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Software or Stand alone NVR for Hikvision

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I am inclined to by hikvision ds-2cd2032 3mp. Does anybody knows a good software compatible with this camera or should I by and stand alone NVR?

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I'm jumping on this thread. Just bought this camera. I download the client software. Hoping to play with the features. After installing the software. The first thing attempts to do is format the unused partiton on my windows 7 laptop. I'm not sure I want to attempt this until I know more about what it is doing. I would rather allocate some of the windows partition for recording. Not knowing what the software is doing scares me since the boot sector is on the unformatted partition of the hard drive.

 

At www.networkcameracritic.com you can find a how to article that shows you how to use a nas for the storage. The camera has its own built in nvr client. The article mentions it wants to format the nas but it actually creates metadata base. I still need to know what is doing before proceeding. At some point I will buy a nvr and need to know how much work it will be to recover the hard drive space when move to the nvr.

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A little more digging. Appears I downloaded the pc nvr software. I'll get the client software tonight and see what it does during install.

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A little more digging. Appears I downloaded the pc nvr software. I'll get the client software tonight and see what it does during install.

 

That software wants a whole HD to install on, which an option if you want to use your PC as the NVR.

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The software you are mention comes with the cameras?

 

Not sure if anything comes with them, but you download the software here.

 

PC-NVR

http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/download_more.asp?id=1215

 

Client software for windows, view the NVRs and cameras.

http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/download_more.asp?id=591

Manual

http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/download_more.asp?id=951

 

Software to find the cameras on the network and change the IP address, without changing the PC's network config.

http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/download_more.asp?id=1120

Manual

http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/download_more.asp?id=1121

 

All from here.

http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/download.asp

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An inexpensive and flexible option is Blue Iris, which supports the Hiks nicely and is a good value. It needs a fairly powerful PC if you want to run a lot of MPs.

 

You can download a demo version to see how you like it.

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The client software seems to be ok. At least it didn't ask permission to format the HD. I'll have my camera tomorrow evening. I'll try and get my opinion posted in a day or two.

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The client software seems to be ok. At least it didn't ask permission to format the HD. I'll have my camera tomorrow evening. I'll try and get my opinion posted in a day or two.

 

I am in the same boat as you, please let me know what you choose to do. I have heard pretty good things about the Hik software.

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I just bought one of the 3MP bullets and the Hikvision 8-channel NVR and it is on-route at the moment. It appears the positives are that the NVR is low power and it is self contained vs. using a PC to do this. The only down sides I can think of is that you don't get push notifications (but email and FTP are there) via the Hikvision smartphone app and I don't know how good the NVR software is.

 

I have helped a co-worker manage his DVR software on an analog Q-See system from Costco and it was a bit painful to use but not horrible. I am hoping these newer NVR setups will be a lot nicer to manage.

 

Does Blue Iris provide for push notifications via a smartphone companion app?

 

Is there another way to get push notifications from the Hikvision NVR?

 

I'll post more info once I get my system and have done some basic testing with it.

 

Thanks

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I tested these cameras with Milestone XProtect (GO version is free, next level is Essential, about $50/cam, smartphone apps are good & free), Synology Surveillance Station (about $50 camera after the first + NAS device, smartphone apps free, but so-so), BlueIris ($50 per server + $10 for smartphone apps, works OK, not full featured, but is a CPU hog) and finally writing to an NFS mount (free).

 

I did not test their Hikvision PC NVR software because as someone said, when it asked to format the drive I was scared, I only have one drive on my PC. But what I've learned is what they mean by format is create a directory structure with a files that keeps track of stuff that may use 1% of the drive, not really a format like you would think would wipe out a drive. Worth trying, would do it if I didn't have some reviews to get out.

 

If you asked me what would Buellwinkle do, it would be Milestone XProtect Go, free software, free smartphone apps, and live with the 5 day limit, rock solid stable product, supports many different cameras.

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Thank you all for the info. I would like to have push notification. Does anybody knows if I can SMS with this camera and a software or with this camera and Hikvision NVR?

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Most network cameras including this one can SMS by sending a short email to your carriers email address, for example, I have Verizon, so I email to @vtext.com.

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Does Blue Iris provide for push notifications via a smartphone companion app?

 

BI has a phone app that users seem pretty happy with. I haven't used it, but you could ask over at the BI community forum, cam-it.org. BI has a demo version, but I don't think the app does.

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Does Blue Iris provide for push notifications via a smartphone companion app?

 

BI has a phone app that users seem pretty happy with. I haven't used it, but you could ask over at the BI community forum, cam-it.org. BI has a demo version, but I don't think the app does.

 

 

BI does send push notifications. I have it sending notifications to my iPhone and iPad, every time an alert is triggered at my front door. The BI app is $9.99 I think, for Apple or Android.

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I got the camera late last night. Not much time to play. The client found the camera on the network and allowed me to change the address. Some settings were not accessible thru the client. I had to use the web interface. Watching a live feed is all I had time for. My laptop is a dual core centreno. It was running about 50% on one core. That's pretty intense for just viewing. NVR will be better choice if you are planning on more than couple of cameras.

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Most network cameras including this one can SMS by sending a short email to your carriers email address, for example, I have Verizon, so I email to @vtext.com.

 

I have installed Xprotect Go, but can't get e-mail to work, any suggestion?

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Does Blue Iris provide for push notifications via a smartphone companion app?

 

BI has a phone app that users seem pretty happy with. I haven't used it, but you could ask over at the BI community forum, cam-it.org. BI has a demo version, but I don't think the app does.

 

I found out my ISP block port 25, I have to use a SMTP relay to work around this issue.

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I got the camera late last night. Not much time to play. The client found the camera on the network and allowed me to change the address. Some settings were not accessible thru the client. I had to use the web interface. Watching a live feed is all I had time for. My laptop is a dual core centreno. It was running about 50% on one core. That's pretty intense for just viewing. NVR will be better choice if you are planning on more than couple of cameras.

It appears that I was incorrect . The client software actually has more camera settings than the camera web interface. One in particular is the day night auto change over. The web interface only provides auto or manual. The client allows you to set the sensitivity of auto feature.

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Not sure if this has been mentioned but the software doesnt format your hard drive. what it does do is saturate it to capacity with blank raw video files which it overwrites as it goes along. Might be a problem if you only have one hard drive in your pc but if you have a second hdd or a raid array dedicated to the recordings it shouldnt be a problem

 

Brenning

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