How many Swann NVR & 1080P bullet cam owners are on here?

I'm looking to talk with other owners about their experiences and suggested settings when using the Swann NVR.

I recently hooked up 8 bullet cams (1080P, rebranded HIK-2032) with the NVR16-7200 NVR (combo pack with cams) that I purchased from Costco. Installation was straight forward, but the options available to me to adjust camera settings in their NVR don't seem complete.

For example.. The cameras have terrible nighttime lighting performance compared to the pictures I've seen others on here post from the same cams. Each camera has a large bright spot dead in the middle of the picture and I cannot find any settings that would make this better. I'm wondering what other Swann NVR users are doing to correct this. Could I log into the cam directly using Hikvision software and change settings to help with this (without changing firmware).

I am struggling to get the time to display correctly. No matter how often I try to change the time in the NVR, it never saves it and always is an hour off. I thought maybe the DST stuff was wrong, but I checked that too.

The motion settings are difficult to manage. When on the lowest setting it does not pick up anything. I move it up 1 notch and it records every movement. I heard its hard to get this to work nicely with outdoor cams, but surely there has to be something to adjust sensitivity a bit better. There are ~8 settings for this and the two lowest ones seem to be on opposite extremese of each other.

I did also receive one bad camera that tends to fog up throughout the day and is almost impossible to see our of after a few hours. The Swann tech support folks have not been pleasant to deal with. After hours spent in the phone (troubleshooting and being disconnected multiple times) I was told they would ship a replacement through their warranty department. At first they wanted me to send mine back before they would send another one, but they finally agreed to just send a new one since I just bought the system. It's been two days since they said that and I still have not received an email acknowledgment about the replacement shipment (maybe because of the weekend).

I wanted to share my experiences thus far and ask for some help from other Swann owners. I'm hoping a lot of my challenges are because I am new to ip cameras.

Shawn

I have the 2 of the NVR 7200 8 channel systems, same cameras and software, so I can answer a few of your questions.

The bright spot is just the IR leds are not projecting as wide as the camera. You can adjust brightness and contrast to help but it will still be brighter in the center. I was told by Swann that you can log into the camera for more settings but you have to put the camera on the network. You can add a cable from your router to any open camera port on the DVR. I have not tried it yet.

As far as time is off an hour you have to check the box for DST (daylight saving time) in the settings. Check it again to see if its still checked. I did find mine had reverted back to not checked. Just thought I may have forgot to save it. It hasn't happened since.

I am also having difficulty with motion, seems that I am just going to deal with it. Not so much with sensitivity but the masking. With shadows of trees and bushes that shift throughout the day I am going to have to sift through periods of non important recordings. Also at night bugs and dust floating around reflects the IR significantly enough to trigger recording.

I haven't had any cameras fog up. I am guessing it is fogging on the inside? May be some trapped moisture. If you pull the 3 rubber plugs, and 3 screws, you could vent the moisture out. Or just send it back for replacement. I had a problem with a NVR where the power supply had a wire routed incorrectly that shorted when I leaned on the top cover. They sent me a new NVR, had it in a few days.

I have had a much different experience with support from Swann. I have called several times for connectivity issues, all resolved. Also a few operational problems. There were a few calles that should have been handled without escalation to level 2 but always had a pleasant conversation. One problem I haven't figured out or got an answer from Swann is why I am missing the 5 sec pre-record only on SwannView form my desktop. Phone app and NVR displays show it.

 

I recently hooked up 8 bullet cams (1080P, rebranded HIK-2032) with the NVR16-7200 NVR (combo pack with cams) that I purchased from Costco. Installation was straight forward, but the options available to me to adjust camera settings in their NVR don't seem complete.

 

You can try what I posted to hit the cameras directly, through the nvr-

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=35962&p=220793&hilit=hitting+camera+through+nvr#p220793

 

I am struggling to get the time to display correctly. No matter how often I try to change the time in the NVR, it never saves it and always is an hour off. I thought maybe the DST stuff was wrong, but I checked that too.

 

This has to do with GMT setting. Make sure you get the offset correct for your time zone. It can be confusing, especially when factoring in DST. Look up GMT offset for your time zone.

The motion settings are difficult to manage. When on the lowest setting it does not pick up anything. I move it up 1 notch and it records every movement. I heard its hard to get this to work nicely with outdoor cams, but surely there has to be something to adjust sensitivity a bit better. There are ~8 settings for this and the two lowest ones seem to be on opposite extremese of each other.

 

Once you're in the cameras web interface, you may have better results tweaking motion settings directly in the camera.

 

 

Shawn

I just purchased 2 1080p bullet cams from costco (Swan version). They should be here in a week, I can report back later. I will be using Blue Iris for my NVR software though.

Other users have reported fogging issues; it sounds like a batch of cams with bad seals got past their QC. They've been replacing them for other people.

For the IR hotspot, you can try things like opening the cam and placing a diffusing material over the LEDs. Milk jug plastic and Glad Press-n-Seal are both popular in the flashlight world as diffusers. You can't use it on the outside or it gives terrible IR reflections.

This will broaden your IR spot, but reduce the effective illumination distance, which is the basic trade-off between throw and flood illumination.

Of course, opening it up means you're risking seal problems, and may void your warranty...

Hey Shawn....You're not alone with the IR hotspot and motion detect problem. I have the 8 channel NVR and 4 of the bullets and it's the same. I don't think the hotspot is too bad. I have some cheaper Loftek cameras that are much worse.

The motion detect setting is frustrating....ARGHHHH!!! Like you said, lowest setting seems like off and next setting is on. It loves to record flying dust particles in our barn, but I don't see any way around that.

I haven't had any time issues.

I added one of the Hikvision DS-2CD2032 cameras from Wrightwood and upgraded it to 5.0.2. It adds a Smart IR feature that is supposed to help the hotspot, but I haven't noticed much difference.

For remote viewing, I use IP Cam Viewer Pro on iPhone. Works great!!! Only had to open one http port and one rtsp port through my router to the NVR. The critical thing is to set the substream on all the cameras to lower res and bitrate. I only have 768K upstream so I set my cameras substream to 320x240 / 15fps / 128k. Then in the app you add a new camera:

Type - Swann nvr8-7200

Ch.# - 1,2

Then just copy and change the channel to 2,2 and 3,2 etc. I can currently view all 5 cameras over a 3G connection. Picture freezes a little and looses connection intermittently, but viewing just one camera works fine. Doesn't look too bad on a small phone screen IMHO.

Now if I could just figure out how to get 3 cameras to work through a POE switch into one port on the NVR I'd be golden. Seems like the NVR only allows one camera per camera port. I can manually add multiple cameras if I hook the POE switch to the LAN port, but I don't want all that traffic on the LAN side. Waiting for a call from Swann Tier 2. So far, Tier 1 was nice but pretty worthless (not very technical like most Tier 1s).

I'm sure you've been to networkcameracritic. Lots of good stuff there.

I'll be watching here to see what other owners have learned. Thanks for starting this thread. Seems like this Swann system always lands in the Lorex threads and it gets a little hard to keep them separated.

All in all, I'm quite happy with the system. Great picture quality at a great price. I'm never going back to cheap 640x480 cameras.....Mike

They've had smart IR on the menu since 5.0.0, but it doesn't do anything. Hopefully they'll make it functional in 5.1.

I received my two cameras last night and played with them little. They are excellent cameras.

Hotspot can be resolved by adjusting the brightness and contrast within the camera software.

The time issue can be resolved by either checking the box to synch with your PC, or using a NTP server.

These cameras are great, the motion issue must be the NVR software you are using. I am using Blue Iris and I have a ton of adjustability within the software to get the motion detection how I like.

Overall very satisfied for the price of the two cameras!

I have the 2 of the NVR 7200 8 channel systems, same cameras and software, so I can answer a few of your questions.

The bright spot is just the IR leds are not projecting as wide as the camera. You can adjust brightness and contrast to help but it will still be brighter in the center. I was told by Swann that you can log into the camera for more settings but you have to put the camera on the network. You can add a cable from your router to any open camera port on the DVR. I have not tried it yet.

As far as time is off an hour you have to check the box for DST (daylight saving time) in the settings. Check it again to see if its still checked. I did find mine had reverted back to not checked. Just thought I may have forgot to save it. It hasn't happened since.

I am also having difficulty with motion, seems that I am just going to deal with it. Not so much with sensitivity but the masking. With shadows of trees and bushes that shift throughout the day I am going to have to sift through periods of non important recordings. Also at night bugs and dust floating around reflects the IR significantly enough to trigger recording.

I haven't had any cameras fog up. I am guessing it is fogging on the inside? May be some trapped moisture. If you pull the 3 rubber plugs, and 3 screws, you could vent the moisture out. Or just send it back for replacement. I had a problem with a NVR where the power supply had a wire routed incorrectly that shorted when I leaned on the top cover. They sent me a new NVR, had it in a few days.

I have had a much different experience with support from Swann. I have called several times for connectivity issues, all resolved. Also a few operational problems. There were a few calles that should have been handled without escalation to level 2 but always had a pleasant conversation. One problem I haven't figured out or got an answer from Swann is why I am missing the 5 sec pre-record only on SwannView form my desktop. Phone app and NVR displays show it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll wait for the replacement camera to come in next week before tinkering with it more.

 

I recently hooked up 8 bullet cams (1080P, rebranded HIK-2032) with the NVR16-7200 NVR (combo pack with cams) that I purchased from Costco. Installation was straight forward, but the options available to me to adjust camera settings in their NVR don't seem complete.

 

You can try what I posted to hit the cameras directly, through the nvr-

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=35962&p=220793&hilit=hitting+camera+through+nvr#p220793

 

I am struggling to get the time to display correctly. No matter how often I try to change the time in the NVR, it never saves it and always is an hour off. I thought maybe the DST stuff was wrong, but I checked that too.

 

This has to do with GMT setting. Make sure you get the offset correct for your time zone. It can be confusing, especially when factoring in DST. Look up GMT offset for your time zone.

The motion settings are difficult to manage. When on the lowest setting it does not pick up anything. I move it up 1 notch and it records every movement. I heard its hard to get this to work nicely with outdoor cams, but surely there has to be something to adjust sensitivity a bit better. There are ~8 settings for this and the two lowest ones seem to be on opposite extremese of each other.

 

Once you're in the cameras web interface, you may have better results tweaking motion settings directly in the camera.

 

 

Shawn

Thanks for the link to your post about how to hit the cameras. I'll give it a shot.

Other users have reported fogging issues; it sounds like a batch of cams with bad seals got past their QC. They've been replacing them for other people.

 

For the IR hotspot, you can try things like opening the cam and placing a diffusing material over the LEDs. Milk jug plastic and Glad Press-n-Seal are both popular in the flashlight world as diffusers. You can't use it on the outside or it gives terrible IR reflections.

 

This will broaden your IR spot, but reduce the effective illumination distance, which is the basic trade-off between throw and flood illumination.

 

Of course, opening it up means you're risking seal problems, and may void your warranty...

I'm waiting on the replacement cam to come in. It's new and under warranty so I'll let them handle it.

Hey Shawn....You're not alone with the IR hotspot and motion detect problem. I have the 8 channel NVR and 4 of the bullets and it's the same. I don't think the hotspot is too bad. I have some cheaper Loftek cameras that are much worse.

 

The motion detect setting is frustrating....ARGHHHH!!! Like you said, lowest setting seems like off and next setting is on. It loves to record flying dust particles in our barn, but I don't see any way around that.

 

I haven't had any time issues.

 

I added one of the Hikvision DS-2CD2032 cameras from Wrightwood and upgraded it to 5.0.2. It adds a Smart IR feature that is supposed to help the hotspot, but I haven't noticed much difference.

 

For remote viewing, I use IP Cam Viewer Pro on iPhone. Works great!!! Only had to open one http port and one rtsp port through my router to the NVR. The critical thing is to set the substream on all the cameras to lower res and bitrate. I only have 768K upstream so I set my cameras substream to 320x240 / 15fps / 128k. Then in the app you add a new camera:

 

Type - Swann nvr8-7200

Ch.# - 1,2

 

Then just copy and change the channel to 2,2 and 3,2 etc. I can currently view all 5 cameras over a 3G connection. Picture freezes a little and looses connection intermittently, but viewing just one camera works fine. Doesn't look too bad on a small phone screen IMHO.

 

Now if I could just figure out how to get 3 cameras to work through a POE switch into one port on the NVR I'd be golden. Seems like the NVR only allows one camera per camera port. I can manually add multiple cameras if I hook the POE switch to the LAN port, but I don't want all that traffic on the LAN side. Waiting for a call from Swann Tier 2. So far, Tier 1 was nice but pretty worthless (not very technical like most Tier 1s).

 

I'm sure you've been to networkcameracritic. Lots of good stuff there.

 

I'll be watching here to see what other owners have learned. Thanks for starting this thread. Seems like this Swann system always lands in the Lorex threads and it gets a little hard to keep them separated.

 

All in all, I'm quite happy with the system. Great picture quality at a great price. I'm never going back to cheap 640x480 cameras.....Mike

Lots of good info here. I'm glad to see more Swann owners. We can all learn from each other.

I received my two cameras last night and played with them little. They are excellent cameras.

 

Hotspot can be resolved by adjusting the brightness and contrast within the camera software.

 

The time issue can be resolved by either checking the box to synch with your PC, or using a NTP server.

 

These cameras are great, the motion issue must be the NVR software you are using. I am using Blue Iris and I have a ton of adjustability within the software to get the motion detection how I like.

 

Overall very satisfied for the price of the two cameras!

I may try using the cams directly. Glad to hear you like them.

So my question, how do you get your camera to record to your NFS volume? Mine starts the process, gets to about 48% and fails. It does write the folders to the NAS, so I know its working.... Could it possibly be a speed issue?

I have the 4 channel system with 2 more cameras that I have yet to install. I am really hoping they add a ptz to the line up that will work with this system.

I have most of the same little issues (hotspot, poor night, motion) as the OP, but I have not had any fogging issues.

I will add that one camera seems to drop out from time to time. The IR stays on, so it has power, it just seems to lose communications. If I disconnect and replug, it comes right back. Fortunately it's one I am able to reach fairly easily, but this is not a good feature.

I haven't tried logging into the cameras directly but I need to try that.

Overall, it's been a good system for the money, but there is room for improvement. I really don't like the software but from what I understand, others are much worse. It just seems overly tekkie and yet underfeatured in some obvious ways... digital zoom is difficult, and not available in full screen view, playback is unnecessarily difficult, and other quibbles. Still, it does what it's supposed to once you figure it out.

I have had both good and mediocre experiences with Swann support, but at least they have someone to talk to. The higher level guys have been good.

Overall, it's been a good system for the money, but there is room for improvement. I really don't like the software but from what I understand, others are much worse. It just seems overly tekkie and yet underfeatured in some obvious ways... digital zoom is difficult, and not available in full screen view, playback is unnecessarily difficult, and other quibbles. Still, it does what it's supposed to once you figure it out.

 

I have had both good and mediocre experiences with Swann support, but at least they have someone to talk to. The higher level guys have been good.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I received my two cameras last night and played with them little. They are excellent cameras.

 

Hotspot can be resolved by adjusting the brightness and contrast within the camera software.

 

The time issue can be resolved by either checking the box to synch with your PC, or using a NTP server.

 

These cameras are great, the motion issue must be the NVR software you are using. I am using Blue Iris and I have a ton of adjustability within the software to get the motion detection how I like.

 

Overall very satisfied for the price of the two cameras!

I have resolved many of the issues. All that is left is the image performance at night. I tried tinkering a bit in the cameras menu, but was curious if after looking at the enclosed pic you still think the brightness and contrast will fix this. Most of my cams look like this at night. Very grainy with a bright center.

The bright center is because the IR spot size is smaller than the field of view for that lens/sensor combo. Nothing to be done about that except diffusing the IR, which spreads it out and gives less range.

That takes experimenting with diffusing films or materials, which usually have to be between the LEDs and the glass to avoid getting horrible IR reflections. These cams are a pain to do this with, due to the way they come apart.

The overall look is typical low-light Hik performance. You can improve it by turning up the noise reduction to 100% and not using WDR at night. I also turn down the contrast some, though that causes its own image quality issues.

Increasing the maximum exposure time gives a better low-light image, but going below 1/30 sec causes motion blur.

Low-light image is one of the weak spots on these cameras.

It loves to record flying dust particles in our barn, but I don't see any way around that.

Are you certain those are flying dust particles?

I thought the same thing at first but now I think those little particles are something else entirely, like maybe even a camera defect. The reason I think this is because I have many other ir cameras that do not have those large flying anomolies.

It's difficult to explain but I think the HD-820CAM model may have some strangeness going on in IR mode.

slow down the frame rate from 30 per sec to 15 per sec, the night time flying particles will be reduced.

I'd agree that they're dust particles. I see them frequently on my Dahua and Hik cams, but not my older Vivotek and Messoa cams. I believe the reason is that the Dahua and Hik have stronger IR and more depth of field in the focus, so that the near particles are both more illuminated and more in focus, causing them to show up better.

My Hiks show storms of particles after someone walks by at night, and it's very repeatable. I found some footage of raccoons that didn't trigger the motion detect by their own movement, but after they went by, there was a flurry of dust particles that triggered motion detect. I went to my 24x7 backup recorder and checked a few moments earlier, and there they were.

This needs more data to know why some cams do it more than others, but that's my current theory.

The bright center is because the IR spot size is smaller than the field of view for that lens/sensor combo. Nothing to be done about that except diffusing the IR, which spreads it out and gives less range.

 

That takes experimenting with diffusing films or materials, which usually have to be between the LEDs and the glass to avoid getting horrible IR reflections. These cams are a pain to do this with, due to the way they come apart.

 

The overall look is typical low-light Hik performance. You can improve it by turning up the noise reduction to 100% and not using WDR at night. I also turn down the contrast some, though that causes its own image quality issues.

 

Increasing the maximum exposure time gives a better low-light image, but going below 1/30 sec causes motion blur.

 

Low-light image is one of the weak spots on these cameras.

I'll try tinkering with the settings. When I look at network camera critic's review of this camera his night pictures are nowhere near as pixilated. It's hard to see from my pic, but at full resolution on my monitor it still looks worse than the picture on the review. Maybe I need to verify the settings a bit deeper.

It can come down to better settings for your particular spot, but available light will also drastically change the image for the better or worse. Keep that in mind when comparing your images to someone elses. The very best thing you can do to improve your image and keep it useful for surveillance is provide some light out there. I've suggested this a number of times before; help your camera help you, provide some light. Also, a bit of a noisy night image can provide more usable details than a spotless one can, because in total darkness the spotless one is usually that way because of surveillance degrading DNR or sens up settings. Do not judge your image by the picture alone. Always get in front of your camera in daylight and nightime and see what details your camera is and isn't giving you. PEOPLE and their movement matter in an image, not just the quality of a static image of a backyard in darkness. That's not surveillance, that's photography.

It can come down to better settings for your particular spot, but available light will also drastically change the image for the better or worse. Keep that in mind when comparing your images to someone elses. The very best thing you can do to improve your image and keep it useful for surveillance is provide some light out there. I've suggested this a number of times before; help your camera help you, provide some light. Also, a bit of a noisy night image can provide more usable details than a spotless one can, because in total darkness the spotless one is usually that way because of surveillance degrading DNR or sens up settings. Do not judge your image by the picture alone. Always get in front of your camera in daylight and nightime and see what details your camera is and isn't giving you. PEOPLE and their movement matter in an image, not just the quality of a static image of a backyard in darkness. That's not surveillance, that's photography.

I get it. Thanks for the feedback.

Those are good points. When I first tested the Hik bullet against the Dahua bullet, the Hik's night images were much better, and it took me about a week to realize that the Dahua IR (which can't be disabled) was helping the Hik's night image quality a lot. I had to turn off the Dahua completely to get a real-world night image from the Hik.