Problem with HDMI to IP ONVIF Converter on an KT&C 16 CH TVI

Hello everyone.

I have decided to give myself a little project for my own house and my own personal benefit. Here is my objective, Use my KT&C ezHD 16 CH HD-TVI DVR that supports 2 full HD IP cameras that I installed myself in my house as my home's surveillance CCTV system to take advance of one of those two IP ameras capabilities that I am not usin at the moment to hook up my cable box and record onto the DVR whatever channel I seem to be tuned at the moment as a very cheap solution to not having to subscribe to my cable tv provider's DVR service so that when I come back from work I get to watch my missed shows on the channel I left the cable box tuned into before I left my house.

In order to achieve the above stated objective I purchased an HDMI to IP converter that also supports the ONVIF standard. I purchased it on Ebay, the vendor is located in China, estimated delivery time was 2 to 3+ weeks and I was surprised how fast it came to my house, it literally came within 3 days after having placed the order.

I hooked up the device, default IP was 192.168.1.168 and I added the IP address and port user name and password as an IP camera on my HD-TVI DVR using the ONVIF option, then I plugged in an HDMI cable to the back of my cable box then had an image on my monitor 'Camera Online" showed on settings.

End Result:

I am able to see and record beautiful clear crisp images coming from my Cable Box in full HD at 30 fps I dont have any complains when it comes to the video quality, my only complain is that I have not been able to get the audio to sound in high quality, It appears that I can only record in G711 Alaw PCM at 64 kbps, I have tried everything to no avail. I can either record audio at G711 PCM or no audio at all.

When adding an IP camera to the DVR I get two options:

1. IPCAM

2. ONVIF

Perhaps KT&C forgot to add the higher quality .aac codec as an option for audio recording to these KT&C TVI DVR's? Because I checked the ONVIF officlal website, the responsible for the creation of this standard and they said that ONVIF support two audio formats:

1. G711 Mulaw/alaw PCM

2. AAC which is a coded created by Apple and a direct competitor to .mp3 where it is said that it takes half the disk space than .mp3 for the same image quality (I take it that a 64 kbps aac sounds just the same or supposed to sound just the same as an 128 kbps .mp3)

Current firmware my DVR is running: version 3.1.8 and according to the website all the firmware upgrades after that version doesn't touch audio, just a few minor bug fixes so I really doubt that upgrading my firmware is going to give me .aac audio recording capabilities.

Here is a website that emulates the options of my HDMI to IP converter box:

http://www.oupree.com/h.264-hdmi-ui/OutputP1MainE.html

and according to the manufacturer this converter box supports the following features:

- ONVIF

- RTSP

- FLV encoding

- TS

- HLS

Out of all those options, the one that rings me as a possible solution where it might let me record with higher quality audio is RTSP, since HikVision, and KT&C DVR's are HiKVision rebrands uses RTSP for their IP cameras, so maybe there is something that I can do by modifying my IP converter's RTSP url to match that of HiKVision format, my converter box encodes in H.264 which matches that of HiKVision's cameras so I dont think I might have any problems there.

Also, is there any NVR's out there that is able to record from an RTSP video stream and that supports a higher quality audio (be it aac or mp3)? I am prepared to purchase a 4 CH HiKVision based NVR if I can't find a resolution to the low quality audio issue on my existing HD TVI DVR.

Side note:

There is on the market an HDMI to HD-TVI converter that does the same as my HDMI to IP converter but the TVI method would require adding an RCA audio cable to the back of my DVR in channel 1, that other solution presents the following challenge:

1. On my DVR's options, analog audio recording is only available in monaural 711 Mulaw PCM, there is no other options in terms of other codecs like aac, etc. So I was under the impression that going the IP route was going to let me record with an audio quality much higher.

You got it wrong there; in the sense that all the encoding is done on your HDMI to IP converter, and that the DVR has nothing to do here with the quality on the audio.

Perhaps KT&C forgot to add the higher quality .aac codec as an option for audio recording to these KT&C TVI DVR's? Because I checked the ONVIF officlal website, the responsible for the creation of this standard and they said that ONVIF support two audio formats:

KT&C forgot nothing there, since the DVR is not doing any encoding. All the video and audio encoding is done on the HDMI to IP converter, which then sends is as 0s and 1s over your network, and your DVR just receives the stream and stores it on the hard disk without doing any work on that data. Check your converter to see if you have any options to improve your audio, but if there aren't any, you probably will not be able to do much more.

You got it wrong there; in the sense that all the encoding is done on your HDMI to IP converter, and that the DVR has nothing to do here with the quality on the audio.

 

Perhaps KT&C forgot to add the higher quality .aac codec as an option for audio recording to these KT&C TVI DVR's? Because I checked the ONVIF officlal website, the responsible for the creation of this standard and they said that ONVIF support two audio formats:

 

KT&C forgot nothing there, since the DVR is not doing any encoding. All the video and audio encoding is done on the HDMI to IP converter, which then sends is as 0s and 1s over your network, and your DVR just receives the stream and stores it on the hard disk without doing any work on that data. Check your converter to see if you have any options to improve your audio, but if there aren't any, you probably will not be able to do much more.

The HDMI to IP converter I have also outputs video streams over RTSP, do you know of a way to make my DVR accept the video stream as as IP camera over RTSP instead as "ONVIF". You are right in the aspect that my HDMI to IP converter IS encoding the audio as G711a PCM for ONVIF while it encodes to either MP3 or AAC to any other streams such as RTSP, Flash Video (flv), TS, etc, so I am paying special attention to RTSP and maybe I can add the IP camera as "IPCAM" instead as "ONVIF" on my DVR and then maybe I can get the DVR to accept the stream as RTSP?

By the way, here is the configuration menu that I get with my HDMI to IP converter:

This would be the main page:

One of the features of this converter is that I can customize all URL's to match that of any URL that any special hardware might require for the stream to work, so I am thinking of emulating an KT&C IP camera's URL path so that I can "Trick" the DVR that it is an KT&C IP camera thus connecting as "IPCAM"

Under "RTSP URL" field I have tried the following

/h264/ch1/sub/av_stream

based on what I have read on another forum, to simulate a "HiKVision IP Camera", but it didn't work, wasn't able to get it connect under "IPCAM" setting. by the way, my DVR only have two IP cameras add settings, its either IPCAM or ONVIF and I take it the "IPCAM" setting is if I want to add a "KT&C IP CAMERA"

http://192.168.1.89/OutputP1MainE.html

IF I can make the DVR accept the stream using the RTSP URL from my converter, then my problem would be solved as the DVR would be pretty much saving my full HD video with stereo AAC encoding on the hard drive.

The HDMI to IP converter I have also outputs video streams over RTSP, do you know of a way to make my DVR accept the video stream as as IP camera over RTSP instead as "ONVIF". You are right in the aspect that my HDMI to IP converter IS encoding the audio as G711a PCM for ONVIF while it encodes to either MP3 or AAC to any other streams such as RTSP, Flash Video (flv), TS, etc, so I am paying special attention to RTSP and maybe I can add the IP camera as "IPCAM" instead as "ONVIF" on my DVR and then maybe I can get the DVR to accept the stream as RTSP?

Your DVR only takes Hikvision and ONVIF protocols, it can not record from an RTSP stream.

If the audio on the RTSP stream is good enough for you, you could buy an NVR that does support RTSP and have it recording 24/7. But I would first try out the quality using a client like VLC before buying anything else.

The HDMI to IP converter I have also outputs video streams over RTSP, do you know of a way to make my DVR accept the video stream as as IP camera over RTSP instead as "ONVIF". You are right in the aspect that my HDMI to IP converter IS encoding the audio as G711a PCM for ONVIF while it encodes to either MP3 or AAC to any other streams such as RTSP, Flash Video (flv), TS, etc, so I am paying special attention to RTSP and maybe I can add the IP camera as "IPCAM" instead as "ONVIF" on my DVR and then maybe I can get the DVR to accept the stream as RTSP?

 

Your DVR only takes Hikvision and ONVIF protocols, it can not record from an RTSP stream.

 

If the audio on the RTSP stream is good enough for you, you could buy an NVR that does support RTSP and have it recording 24/7. But I would first try out the quality using a client like VLC before buying anything else.

I got in contact with my converter's vendor/manufacturer and got a reply from them, they said that their converters do encode MP3/AAC to ONVIF, and that all what I have to do is choose '"disable" on the "G711a ver RTSP" on the ONVIF section, then the primary codec, MP3 or AAC whichever one I chose takes over for everything, including ONVIF, so I did that test, I chose AAC at 128 kbps, disabled 711, and connected that stream to my KT&C EZHD TVI DVR as an ONVIF IP camera and was able to see the stream, I opened up the IVMS-4500 smartphone app and was able to see a recording and its audio sounded in high quality, so I called it a success, but all what not 100% success, it appears that OMNI CMS for Windows which I had downloaded from ktncusa.com website's support page doesn't support the playing of audio for any videos that wasn't recorded using G711 ulaw/alaw, I did the experiment, here was the experiment I did:

When playing back the same video from the same time frame for IP camera 1 on my smart phone I was able to hear the audio for that recording, when I attempted to playback the video for the same time frame for this same IP camera but this time using OMNI CMS for Windows I was only able to get video to show up, but no audio, I enabled audio (its always disabled by default), and no matter what I did, audio would no work. If I went to my converter's configuration page and I enabled G711 encoding for the ONVIF stream, then I am able to hear the low quality audio from OMNI CMS, but not if it was encoded using MP3 or AAC.

Experiment phase #2: I tried another software, called IVMS-4200 CMS for Windows, so I went ahead and downloaded that, added my DVR. Since KT&C is pretty much a rebrand for HiKVision, I didn't have any trouble adding my DVR onto IVMS-4500 and then I tried to replay the video from IP camera #1 from the same time frame, then I enabled the audio and this time I had high quality stereo audio playing back along with the video.

Conclusion:

HiKVision's IVMS-4200 CMS for Windows supports other audio formats such as AAC and MP3 (keep in mind the experiment I ran only included AAC at 128 kbps, didn't try MP3, but I think its safe to assume MP3 would work too).

It appears that KT&C's OMNI CMS for Windows can only playback recordings of Videos with Audio as long as the audio's codec used was G711, it will completely ignore the MP3 or AAC audio streams and just playback the video silently giving the impression or the illusion that the audio wasn't being recorded. This really sucks, I dont know why KT&C removed MP3/AAC support for H.264 Videos encoded with them? I mean, HiKVision apparently made their IVMS-4200 CMS Windows software compatible with AAC (dont know about MP3 as I haven't re-ran the experiment with MP3 encoded videos yet). So, HiKVision, being the parent company and the actual "innovator" here, is the one who creates these softwares and then makes them available to different re-branders such as KT&C, DVRDVS, among others and theoretically the software made available by these re-branders should support everything IVMS-4200 supports, right? If I can replay an "IP Camera" footage that was encoded with AAC in Stereo at 128 kbps just fine and successfully, I should also be able to play it using OMNI CMS, but that's not the case, KT&C changing the Graphical User Interface when they re-branded their software was not all what they did even though on the surface that's exactly what it appears since both software on the surface have the same feature base, (live, Playback, System, etc) with different variations such as HiKVision opting to use all numbers on their calendars (such as 6.2017) while KT&C's OMNI CMS using complete words (such as June 2017), I find it that OMNI CMS's GUI presentation is less confusing and more to the point than HiKVision's IVMS-4200 and I would really have loved to continue to use OMNI CMS primarily because that's the one I have been using for the past two years an so, but it looks like now I would have to get used to IVMS-4200 because its the only one where the AAC encoded audio of the 1080 IP Camera video works when you play it back from that software. It looks like KT&C deleted/disabled MP3/AAC support on their OMNI CMS in their process of creating their GUI design and customization, I wonder why KT&C removed MP3/AAC support off their customized software? Why? Is it that it was of no use for them? It is that they didn't plan to sell IP cameras with microphones that encoded in AAC/MP3? Or was it to keep costs down and not pay the menial license fee to use MP3 and AAC? I wouldn't have minded paying $5 extra for my DVR if it meant that ONMI CMS was going to be able to playback IP camera video streams encoded in AAC...

Do you know of anyway that I can make ONMI CMS not ignore the AAC stream of the recorded video? If If it isn't presently possible I would use IVMS-4200 for the moment, but I would rather use OMNI CMS if I can make the AAC encoded audio work on it.

Thanks.

Experimental update:

I changed my converter to encode audio using MP3 at 128 kbps and while using MP3 as the audio codec I found that video recording would play without audio on both software, on IVMS4200 and KT&C's OMNI CMS but if I change my converter to use AAC codec at 128 kbps then only IVMS4200 plays the videos with audio just fine but KT&C's OMNI CMS playbacks the video without audio. If I change my converter to use G711 PCM codec then video playsback with audio on both software.

Conclusion:

MP3 Codec:

IVMS 4200: Not Supported

KT&C's OMNI CMS: Not Supported

AAC Codec:

IVMS 4200: Supported fully regardless of bitrate based on my current observation

KT&C's OMNI CMS: Not Supported (this is a shocker for me, as KT&C derives their software from HiKVision as they are a rebrand for HiKVision merely retouching and customizing the graphical user interface, it looks like KT&C did more than simply "rebranding", they got rid of AAC audio codec support off their CMS software and I am interested why they did this? Is this a software bug? A mistake they did? I mean, having a CMS software that can play audio only if recorded in G711 is a huge turn off, what about if I decide to install an IP camera, a real IP camera with a built in microphone and were to choose to record the audio in AAC mode under the camera's configuration page? under OMNI CMS I wouldn't be able to hear the audio unless the audio was recorded using G711. I thank HiKVision for at least including AAC support on their master CMS software (IVMS 4200) and I guess that is the software I shall be using from now on.