Good news. After months of issues with the Laview NVR interface, I found the problem. It was my wireless keyboard Logitech K400+.
This keyboard has a USB dongle which I plugged on the NVR and... it seemed to work fine. This was an old keyboard and it was perfect to leave at the NVR for occasional use.
But this keyboard was ultimately the culprit of all interface issues on the NVR. Here is a video of the GUI problem (was the same with the login screen btw):
After removing the USB dongle and plugging a regular USB mouse, all flickering stopped and I can use the NVR normally now. I hope this helps some other people, like @MaryMorton .
I had already received two new NVRs to potentially replace the Laview: Hikvision DS-7616NCI-I2/16P/S and Empiretech NVR32CH-16P-2AI. So here is my experience with those:
* The Empiretech has a nice GUI (more than Hikvision in my opinion). I managed to connect the cameras by changing the port the NVR was looking for (to 37777 I think) and cameras showed up, but no camera function was available, like motion, line crossing, etc. This is normal, of course, since Dahua-based systems do not marry well with Hikvision-based. But the other problem was that the NVR was advertised as having AI by NVR, and I never managed to make the AI detect anything, human or vehicle, no matter what I tried. I am not sure the AI works on its own.
* The Hikvision recognized the cameras right away (after setting the NVR password the same as the old cameras/NVR, of course). The NVR has AI and can detect humans and vehicles easily, and shows events for each detection. I even found in the settings that my cameras have WDR (wide dynamic range) options, which can also be set from the camera web interface, but this WDR was never shown on the Laview NVR. On the other hand, I can't seem to run a smart search on this NVR, and it has issues with playback. For example it shows it detected a human camera A (with a thumbnail, too) but when I open the event the recording is from another camera. I checked for triggers and linkage that may cause this and could not find anything. I also cannot find ways to set up line crossing. I am still deciding whether to keep the Hikvision now that my Laview works well. By the way, turns out the Laview NVR shows many detection options for modern cameras, like humans, vehicles, faces, license plates, etc. All it needs is a camera that has those functions. So I am thinking to upgrade cameras instead of keeping the Hikvision NVR.
This should be all for this thread. I may come here later to post on the type of camera or NVR I upgraded. I have studied NVRs for weeks and this whole business is the wild west of brands, proprietary protocols, functions, compatibilities, acronyms, and so on. People in this business enjoy making simple information very complicated, and there is no regulation to harmonize protocols or even acronyms between brands.
For those interested, the only reasonably priced NVRs I could find which may be future proof and NDAA compliant may be Speco and Lorex. I think both of them are Dahua systems. These brands are located in New York and Canada. I talked on the phone with both companies and they are nice and provide support. Any attempt to buy Hikvision will likely lead to incompatibility in the future, or lack of support, or lack of firmware updates, or attempts to contact Chinese servers, etc. There is also Andy's Empiretech which should be good with matching cameras.
So, for now, I may sit this out and play around with new cameras as long as my Laview NVR works. The cameras in my case need to be Hikvision-compatible, of course, and it is difficult to find authorized resellers of Hikvision anymore. I have even read stories of people who buy the camera, upgrade the firmware later, and lose functions in the camera like Active Tracking. How do you get support when stuff liek that happens? This is why it is difficult for regular users to orient themselves in this world, and why security companies make money in the wild west of surveillance solutions.
Before someone asks, yes, I tried putting the Wireless keyboard on the Hikvision and Empiretech, too. They did not have the same amount of problems as the Laview NVR, but I noticed Hikvision has some small jerky flickers on the GUI as well. I did not try it for long though.
This keyboard has a USB dongle which I plugged on the NVR and... it seemed to work fine. This was an old keyboard and it was perfect to leave at the NVR for occasional use.
But this keyboard was ultimately the culprit of all interface issues on the NVR. Here is a video of the GUI problem (was the same with the login screen btw):
After removing the USB dongle and plugging a regular USB mouse, all flickering stopped and I can use the NVR normally now. I hope this helps some other people, like @MaryMorton .
I had already received two new NVRs to potentially replace the Laview: Hikvision DS-7616NCI-I2/16P/S and Empiretech NVR32CH-16P-2AI. So here is my experience with those:
* The Empiretech has a nice GUI (more than Hikvision in my opinion). I managed to connect the cameras by changing the port the NVR was looking for (to 37777 I think) and cameras showed up, but no camera function was available, like motion, line crossing, etc. This is normal, of course, since Dahua-based systems do not marry well with Hikvision-based. But the other problem was that the NVR was advertised as having AI by NVR, and I never managed to make the AI detect anything, human or vehicle, no matter what I tried. I am not sure the AI works on its own.
* The Hikvision recognized the cameras right away (after setting the NVR password the same as the old cameras/NVR, of course). The NVR has AI and can detect humans and vehicles easily, and shows events for each detection. I even found in the settings that my cameras have WDR (wide dynamic range) options, which can also be set from the camera web interface, but this WDR was never shown on the Laview NVR. On the other hand, I can't seem to run a smart search on this NVR, and it has issues with playback. For example it shows it detected a human camera A (with a thumbnail, too) but when I open the event the recording is from another camera. I checked for triggers and linkage that may cause this and could not find anything. I also cannot find ways to set up line crossing. I am still deciding whether to keep the Hikvision now that my Laview works well. By the way, turns out the Laview NVR shows many detection options for modern cameras, like humans, vehicles, faces, license plates, etc. All it needs is a camera that has those functions. So I am thinking to upgrade cameras instead of keeping the Hikvision NVR.
This should be all for this thread. I may come here later to post on the type of camera or NVR I upgraded. I have studied NVRs for weeks and this whole business is the wild west of brands, proprietary protocols, functions, compatibilities, acronyms, and so on. People in this business enjoy making simple information very complicated, and there is no regulation to harmonize protocols or even acronyms between brands.
For those interested, the only reasonably priced NVRs I could find which may be future proof and NDAA compliant may be Speco and Lorex. I think both of them are Dahua systems. These brands are located in New York and Canada. I talked on the phone with both companies and they are nice and provide support. Any attempt to buy Hikvision will likely lead to incompatibility in the future, or lack of support, or lack of firmware updates, or attempts to contact Chinese servers, etc. There is also Andy's Empiretech which should be good with matching cameras.
So, for now, I may sit this out and play around with new cameras as long as my Laview NVR works. The cameras in my case need to be Hikvision-compatible, of course, and it is difficult to find authorized resellers of Hikvision anymore. I have even read stories of people who buy the camera, upgrade the firmware later, and lose functions in the camera like Active Tracking. How do you get support when stuff liek that happens? This is why it is difficult for regular users to orient themselves in this world, and why security companies make money in the wild west of surveillance solutions.
Before someone asks, yes, I tried putting the Wireless keyboard on the Hikvision and Empiretech, too. They did not have the same amount of problems as the Laview NVR, but I noticed Hikvision has some small jerky flickers on the GUI as well. I did not try it for long though.
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