We are not the target market for Dahua and Hikvision - their market is authorized distributors and installers and are probably only allowing future updates via those channels.
I suspect too many people are purchasing a Chinese hacked English camera and trying to update with firmware from Dahua site and brick the camera. Many sellers will let you know on their vendor site that you cannot update them, but many more do not. We get new posts here every week with someone saying they tried to update their camera and it bricked. Any dialogue with these companies will tell you to reach out to the vendor you purchased it from.
But at the same time, if the camera is working and meets your needs, in many instances an update breaks what you had working. A Z12E that someone updated and then constantly rebooted, and a certain PTZ that loses autotracking with an update come to mind.
We believe around here don't fix what ain't broke.
Andy here is an authorized seller of Dahua OEM and gets firmware updates from Dahua that is more recent and better than Dahua sends out to their target market. Members here submit requests to Andy and he in return talks to the Dahua engineers and they make the tweaks (like Smart IR on the 5442 series) and then passes it along to those that purchase from him, but many times he posts it here as well.
So your choice is to use the firmware Andy puts out on this site, go to the vendor you purchased it from and request an update, or leave the camera as is.
