Event Storage on SD Card / NAS - I can't see any VCA events?

[ChrisCCTV]

Hi all,

I have a couple of DS-2CD2385G1 cameras, both of which write their video footage to my NAS (I have no NVR). I have configured both cams to record continuously and also record line crossing events (so I thought!). The issue is that when I connect to these cameras using iVMS-4200, I can see the continuous playback (blue solid bar on the playback timeline), but I can't see any VCA events. Even if I search for VCA - Line Crossing events I get nothing.

If the camera is saving this event data to the NAS, surely I should be able to see these events in iVMS-4200?? This seems like a very basic requirement for any CCTV system.

Anyone else having this problem or am I just doing something wrong?

Regards,
Chris.

 

[Dan]

Hi @ChrisCCTV

You mention SD card in your post title but then don't mention it anywhere in your post, are your cameras recording to both SD card and NAS?
Did you set the Smart Events up in the NAS software or directly in the camera settings?

 

[ChrisCCTV]

Hi Dan,

Yes sorry, I mentioned SD card in the title because I assume this problem is the same with SD and NAS storage. When I say I'm writing the video to NAS, I'm literally just using a Windows CIFS share to store the video, I'm not using any software on the NAS for CCTV.

I have the Line Crossing Detection enabled in the camera and have the Arming Schedule set to 24/7 and the Linkage Method set to "Notify Surveillance Center" and "Upload to FTP/Memory Card/NAS" ticked. I've not ticked "A1" in the Trigger Recording section as I have it set to record 24/7 so I assume this makes no difference in this case?

 

[Dan]

Okay,

We've never used the Windows CIFS method for recording Hikvision cameras, we were surprised you were able to record to a NAS device and then access that footage with iVMS-4200 but I assume you managed to share the footage from the NAS to the PC you are running iVMS-4200 on and then accessing the footage as if it was on that PCs local storage.

I think maybe the camera is not actually capturing/recording the event triggers because you are using this CIFS method.

I think probably the only way to get both event and continuous accessible in iVMS would be to fit a MicroSD card in the camera as well as recording via CIFS, that way the Continuous recording can continue to be managed by CIFS and then the event triggers can be recorded to the local MicroSD storage.

 

[ChrisCCTV]

Hi Dan,

I'm actually able to view the recorded footage in iVMS-4200 as normal. I just setup the camera in iVMS-4200 as a standard decoding device and then I can playback all NAS stored footage, presumably via the camera... I.e. the camera serves the video files from the NAS to the iVMS PC on demand. I have no special connection from iVMS-4200 to the NAS. I assume it should work 100% the same as if it was using local storage on a MicroSD card.

I just don't understand why in the Linkage Settings there's the option to "Upload to FTP/Memory Card/NAS" when this feature doesn't appear to work. It's either not writing event data to the NAS or iVMS-4200 is not able to read the data.

Are you saying that if I use a MicroSD card, I should be able to have 24/7 recording AND smart events stored and viewable in iVMS-4200? If so, will these events show on the playback timeline (ideally a blue bar to indicate continuous recording PLUS other colours to show event markers)?

Seems like such a basic requirement for a CCTV system I'm very surprised this isn't possible.

 

[Dan]

Yes, if you set the camera up with local MicroSD storage you can select normal playback to view the continuous footage and Event Playback to see a timeline containing all the enabled Smart Event triggers.

Events and continuous should be available and I can only think that it is a limitation of the NAS recording because we have definitely seen it working when using MicroSD recording or when an NVR has been added to iVMS.

 

[ChrisCCTV]

Thanks for the info Dan. In that case I might try this with a MicroSD card just as a test. If that works, I'm tempted to report this to Hikvision as a bug. I can't see any technical reason why writing to a NAS should be any different than writing to the MicroSD card.

I'll update this thread when I've had chance to test it out... Thanks!

 

[ChrisCCTV]

Hi Dan,

I found an old 32GB MicroSD card, quite small but all I need for testing. Unfortunately I'm seeing exactly the same behaviour using the SD card as using the NAS storage. With continuous recording enabled in the camera + motion and / or line crossing detection, I see absolutely no mention of these events in the playback timeline. I also don't see any event options in the Filters menu at the bottom left of the timeline either. There were definitely events triggered during this time on this camera as they show up in the 'Event Center' but this appears to only record events whilst iVMS-4200 is running which isn't much use unless I leave the PC on 24/7. The event data should be stored on the SD / NAS, not the PC running iVMS.

See images attached.

 

[ChrisCCTV]

Just to add to this... If I select the 'Event Playback' tab on the left hand side of the 'Remote Playback' window in iVMS-4200 and search for Line Crossing events on the camera I know has these events in the selected timeframe, I get the error message "Playback failed. No record file found". This would suggest that the camera isn't storing the event data??

 

[ChrisCCTV]

I've done some more testing and it looks like the only time the camera saves any event data to the MicroSD card or NAS is when a recording is triggered. If continuous recording is configured, this prevents any event related recordings from being saved (or even storing the event metadata). This seems crazy and an obvious bug to me.

What is the purpose of the "Upload to FTP/Memory Card/NAS" setting? I'd expect this to save event data so it can be recalled in a VMS but it doesn't seem to do anything from what I can tell. The files on my NAS are not updated when an event is triggered using the settings below.

 

[ChrisCCTV]

Just to answer my own question... the "Upload to FTP/Memory Card/NAS" option is for image storage only. If you have the "Enable event-triggered snapshot" setting ticked in Storage > Schedule Settings > Capture > Capture Parameters, this will upload those snapshots when the event is triggered.

I guess you can use the snapshot timestamps to determine when events happened and then zone in on that time on the playback timeline but surely there should be a way to see event markers on the timeline itself when continuous recording is enabled - without having to use an NVR???

 

[alfaclvi]

Hi Chris
I have the same issue with ColorVu DS-2CD2047G2 G5 platform
Until today I used a small SD card of 32GB size for backup reasons in case of NVR failure.
This SD was enough but slow and was only set as Event Recording
So I had never used the option of iVMS4200->Remote Playback->Event Playback for this SD card of my camera. Always used in iVMS4200 the NVR Remote Playback and Event Playback, which was and is perfect and also can say that is better in some way than the on NVR Event Playback. No problem with Event start times or so called Pre-Record times.
Today I received a new Samsung 128GB SD card and installed on ColorVU. Then changed, for testing purposes mainly, to Continuous Recording on this SD card.
I noticed that when selecting iVMS4200->Remote Playback->Event Playback, Motion or VCA Search, then there was error message "Playback failed. No record file found" same as yours.
Went back to Camera Playback, selected the Camera(not through NVR), timeline appeared and then went down to toolbar VCA Search. This could not be selected. Right clicked on the picture and the VCA Search was fade unable to select on the drop menu.
So my conclusion is that this camera, that is a VCA camera, cannot record VCA Data on SD cards if Continuous Recording. You cannot find events. You can not use it as stand alone without NVR
You can find Events only if Event Recording is selected for the SD card.
This is really very frustrating for someone that needs continuous recording without NVR