Hikvisions terrible snapshot feature for home users.

[CHarrisMedia]

So you'd expect the ability for a camera with motion detection to easily be able to send a snapshot of the motion detected via email, this is great for people who are afraid that their NVR could be stolen if the house is burgled and don't necessarily have a NAS or FTP server to save the images to, right? No.

For some reason, when you couple Hikvision camera's with their NVR, it completely nullifies the snapshot feature entirely and I have no idea why. Baring in mind, the average home user getting into CCTV will use an NVR as it's the easiest way to record and control CCTV systems.

So how does Hikvision do this?

• Any camera running above 3MP WILL NOT send snapshots to the email address, even though you can select the option.
• Turning on Virtual hosts is essentially pointless as camera's cannot connect to the internet when plugged into the NVR without complex networking setup (Baring in mind many routers won't even support functions like static routing which is required)
• The snapshots are incredibly low quality
• Hikvision now only support professional installers, meaning if you're the average home user who is more than competent of setting the system up, thus saving yourself money, you are given no support - this is possibly the most surprising of all 4 points.

Hopefully in the future, updates give you the option to select resolution of snapshots or route more traffic from the camera's through the NVR giving them the ability to have internet access and raise the ridiculous limit of 3MP cameras, I have an 8MP camera now running at 3MP because otherwise it cannot send snapshots.

I suppose if I were to set this system up again, an NVR would be crossed of the list straight away, I could understand the limitations above if you were using a third party NVR but not Hikvision's own ones.

 

[alastairstevenson]

For some reason, when you couple Hikvision camera's with their NVR, it completely nullifies the snapshot feature entirely and I have no idea why.

It's actually your own LAN that's the limitation, as the NVR POE ports operate on a different IP address segment from the NVR LAN interface.
Tell your LAN where to direct packets for those addresses and it all works normally.
It's no different from what you'd have to do if you established another network segment, for example to give increased isolation for some devices.

It's not just Hikvision NVRs that operate in this way, it's standard.

I suppose if I were to set this system up again, an NVR would be crossed of the list straight away,

Or you could use a POE switch instead of a POE NVR.

 

[CHarrisMedia]

Tell your LAN where to direct packets for those addresses and it all works normally.

That's where the static routing comes in, isn't it? Neither the Virgin media hub or BT Smart hub seem to have this feature?

Or you could use a POE switch instead of a POE NVR.

Sure, but the NVR is a low power all in one system, unless you have a NAS or PC to leave on...

 

[alastairstevenson]

That's where the static routing comes in, isn't it? Neither the Virgin media hub or BT Smart hub seem to have this feature?

Yes, you have a point there. These have been incredibly dumbed down to give a low support footprint for the plug&play volume consumers.

Sure, but the NVR is a low power all in one system, unless you have a NAS or PC to leave on...

I meant an NVR + separate POE switch as opposed to an NVR with POE interfaces.

 

[CHarrisMedia]

Yes, you have a point there. These have been incredibly dumbed down to give a low support footprint for the plug&play volume consumers.

Exactly, it's usually made harder with companies like BT requiring a vdsl modem in addition. I'm surprised companies like Hikvision still haven't implemented a way around this for the average home user.

I meant an NVR + separate POE switch as opposed to an NVR with POE interfaces.

It looks like I may now have to do that, very frustrating though as PoE from the NVR is one of the biggest advantages of having one.

 

[alexf40]

I use the snapshot functionality to send to a cloud service via ftp with no issues, 4mb cameras. I use cammy, it's about $9 a month per camera, they don't advertise the bring your own camera package on their website. I've tried Angelcam, CamCloud etc but Cammy is the best as they use their own filtering on the motion detection snapshots to stop you getting false alerts.