Weird intermittent blackouts with dahua starlight 5231's

[c hris527]

Smart PSS is Dahua's Management software, I use it to monitor over 60 cams from my desktop. it is really handy in that aspect, you can do basic functions like playback and save data. Worth looking into for remote management if that is what you need, just another option.

 

[Big Ry]

Re: wifi

If you try to do too much over wifi you may have problems. I presume your speed numbers come from a internet speed test. Keep in mind that with a live video stream there's nothing to buffer, whereas your netflix stream might have 100mb of data ahead of what's playing already downloaded. Speed matters but jitter is what will drive you mad.

Smart PSS:
- Dahua Technology

Noted. Like i said, I'll see what happens when i get to that point and adjust accordingly. Right now, i don't have the slightest hiccup. 150-200Mbps is quite a bit, and now that I've ironed out the kinks in the settings my devices don't seem to have any problem displaying the main stream of 3 cams at 1080p with the aforementioned settings. So maybe I'll just enjoy it while it lasts, or better yet maybe I'll just keep this for local monitoring and setup a substream for remote monitoring.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[Big Ry]

Smart PSS is Dahua's Management software, I use it to monitor over 60 cams from my desktop. it is really handy in that aspect, you can do basic functions like playback and save data. Worth looking into for remote management if that is what you need, just another option.

So it's just Dahua's PC client? Or is it entirely different than the NVR and web UIs? I'll try to take a look at it tomorrow if i have time.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[c hris527]

I guess you could call it a proprietary Dahua.

 

[c hris527]

Noted. Like i said, I'll see what happens when i get to that point and adjust accordingly. Right now, i don't have the slightest hiccup. 150-200Mbps is quite a bit, and now that I've ironed out the kinks in the settings my devices don't seem to have any problem displaying the main stream of 3 cams at 1080p with the aforementioned settings. So maybe I'll just enjoy it while it lasts, or better yet maybe I'll just keep this for local monitoring and setup a substream for remote monitoring.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

The NVR have issues but once you get them set where you want they are like a top, they keep spinning...

 

[Big Ry]

I guess you could call it a proprietary Dahua.

I guess you could call it a proprietary Dahua.

But is it for full setup and control of everything or is it specially used for one thing? Or does it make a certain part of the setup easier or give more options? Like, what's the purpose of the software beyond generic "management" of cams? You had said it can be used for remote management, so I'm trying to figure out what exactly you meant by that.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[c hris527]

For Hardcore cam settings I have to be at the NVR but this will allow me to tweak cams set time playback pretty much whatever you would from the webgui.

VIDEO

 

[Big Ry]

For Hardcore cam settings I have to be at the NVR but this will allow me to tweak cams set time playback pretty much whatever you would from the webgui.

VIDEO

Yeah that's looks pretty useful, for playing back videos especially. Good to see you can export to AVI too. I see that video is dated 2015, so hopefully they support other formats now but I'd be happy with at least 1 standard format if that's still the case. Obviously that guy was remotely connected to multiple NVRs or PCs at once, but it didn't explain how to do that which is unfortunate. And does this software help with remote viewing on mobile devices or were you only referring to remote viewing on PC?

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[tangent]

Yeah that's looks pretty useful, for playing back videos especially. Good to see you can export to AVI too. I see that video is dated 2015, so hopefully they support other formats now but I'd be happy with at least 1 standard format if that's still the case. Obviously that guy was remotely connected to multiple NVRs or PCs at once, but it didn't explain how to do that which is unfortunate. And does this software help with remote viewing on mobile devices or were you only referring to remote viewing on PC?

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

This software is only useful on a pc or mac. On a mobile device, you're looking at gdmss or tinycam.

It isn't too hard to convert the file formats or view them with VLC. It's worth noting that the popular PC based NVR software BlueIris also uses it's own format. There are a few reasons for this and it has to do with paying codec license fees and some more nuanced programming things that would limit functionality in unacceptable ways if they fully conformed to the specs for one of the other file containers or codecs.

Something else to consider, many of the brands you might see for sale in the US like Lorex, Swann, LaView, etc. the list goes on and on and on, are manufactured by Dahua and Hikvision. They just tend to be products that are 12-18 months older and many of the more advanced features get removed from them entirely in the name of making them more user friendly / idiot proof.

 

[Big Ry]

This software is only useful on a pc or mac. On a mobile device, you're looking at gdmss or tinycam.

It isn't too hard to convert the file formats or view them with VLC. It's worth noting that the popular PC based NVR software BlueIris also uses it's own format. There are a few reasons for this and it has to do with paying codec license fees and some more nuanced programming things that would limit functionality in unacceptable ways if they fully conformed to the specs for one of the other file containers or codecs.

Something else to consider, many of the brands you might see for sale in the US like Lorex, Swann, LaView, etc. the list goes on and on and on, are manufactured by Dahua and Hikvision. They just tend to be products that are 12-18 months older and many of the more advanced features get removed from them entirely in the name of making them more user friendly / idiot proof.

Well ultimately i was hoping to be able to download the full quality videos to mobile remotely and be able to play them on any device without needing to install new software/app or codecs. Don't get me wrong, i love VLC. It's the default media player on my laptop, but its still a third party software that needs to be installed. That's why i really just want the ability to export to a more universal format. After bitching to reolink, they finally added the ability to download a 30 second clip of the full quality video through their app... better than nothing. But now that I'm on this dahua system, it looks like I'm back to essentially recording my mobile devices screen, which is low quality and just dumb. I was also reading there are issues with converting the full quality videos to more standard formats, i guess to the point where it wasn't worth the effort to the people writing about it. I suppose if SmartPSS can convert to AVI just fine, then any other program should be able to do the conversion as well.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[Wesley McMurrian]

This is the kind of information i wish I'd had prior to purchasing the equipment.

You'll say this many more times of you continue with IP cams. You don't know what you don't know until you go looking. Then it takes a long time to learn.

The basic IP cam workflow: want security, don't want to pay a fortune. Believing advertising, buy something cheap with promises. Wondering why it sucks, find this forum. Then go back to line 1.

 

[Big Ry]

You'll say this many more times of you continue with IP cams. You don't know what you don't know until you go looking. Then it takes a long time to learn.

The basic IP cam workflow: want security, don't want to pay a fortune. Believing advertising, buy something cheap with promises. Wondering why it sucks, find this forum. Then go back to line 1.

Well I was kind of taken by surprise by some of the things I learned in this thread about the NVR I bought, but at least the cams seem to be a solid purchase. I did make a purchase prior to doing a lot of research and it ended up being a bust, but I at least based it on a lot of researching of reviews and I bought it on Amazon so I got a full refund But this current gear wasn't purchased until after a spent a little time on this forum. Not a ton of time though, and it wasn't easy sending $1k off to some dude in China without knowing if I'll ever get anything in return. But I trusted in the guy's history on this forum. Plus this isn't a purchase for pleasure, it's for security. I'm not worried about some bird shitting on my corvette in my 1/4 mile long driveway on 5 acres of land. I'm worried about the junkies who regularly steal packages off the stoop of my rowhome, the drunk drivers who knock off side mirrors and scrape cars driving down my narrow street, punk kids egging houses and cars, and then of course your regular burglars, thieves, and murderers. I don't live in the ghetto, but there are regularly girls turning tricks and quite a few junkies around my neighborhood, some of one in the same. My girl's house up the street got broken into a few weeks ago, so as you can imagine there's a sense of urgency in my mind. Doesn't mean I'm about to throw cash at the first thing I see, but I also can't afford to devote months to researching all aspects of this tech before making a purchase. There's far too much to learn. I have to learn as I go.

 

[fenderman]

Well I was kind of taken by surprise by some of the things I learned in this thread about the NVR I bought, but at least the cams seem to be a solid purchase. I did make a purchase prior to doing a lot of research and it ended up being a bust, but I at least based it on a lot of researching of reviews and I bought it on Amazon so I got a full refund But this current gear wasn't purchased until after a spent a little time on this forum. Not a ton of time though, and it wasn't easy sending $1k off to some dude in China without knowing if I'll ever get anything in return. But I trusted in the guy's history on this forum. Plus this isn't a purchase for pleasure, it's for security. I'm not worried about some bird shitting on my corvette in my 1/4 mile long driveway on 5 acres of land. I'm worried about the junkies who regularly steal packages off the stoop of my rowhome, the drunk drivers who knock off side mirrors and scrape cars driving down my narrow street, punk kids egging houses and cars, and then of course your regular burglars, thieves, and murderers. I don't live in the ghetto, but there are regularly girls turning tricks and quite a few junkies around my neighborhood, some of one in the same. My girl's house up the street got broken into a few weeks ago, so as you can imagine there's a sense of urgency in my mind. Doesn't mean I'm about to throw cash at the first thing I see, but I also can't afford to devote months to researching all aspects of this tech before making a purchase. There's far too much to learn. I have to learn as I go.

The best thing you can do with respect to limiting the loss due to a burglary is installing a good and loud alarm system...cameras are secondary.

 

[Big Ry]

The best thing you can do with respect to limiting the loss due to a burglary is installing a good and loud alarm system...cameras are secondary.

Already did. I had that done shortly after closing. Unfortunately that doesn't catch/ID the culprit unless they're dumb enough to hang around for the cops. And even then, it only protects the inside of the house. It does nothing for the vandalism, hit and runs, and package theft outside.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk