Help with Sound on Hikvision DS-2CD2732F-I(S) camera

bigbadw

bigbadw

Getting the hang of it
Sep 16, 2014
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I picked up the Hikvision Dome camera (DS-2CD2732F-I(S)). It has a wire plug to connect sound IN (microphone) and sound OUT (externally powered speaker). It will be mono, since the connection to the camera is one (in) and one (ground) for both the microphone and sound out.

I have experimented with a couple of microphones (PC and lapel). Both work, but need the user must be inches away to work.
I keep trying to get a speaker to work, but am having difficulty getting a stereo speaker to connect up and not suck...

Anyone hook a microphone and speaker up to Hikvision cameras like the one I purchased? I'd sure like to find a product that would work.

(note: I contacted Hikvision directly... They referred me to their consumer partners. I have contacted the partners, and one referred me to Hikvision....)
 
fenderman, thanks again. This is actually the only write up I have read on the subject.

Update: I have been experimenting with multiple products and approaches. I finally got a microphone working. It is a $20 mic that uses a watch battery as a power source. I soldered a female mono plug and connected the two wires to the camera's "input" block. Appears to work great.

Now, I'm onto my third speaker experiment. First one did produce sound out, but it was so distorted to be almost unusable. Wish me luck.
 
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Cheezy said:
I just installed a DS-2CD2632F-IS camera and it has the same audio in/out terminals on a pigtail. I used a 12V externally powered microphone and it's working great. I had to go into the camera's audio settings and select "line" instead of "mic".
I have not used the audio out option.
I used this mic- http://www.cctvimports.com/accessories-audio-c-1_286/apb001-add-on-microphone-p-620
Click to expand...

Thanks Cheesy. I followed the link and think that all I see is a cable. Is that what I order?
 
The mic is encapsulated in the little plastic blob in the center of the cable. That cable was designed to pass through the 12V power and video for analog cameras. Run 12V into the power input and connect the Mic out jack into the HikVision's audio line in terminals.
I have my camera mounted on a 4" square plastic box. I used a small rat tail file to cut 2 notches in the bottom of the box and I loop this cable through those notches so the terminations are all inside the box and the plastic blob with the mic is hanging under the box. Then I wrapped a small piece of open cell foam around the mic to reduce wind noise.
I can hear everything. Birds, rain, even kids playing a block away.
This is the box I used- http://www.homedepot.com/p/Carlon-4...ox-E989NNJ-CAR/100404097?N=5yc1vZbohnZ1z116nv
It's mounted to the wall, just under my eaves and the camera is mounted to the lid.
Here is another version of that mic without the video and power pass through connections. I like the first version I posted because it allows me to run a single 12V cable without needing to split it to drive the camera and the mic. http://www.cctvimports.com/accessories-audio-c-1_286/apb002-audio-pick-up-box-p-1335
 

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Thanks Cheezy. With mic solved.. I now need to figure out the sound out... My experiment that I just finished with was to solder a "3.5 female stereo" jack to two wires (one ground and one wire connected across the two stereo tabs. Sound definitely works on powered speakers, but the additional noise makes it a bad solution.....
 
Woo Hoo! Sound success.. FINALLY! While I wait for the microphone Cheezy recommended, I continued to work on the speaker out portion.

The Hikvision DS-2CD2732F-I(S) has a cabling "block" that has 4 connection points. (1) Mic in, (2) Ground for Mic, (3) Sound out, (4) Ground for sound.
I soldered a 3.5mm female mono connector to two speaker wires. The sound portion of the 3.5mm connector, I soldered to both tabs (so that sound could go out to both speakers on the powered speaker, since it is a stereo connection.
Then, I purchased a $4 connector that is a 3.5mm female (stereo) and a 3.5mm male (mono). This allowed me to plug a stereo (male) plug from the speakers into the mono jack that I just created.
Sound was working, but the quality was really, really bad.
Solution: Inside the camera firmware, I found 5 different audio modes. The one that finally gave the best and clearest sound is the "G.711uIaw" setting.

Once I get the powered microphone, I should be set to complete the installation by the front door.

Fina-Freaking-ly!!! This has been a long journey to get a camera, by my front door, that allows me to be alerted someone is there, and both hear them and speak to them......
 
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I am so happy to see this thread as it is very difficult to find anything on this topic elsewhere.

I have a DS-2CD2732F-IS and 2 DS-2CD2632F-IS units. I love them but I am unable to get them to stream audio at all. To be fair I have been trying to get the 2632F-IS units to stream (the 2732F-IS is already installed; I have been waiting to get audio working on the bullets before I pull the dome down and wire it up).

I have tried non powered microphones (using my Nikon ME-1) wired directly into the "Audio In" and its related Ground connections in the audio block (setting the audio configuration to "MicIn" (every codec variation). And I have tried a powered mic (similar to Cheesy's mic above; powered by 12vdc) wired into "Audio In"/G with the camera's audio config set to "LineIn" (with all codec variations). No luck on either of scenarios across both of my 2632F-IS cameras.

Am I missing something obvious here?
 
In the camera settings I changed video type to Video&Audio. I started out with the input volume at 100 (maximum), but had to turn it down. The mic I used is so sensitive that the audio would distort terribly every time my neighbor drove by in his old truck with noisy exhaust. Even at the lowest gain, I still hear everything within a block of my house.
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Thanks for the screenshots. My setup looks identical. I've also tried monkeying around with the different encoding codecs to no avail. What I don't know is if there is something wrong with my hardware, or my computer's software (as in missing audio codec, etc). I have verified my microphones work (plugging them into my PC and listening to the audio they produce).

On the camera's "Live View" web page I enable the audio by sliding the speaker icon's slider (lower left of the displayed video) fully to the right. But I hear no audio. I use Genius Vision NVR software but enabling audio on the camera's channel does not produce audio as well.

On the camera itself I am using the Audio In wire for the microphone/line in and the "G" next to "AudioIn" as the common ground from the microphone.

I would be willing to say that it is a hardware problem, but I find it too coincidental that 2 different 2632f-is units exhibit the same problem.
 
mrslother said:
On the camera itself I am using the Audio In wire for the microphone/line in and the "G" next to "AudioIn" as the common ground from the microphone.
Click to expand...

The mic I used had an RCA female connector for audio out. When I bench tested the camera, I took an old RCA audio jumper with male connectors and cut it in half, then stripped the wire and connected the center conductor to the audio in and the shield to the G. This way I could just plug the mic into the RCA male connector. It worked, and I'm lazy, so I left it that way when I installed the camera. I could have just cut the RCA female connector off the mic and wired it straight into the camera, but I had plenty of room in the box and left it as it was.
If you are not sure about your mic, you can test the camera with a smart phone or iPod type device. Anything that plays music and has a headphone jack should work. Just use a headphone to RCA adapter cable and snip off one of the RCA connectors. Then wire is as I did with the center conductor to the audio in of the camera and the shield to the G connector. This way you have a known good audio source driving the camera's audio input. If you cannot hear that, the problem is not the mic.
 
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The amp microphone I am using is a VideoSecu MIC01:

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I am using an RCA connector soldered to twisted stranded (speaker) wire. I have verified that there is no short in this simple circuit. The ground/shield (silver wire) is going to the camera's AudioIn Ground and the Mic/Line (center pole in the RCA plug; copper wire) is going into AudioIn on the block.

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This image shows the setup fully assembled (RCA connector plugged into the microphone which is plugged into 12vdc power [the red connector]). The microphone plugged into my PC works well.

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And, just like yours, my camera configuration is set to stream audio/video and I am using LineIn:
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SO here's my checklist:


At this point I see only 2 possible problems:
1) My PC is unable to playback audio (maybe due to a codec problem?)
2) Both of my cameras are malfunctioning WRT audio

I have an open email to HikVision's tech support for #2 but they have yet to reply.

I wanted to install the cameras Tuesday then Wed and now Today, but I would rather resolve the audio problem before installing them. It looks like it will take sometime for HikVision tech support to respond. Any ideas you guys have that can point me to where I am screwing up is greatly appreciated.

UPDATE:
I have verified that the camera is streaming audio and video channels. However the audio stream is just silence. Therefore I am concluding that it is a problem with the camera (or my configuration). I have verified audio is getting up into the "Audio In" block and that the audio/video streaming and audio configuration settings are accurate.
The only logical conclusion I can draw is that there is something wrong with the camera's audio in circuit.
 

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My update:
I got the 2732F-IS' audio working today. In my case there were several wires hanging loose (no header block). 4 were for the alarm signals but the rest were audio related:

  • RIn/Mic+ (presumably Line In Right or Mic- [maybe Mic Right?])
  • LIn/Mic- (presumably Line In Left or Mic- [maybe Mic Left?])
  • Mic G (presumably Mic Ground)
  • LineR (presumably Line Out Right)
  • LineL (presumably Line Out Left)
  • Line Ground (presumably Line Out Ground)


After much experimentation I got the audio working just fine using MicIn settings (no audio amp). I used a standard computer microphone (it looks a lot like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836111208). It is has a stereo jack but I suspect it only has one microphone (some data specs on the net suggest it is mono as well). I tied RIn/Mic+ to the microphone's right channel, LIn/Mic- to the mic's left channel and Mic G to the microphone's ground. I tried mixing Mic+ & Mic- and tried just Mic+ and just Mic-; they all seemed to work the same.

My camera's audio configuration is set as:

  • Advanced Config --> Video/Audio-->Video-->Video Type = Video & Audio
  • Advanced Config --> Video/Audio-->Audio-->Audio Encoding = G.711uLaw
  • Advanced Config --> Video/Audio-->Audio-->Audio Input = MicIn
  • Advanced Config --> Video/Audio-->Audio-->Input Volume = 100
  • Advanced Config --> Video/Audio-->Audio-->Environmental Noise Filter = On (Yes, this really helped cut out background noise)


I have verified that even though the audio wire's labels suggest that the camera is capable of left and right channels, the outputted audio stream from the camera is indeed mono (regardless of audio encoding).

What I wanted to do was to tap the power from the camera's power plug to power my amp-microphone (described above in one of my previous postings). I am using PoE to power the camera and it ends up that the power plug appears to be tapped directly to the power lines in the Ethernet cable. Therefore I was able to detect power from the plug (multimeter showed ~8 volts). Even though 8v is in my powered microphone's voltage range (6-12v) it didn't work (maybe not enough current??). If I used a separate power brick to supply power to the microphone it worked well (when I changed audio input to LineIn). But I don't have the luxury of pulling the power cable to this location.

So at this point I have successfully enabled audio to my 2732F-IS but using the same configuration & microphone I am unable to get the 2632F-IS units to work. I am concluding that they are faulty cameras and will be sending them back.

Thanks to everyone who has helped with this.
 
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mrslother, congrats on getting audio to work on your camera. Great comments and write up! I am positive this post will help others working on the same configuration.

Cheezy, (update), the microphone you recommended finally arrived yesterday. I will now be making an RCA connector to wire to the wiring-block.
 
Update: Still fighting the speaker (sound out) portion of the camera using the iPhone Blue Iris app.

1. Installed the microphone recommended by Cheezy. Very powerful and works great. (thanks for the recommendation)
2. Installed and test speaker (out) on the bench before installation (and before the Blue Iris update to 64bit). Worked consistently.
3. Completed final install on front door. Ran all previously tested wires and permanently installed speaker. NO SOUND OUT.
- Damn... can't get this one figured out.
4. Uninstalled, tested all speaker wire components, all work fine with other systems.
5. Re-installed, no sound out.
6. Multiple updates from Blue Iris.
7. Let it rest a couple days, then went out and tested one more time from iPhone app. It worked! Had sound out speakers!
Went inside house. Got wife. Had her talk to iPhone Blue Iris. Went outside to test... No sound out......
Tested and tested.. Can't get sound out again. No changes in hardware, no touching of any components...

Crap....
 
Not to bash on Blue Iris, but ...
I tried it but didn't like it (so I have an unused license sitting around here somewhere). I hear that lots of people like it so I must be an odd man out.
I found a free license for the community version of GeniusVision's NVR. I like it quite a bit. It does have iOS and Android client apps but no Windows Modern app (sad for me). It works well with my HikVision cameras (as long as I use the ONVIF driver).
 
fenderman said:
take blue iris out of the equation and test it with the hikvision app or IE.
Click to expand...

Thanks fenderman, you are definitely correct that I need to take this next test.

My problem has been the configuration of my Security PC. (something I definitely need to change). I built the Security PC to be dedicated to running Blue Iris. I did not add speakers or microphone to the Security PC and it is placed in the most unreachable of spots... (listen to me whine, eh?).

Ok, I'll dive in and get that changed so I can properly test out the camera.... definitely my bad...
 
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