Do you have VCA Rules, Display target pattern, Enable Highlight, visible on Playback and Event Playback?
V5 is very different from previous M and I series V4 in the way that it works. They've made the interface more like the NXI and EUI that you're familiar with.
From normal playback clicking the 'Human' icon in the lower left corner instantly displays the red markers and plays back the events. That's actually an improvement being able to do normal and smart playback from one screen rather than having to switch between Normal and Smart (careful there JohnBoy - that almost sounded like you had something positive to say....) Several issues:
1 - you guessed it
@alfaclvi - there's no 5 seconds pre event. It's really annoying as it was an issue previously on I & M series V4 firmware that was corrected, but now it's reintroduced in V5.
2 - On EUI firmware or in the NXI firmware, adjacent to to the 'Human', 'Vehicle' icons there's a checkbox for 'skip unrelated playback'. That's really handy...you start playback, click 'Human' and check 'Skip Unrelated' to skip through the events. When you see something of interest, you just uncheck the 'Skip unrelated' box to playback continuously. However on the V5 firmware we have 'Human', 'Vehicle', "Space Rule'. To get to that 'Skip unrelated' we have to click the gear wheel icon in the lower right to open the 'Play Strategy' sidebar, flick the switch on/off and click ok. That's so much more of a tart on, fanny on, PITA, annoyance, inconvenience.
VCA Rules - Glad you asked about that.....
1 - In Live View it's restricted. "No more than 4 channels can display smart information". It never was previously - you could enable/disable on an individual screen segment or globally for the entire multiscreen view. As that message appears it is clearly an intentional change. It's not something that bothers me as I don't use it but I could imagine that those who do could be annoyed by that change. When 'Show VCA' is turned on it displays the rule (line in my setup), highlights and tracks the moving targets (vehicles and humans) in green. In my setup I only use 'Human' but it still highlights and tracks vehicles.
2 - .....another bug. Clicking to Show or Hide VCA info while in playback has no effect. A green box appears "VCA information displayed"; however the overlays do not display on the recorded video.
I spent some time yesterday evening looking at Dahua's offerings. I think the first NVR that is delivered to me preloaded with V5 firmware on could be the last I install if it's in it's current state.
Space Rule - as previously posted that's a complete car crash. In a vain attempt to simplify a feature, Hikvision have overcomplicated it (defining the search line, region is finicky) However, unlike Smart playback, the 5 second pre event works in space rule! When you uncheck the space rule icon, continuous playback resumes from that point. Unfortunately when you toggle it back on again...the rule has been reset and redefining it starts from scratch.
To go between Space Rule and Continuous playback while maintaining the current timeline position, you need to toggle 'Skip normal video'. I would be fine with that, if that was an icon on the bottom row next to Human, Vehicle, Space Rule but as stated above, it isn't. It's hidden away behind the gear wheel icon in the lower right that brings up a side panel covering a third of the screen. I appreciate that the extra menu is needed for playback strategy to adjust the speed of related and unrelated playback; however Hikvision could've just duplicated the function with the addition of that icon, permanently visible as it is on the newer NI-K, NXI-K and DVR firmwares.
