) cameras.

It's fair to say that QVR Pro has steadily developed from it's very basic and buggy beginnings a few years back to a reasonably featured and stable product now.
And yes, it supports an increasingly wide selection of 'smart events' these days.
Example with a Hikvision DS-2CD2335FWD-I


Also - check out the camera compatibility page, which also gives a hint as to what events beyond motion can be handled :

 

[Oceanslider]

Thanks for the insight.

Yes, that's correct, QVR Pro motion detection is quite new.
But not that well suited to the average NAS CPU processing capability.


It's fair to say that QVR Pro has steadily developed from it's very basic and buggy beginnings a few years back to a reasonably featured and stable product now.
And yes, it supports an increasingly wide selection of 'smart events' these days.
Example with a Hikvision DS-2CD2335FWD-I
View attachment 51570

Also - check out the camera compatibility page, which also gives a hint as to what events beyond motion can be handled :
View attachment 51571

 

[aristobrat]

And yes, it supports an increasingly wide selection of 'smart events' these days.

That’s awesome to hear. When I did my google search on this the other morning I didn’t find anything that mentioned that.

 

[Oceanslider]

Now I'm starting to wonder if I'd be better off with a stand alone deal on a NVR. Do NVR's allow good control of motion detection for all camera channels? I would assume I might want motion detection on all my cameras. And if QVR Pro only allows 2(I'll ask on the Qnap website forum) then 2 doesn't seem enough for me.

Wondering as a newbie to Home Security Cameras Systems what route I should go. As I'm not totally vested into QVR Pro just yet. I did buy one camera(Reolink RLC-410) that I plan to test when my NAS gets here.

 

[alastairstevenson]

And if QVR Pro only allows 2(I'll ask on the Qnap website forum) then 2 doesn't seem enough for me.

QNAP Surveillance Station comes with 2 free licences, QVR Pro comes with 8.
**edit** I'd assumed you were discussing licences here, not the number of channels where QVR Pro does the motion detection.

I did buy one camera(Reolink RLC-410) that I plan to test when my NAS gets here.

Hmm... you'll get some feedback for choosing that model.

 

[Oceanslider]

Hmm... you'll get some feedback for choosing that model.

Yes, I am aware of the Reolink reputation here at ipcamtalk. But I bought it for $30 shipped during the Cyber Monday sale, so it is worth trying for starters as I learn. And I have good reports of their usage with QVR Pro from YouTube videos I found.

It seems that Qnap is going pretty deep with Video Surveillance, as they will soon be releasing QVR Face(facial recognition) for QVR Pro, in 2020, and they just released the first Managed PoE Switch with Video Surveillance in mind with the QGD-1600P, which it seems is a stand alone computer that can run QVR Pro.

 

[Oceanslider]

Qnap facial recognition
QVR Face Tiger (Beta) Released

How to start my first facial recognition task? 20191231

Before your start Ensure QTS version is 4.3.0. or later. Ensure Container Station Version is 1.6.1701 or later. Fisheye Camera and wide angle camera not supported. Using QVR Face (the "Software") to derive biometric or other personal data and store personal data in the user's own device for th...

docs.google.com

 

[spile]

It is interesting to read this thread one year on. There are a number of QVR Pro users on the Surveillance sub forum on the Qnap forums.
I have installed a new twin (Amcrest) camera system that uses QVR Pro on my Qnap NAS. I have been taking things one step at a time since I started the project ten days ago, and now am working on events so I was drawn to this thread.
In summary I am very pleased with QVR Pro works and is supported.

 

[alastairstevenson]

A couple of months back I thought I'd try using QVR Pro as a potential replacement for the NVR that I use to record only events, as the NAS has plenty of availablity and capacity to run it. I have another NVR that records all the same cameras continuously.
What i found was that sporadically, every week or so, a random camera's video settings would have changed, dropped down to a lower resolution.
Cross-checking the QVR Pro logs, these changes occurred when QVR Pro decided there has been a transient loss of video or camera disconnection event.
No such events occur in the NVRs, the camera connections are 100% stable.

So QVR Pro is reacting to an apparent transient loss of signal by reconfiguring the camera video to a lower resolution and leaving it there.
This is a 'behind the scenes action' that there is no control for, and unfortunately meant that QVR Pro was not a viable addition to a setup where an NVR also records from the same set of cameras.

A pity, because QVR Pro has developed quite nicely from it's original rather bare beginnings, and supports a good set of the smart capabilities that current-generations cameras provide.

 

[spile]

A couple of months back I thought I'd try using QVR Pro as a potential replacement for the NVR that I use to record only events, as the NAS has plenty of availablity and capacity to run it. I have another NVR that records all the same cameras continuously.
What i found was that sporadically, every week or so, a random camera's video settings would have changed, dropped down to a lower resolution.
Cross-checking the QVR Pro logs, these changes occurred when QVR Pro decided there has been a transient loss of video or camera disconnection event.
No such events occur in the NVRs, the camera connections are 100% stable.

So QVR Pro is reacting to an apparent transient loss of signal by reconfiguring the camera video to a lower resolution and leaving it there.
This is a 'behind the scenes action' that there is no control for, and unfortunately meant that QVR Pro was not a viable addition to a setup where an NVR also records from the same set of cameras.

A pity, because QVR Pro has developed quite nicely from it's original rather bare beginnings, and supports a good set of the smart capabilities that current-generations cameras provide.

I am trying to understand how what appears to be a camera reset issue could be the result of something that QVR Pro has done. What leads you to think that the issue is not down to the camera?

 

[alastairstevenson]

All 9 cameras behave perfectly when only connected to the 2 NVRs and have done so for a long time.
When I added QVR Pro to the mix, I'd sporadically see that a camera video resolution had been dialled down.
Different cameras, maybe once or twice a week.
When I removed the cameras from QVR Pro the video settings remained as I'd set them.

 

[spile]

I think I may have misunderstood your post. I thought you were suggesting that QVR Pro was changing the camera settings which is not possible of course.
I believe you are saying that QVR Pro is using the second lower resolution stream for recordings. I believe it does this and then switches to higher resolution when an event is triggered. If you do not want this you could try only enabling the main stream in QVR Pro?

 

[alastairstevenson]

I thought you were suggesting that QVR Pro was changing the camera settings

That's exactly what it was doing. All by itself.

which is not possible of course.

Yes, it is. QVR Pro has full admin access to the cameras via the provided credentials.
It has to be able to configure the cameras.

I believe you are saying that QVR Pro is using the second lower resolution stream for recordings.

No - what I said was that QVR Pro sporadically changed the main stream video resolution settings on some cameras.
Typically the resolution was changed down to 1080p.

could try only enabling the main stream in QVR Pro?

That's how the camera settings in QVR Pro were configured.
Event recording only, via Stream 1.

To re-cap -
I have a stable 9-camera CCTV setup with one Hikvision NVR doing continuous recording, and another doing event-only recording.
The cameras are a mixture of 8MP, 4MP and 2MP low-light cameras.
I thought it might be interesting to set up QVR Pro to do the event recording, with the possibility of retiring the NVR that does this currently.
I added most but not all cameras to QVR Pro, configured to do event recording via Stream 1 only.
What I found was that maybe once or twice a week, a camera main stream resolution had been reconfigured down to 1080p.
I noticed it when reviewing footage on the NVRs.
I had to access the camera web GUI to reconfigure the video settings back to how they used to be.

I checked the QVR Pro logs and there was the occasional 'camera disconnected' event.
I associated these with the changes to the camera video settings, and deduced that QVR Pro was messing with the settings, possibly in a misguided response to the apparent disconnect.
The cameras do not disconnect from either of the NVRs - they are 100% stable over many months.
When I shut down QVR Pro - the camera video settings went back to being stable, no unexpected changes.

It's a pity, as the NAS that QVR Pro can run on has plenty spare capacity, it mainly runs as a backup server, with a few Virtualised apps such as pfSense.

 

[spile]

Thank you for updating my lack of knowledge. I’ve not come across QVRPro changing settings on my Amcrest cameras. Have you raised a call with Qnap?