Dahua XVR & IP cameras

[allen bell]

I was recently told that the XVR5108S is not "guaranteed" to work with "other brands" of IP cameras (whatever that means) but I found out that it's accurate.

The XVR5108 connects to a generic ONVIR IP camera just fine, shows the live video (preview) just fine and records (regular -green- recording) and playback just fine, but it will not, under any circumstances, detect motion and/or do motion activated (yellow) recording. I also tried an older Tribrid dvr 5108 with the same results. Along the way I found other oddities, like the IP cameras have to be at the end of the numbers, so you can't set up wired, wired, IP, wired in your 4x screen to get a wider view, can't rename the IP cameras, etc. It seems like the notion of IP cameras was jammed and nailed onto the end of a product that wasn't designed to operate them.

So my question(s) are as follows:
(1) Does anyone know if a genuine Dahau-brand IP camera will more fully function in this situation - or is the XVR series just a cripple as far as IP Cameras go?
(2) Assuming the above, is there a brand of DVR out there that treats the IP Cameras as "just another device" once it's registered and not as a step-child?

Thanks

 

[alastairstevenson]

The XVR5108 connects to a generic ONVIR IP camera just fine, shows the live video (preview) just fine and records (regular -green- recording) and playback just fine, but it will not, under any circumstances, detect motion and/or do motion activated (yellow) recor

Not all ONVIF-compatible IP cameras generate ONVIF event subscriptions for motion.
There is a simple way to determine if your generic ONVIF camera does generate ONVIF events - query it with the very good open-source tool 'ONVIF Device Manager' from sourceforge.net
It will automatically find ONVIF devices on the same network.
Give ODM some valid logon credentials for the camera (top left of the window) and you will see lots of detail about your camera.
Any event generated will show in the Events page, along with the rule that triggered them.
And the available rules are listed in the Rules page.

 

[bigredfish]

Not an expert but some experience with Dahua's HCVR series which are similar. They work well with Dahua IP cameras. With other brands? Probably hit and miss on some features.

 

[allen bell]

Not all ONVIF-compatible IP cameras generate ONVIF event subscriptions for motion.
There is a simple way to determine if your generic ONVIF camera does generate ONVIF events - query it with the very good open-source tool 'ONVIF Device Manager' from sourceforge.net
It will automatically find ONVIF devices on the same network.
Give ODM some valid logon credentials for the camera (top left of the window) and you will see lots of detail about your camera.
Any event generated will show in the Events page, along with the rule that triggered them.
And the available rules are listed in the Rules page.

OK - now that's interesting. I made the mistake of assuming that since the video was streaming to the DVR just like a wired camera that the DVR was detecting changes in the stream and deciding according to it's own sensitivity and region rules whether or not there has been motion. It's not intuitive that the camera is required to tell the recording device that there is an event.

I downloaded the Onvif device manager and there doesn't appear to be any rules or profiles and the events tab is blank no matter what I do, so lesson learned about cameras.

This brings back memories of the computer days (when the small ones were the size of refrigerators) and everyone was advertising that they were compliant with whatever industry standard there was ... and then in the fine print "although the only PORTION of the standard we support is the On-Off switch"

This all brings up the next question (or the original question). I'm at a cross roads here with only 5 Dahua DVR/XVRs deployed. Is it fair to say that Dahua is a solid example of the "mid-range-mid-quality" units? I've seen $48 DVRs (the ones on Ebay) that aren't all THAT much different than Dahua, the main difference is those companies don't even pretend to give support.

Clearly IP cameras are the future so I'm looking for a brand/model that interoperates seamlessly. Or is the industry just not there yet? I'd be interested in your thoughts.

 

[bigredfish]

If you want to make use of existing analog cams and/or coax along side newer HD or IP cams, the XVR series would seem to be the way to go. Dont know if other make similar DVR's ? I think you;ll find it works fine with Dahua cameras.