Aposonic A-S0401R1 DVR Viewing in Linux (or elsewhere)

[gallonoffuel 0]

Hi guys. I'm new here, and I know most folks are probably into the higher end tech for this stuff but I just wanted to share my experience trying to get real-time viewing of my new DVR setup over the network in Linux.

 

I bought the the Aposonic A-BR1B4-C250 kit from Newegg, which features the A-S0401R1 DVR. What's interesting, and frustrating, is that although it runs embedded Linux 2.6, it REQUIRES Internet Explorer with ActiveX to view the camera feeds in real time on the device's webterface. I downloaded the suggested Android app for this thing, and realized it can view live feeds, albeit undersampled and a little delayed, without IE, ActiveX, or any other Microsoft involvement.

 

The DVR runs a telnet server which you can log into and have complete access to the filesystem. I don't suggest doing this without being familiar with Linux, because the default, and only, login is 'root', which for the uninformed is the superuser that can do anything to the system at will, including but not limited to the deletion of crucial files.

 

Anyway, while poking around the filesystem, I found the area where the server holds it's served documents for the webserver, which also happens to be the same content served to the Android and iPhone apps. Loading up each of the URLs, I stumbled upon a non-ActiveX viewer for the cameras.

 

That URL is:

 

http://x.x.x.x/GetData.cgi?CH=1&Size=D1

 

x.x.x.x is the IP of your DVR.

CH=1 can be CH=2, CH=3, or CH=4 depending on which feed you would like to view.

Size=D1 can be QCIF, CIF, VGA, or D1

 

So put together the right URL in your browser and you're greeted with a login prompt. This is the same login/pw as your DVR, which you set up when you first turned it on. After logging in, you're looking at a feed from the DVR of whichever cam channel you've chosen. I bookmark this page for future use.

 

Now, this is cool, but I want to see all 4 cams at the same time, and I want it to be convenient. In that case, if you use Google Chrome as your browser, you can install the extension called CCTV View, and load up all 4 camera URLs into it. It has a preview button as well as a full web monitor page.

 

That's it! I hope this helps a few people. You don't get ALL of the functionality of the ActiveX driven interface, but you do get an awful lot more than the alternative (which is nothing).

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention, there are a number of other interesting URLs available. If you want to look at stills of each camera one at a time, you can go to:

 

http://x.x.x.x/channel1.html

 

Similarly, to get stills from each cam, such as to make a custom html page with still shots, you can load:

 

http://x.x.x.x/GetJPG.cgi?CH=01&Size=D1

 

Where the parameters are identical to the GetData URL.

 

EDIT2:

 

I'm fairly convinced this stuff will work for other Aposonic DVRs, and probably any other that runs embedded Linux. For the savy, the internal webserver root directory is:

 

/GMHDVR/bin/resource/www

[yakky 0]

I'm jealous. I have a Night Owl Poseidon and I none of the "default" root telnet passwords work. I'm itching to get into it and find the content as you have. I'm running a brute force script against it, hopefully its a numeric password.... otherwise I'm screwed. I should know in about another week!

[groovyman 0]

gallonoffuel - very interesting read. Thank you. I'm going to try this on some systems I have in the garage just to tinker around a bit.

[davekra 0]

Very good information indeed.

I've been struggling with which one to buy and this has me focusing on Aposonic.

 

I found this on their web site

http://www.aposoniccctv.com/index.php/section-blog/35-mobile-faq/164-remoteview

 

It says:

"A-S0401R1, A-S0401R2 (H.264), A-S0801R3, A-S1601R4, A-S0801R8, A-S0401R13 (Cat. A) - These models use only one port for remote web viewing...."

and

"A-S0402R17, A-S0802R18, A-S0802R19, A-S1602R20B, A-S1602R25, A-S1604R20A, A-S1604R26, A-S0401R21, A-S0802R22 (Cat. B) - These models provide comprehensive remote access feature and use three ports for remote access:....To access the DVR from local network, please do the same as the other models listed above......Internet Explorer is strongly recommended since most of thier remote features are running based on ActiveX control. Firefox, Chrome, and Safari are accessible to the DVR with only remote viewing capability. "

 

It almost sounds like the same services are accessible on other models but some have more control.

In looking at their specs some say they use embedded Linux 2.6 and others don't. The A-S0401R1 doesn't mention it. But then again their specs aren't formatted the same for all models.

 

Has anyone tried this on a A-S0804R8n ? That or the A-S0804R8A are the ones I'm thinking about from NewEgg.

 

Thanks,

davidk

[gallonoffuel 0]

This is an old post of mine but I thought I would update with a problem I just ran into. I just upgraded to the latest firmware from the Aposonic website and no longer have root access via telnet. I've tried a bunch of default passwords and none seem to work. Will keep trying and update this thread if found.