Got a problem which currently has me stumped.
At a remote site, I have a typical PoE NVR, which is branded as SPRO, but I believe it is a re-branded Dahua unit. Connected to this NVR are some 10 IP cameras.
I did not install this system myself, but rather inherited it, so I cannot explain why, but some of the cameras are branded as SPRO, and again, going by their web GUI's, look very much like Dahua items. They seem most compatible with the NVR at the site, showing as 'Private' in the camera registration menu. And then, the remaining cameras are different. They look physically similar, but they are branded as 'Excell' or something like that on the camera body, and their web interfaces are unbranded and don't look like anything I have seen before. NMAP reports the MAC addresses as 'Irlabs' something-or-other, rather than 'Zhejiang Dahua' as with the others. These strange unidentified cameras are added to the NVR as ONVIF devices, as opposed to the 'Private' Dahua protocol. They do however work with the NVR at the site, recording as expected.
I then have another NVR, a Hikvision DS-7616NI-K1, locally where I am located, linked to the above remote site via Site-to-Site VPN. The idea being that my local NVR can pull the streams from the remote NVR, recording them offsite for redundancy purposes. I have been able to achieve this using RTSP streams, added to my Hikvision NVR as a 'Custom Protocol'.
This works well, in that ALL OF the remote cameras can be live-viewed on my local Hikvision NVR without any problems. However, I have recently noticed that some of the remote cameras are failing to record properly to the HDD in my local Hik NVR. Despite the live-view being OK, the recording function is not working at all. If I login to the physical interface on the HIK NVR, sometimes there are a few small 'blocks' of recording on the timeline, but they are very few and far between, and playback does not actually work even for these blocks.
Interestingly, I have noticed that the cameras which are causing trouble are the strange unbranded cameras described above, and the SPRO / Dahua cams are recording locally fine. However, I can't seem to make sense of this, since:
A) ALL RTSP streams are coming via the same remote NVR - not like I am pulling them directly from cameras.
B) Live view on the Hikvision NVR is faultless, including for the troublesome cameras.
C) I have opened the RTSP streams for a working and a troublesome camera in VLC, and inspected the 'codec' information. I wondered if there could be a compatibility issue. Both look pretty much identical. See below.
Working Cam:
Faulty Cam (Not recording on Hik NVR):
I know there is a difference in resolution here. That is just since the example I used for a 'working' camera was a 1080p PTZ. Some of the other cameras which work fine are 4/5MP (I forget), the same as the faulty cameras.
I am not sure what to do next here, to diagnose the issue. Change some settings? Fire up Wireshark? Would appreciate any suggestions!
As a P.S:
Probably totally unrelated, but I have noticed fluctuations in network traffic day/night. See below graph:
As you can see, definite repeating pattern of peaks in the day, lower throughput at night. This graph is of the WAN link as a whole, so some of the random peaks are just normal user traffic during working hours, but I know that the overall pattern is down to the CCTV traffic.
At a remote site, I have a typical PoE NVR, which is branded as SPRO, but I believe it is a re-branded Dahua unit. Connected to this NVR are some 10 IP cameras.
I did not install this system myself, but rather inherited it, so I cannot explain why, but some of the cameras are branded as SPRO, and again, going by their web GUI's, look very much like Dahua items. They seem most compatible with the NVR at the site, showing as 'Private' in the camera registration menu. And then, the remaining cameras are different. They look physically similar, but they are branded as 'Excell' or something like that on the camera body, and their web interfaces are unbranded and don't look like anything I have seen before. NMAP reports the MAC addresses as 'Irlabs' something-or-other, rather than 'Zhejiang Dahua' as with the others. These strange unidentified cameras are added to the NVR as ONVIF devices, as opposed to the 'Private' Dahua protocol. They do however work with the NVR at the site, recording as expected.
I then have another NVR, a Hikvision DS-7616NI-K1, locally where I am located, linked to the above remote site via Site-to-Site VPN. The idea being that my local NVR can pull the streams from the remote NVR, recording them offsite for redundancy purposes. I have been able to achieve this using RTSP streams, added to my Hikvision NVR as a 'Custom Protocol'.
This works well, in that ALL OF the remote cameras can be live-viewed on my local Hikvision NVR without any problems. However, I have recently noticed that some of the remote cameras are failing to record properly to the HDD in my local Hik NVR. Despite the live-view being OK, the recording function is not working at all. If I login to the physical interface on the HIK NVR, sometimes there are a few small 'blocks' of recording on the timeline, but they are very few and far between, and playback does not actually work even for these blocks.
Interestingly, I have noticed that the cameras which are causing trouble are the strange unbranded cameras described above, and the SPRO / Dahua cams are recording locally fine. However, I can't seem to make sense of this, since:
A) ALL RTSP streams are coming via the same remote NVR - not like I am pulling them directly from cameras.
B) Live view on the Hikvision NVR is faultless, including for the troublesome cameras.
C) I have opened the RTSP streams for a working and a troublesome camera in VLC, and inspected the 'codec' information. I wondered if there could be a compatibility issue. Both look pretty much identical. See below.
Working Cam:
Faulty Cam (Not recording on Hik NVR):
I know there is a difference in resolution here. That is just since the example I used for a 'working' camera was a 1080p PTZ. Some of the other cameras which work fine are 4/5MP (I forget), the same as the faulty cameras.
I am not sure what to do next here, to diagnose the issue. Change some settings? Fire up Wireshark? Would appreciate any suggestions!
As a P.S:
Probably totally unrelated, but I have noticed fluctuations in network traffic day/night. See below graph:
As you can see, definite repeating pattern of peaks in the day, lower throughput at night. This graph is of the WAN link as a whole, so some of the random peaks are just normal user traffic during working hours, but I know that the overall pattern is down to the CCTV traffic.