Human/vehicle recognition setup with HiLook / HiWatch cameras and NVR?

[mcfly72]

Hi. Long time reader but this is my first post! I want to be able to receive alerts on my phone from my cameras/NVR when the cameras detect people (vehicles are less important). I believe that is possible with the cameras that I have however I cant see that is possible with my current setup.

Current configuration

• NVR - NVR-104MH-D/4P (2018 firmware)

This seems to be the cheapest Hikvision NVR. I haven't been able to upgrade the firmware since I bought it in 2018 and I cannot change camera configurations, eg I wanted to modify the white light settings on my ColorVu camera but that is only possible by enabling the "Enable virtual host" option which is not available in the iVMS-4000 UI, NVR web UI or NVR local UI. I could potentially plug the camera directly into my router or switch but neither supports PoE so thats a hassle.

www.hikvision.com/uk/products/HiLook-IP-Products/Network-Video-Recorders/Value-NVR/nvr-104mh-d-4p

• Camera 1-2 Hikvision Hiwatch IPC-T240H
  4MP IP turret dome camera with 30M IR + POE (2018 firmware)

www.hikvision.com/europe/products/HiLook-IP-Products/Network-Cameras/Value-Camera/IPC-T240H

• Camera 3 Hikvision IPC-T259H
  HiLook ColorVu PoE (2023 firmware)

www.hikvision.com/uk/products/HiLook-IP-Products/Network-Cameras/value-camera/ipc-t259h

Other Software

• iVMS-4200 (Windows 10)
• Hik-Connect 6.1.20 (iPhoneSE 2023)

These are the options Im currently thinking about and I would be really grateful for any opinions.

Option 1
Buy an Acusense camera such as Hikvision AcuSense DS-2CD2366G2-IU. With this option Id probably also need to buy a better NVR that allows remote configuration via "Enable Virtual Host", eg DS-7604NI-K1/4P.

www.cctvtek.co.uk/_shop/4-channel-nvrs/hikvision-4-channel-8mp-4k-nvr-h265-with-4-poe-ports-ds7604nik14pb
www.hikvision.com/en/products/IP-Products/Network-Video-Recorders/Pro-Series/ds-7604ni-k1-4p

Option 2
Buy an Acusense NVR that supports person/vehicle recognition eg DS-7604NXI-K1/4P

www.cctvtek.co.uk/_shop/4-channel-nvrs/-hikvision-4-channel-8mp-acusense-4k-nvr-h265-with-4-poe-ports-ds7604nxik14p
www.hikvision.com/en/products/IP-Products/Network-Video-Recorders/Pro-Series/ds-7604nxi-k1-4p

Option 3
Integrate the relevant substreams into a locally installed recognition software

Thoughts
Option 1 is probably the most expensive option and most hassle (installing new cameras)
Option 2 is probably the 2nd cheapest option and least effort?
Option 3 is probably the cheapest option but also more effort?

I am inclined to go with option 2. Does anyone have any thoughts about these options or better ideas?

Thanks for looking.
McFly

ps. attached image is of the ColorVu camera at night where you can see that the orientation and white light renders it useless at night (hence why I want to turn down/off the white light at night). It also doesnt show any options to filter by human or vehicle.

 

[Dan]

Hi @mcfly72

We would probably go with option 2, the AcuSense NVRs will let you apply AcuSense features like the Human/Vehicle filtering to up to 2 x 4MP non-AcuSense cameras like your IPC-T240H cameras.

Also, with the AcuSense NVR you might be able to access the cameras directly using virtual host (although we've never tested this with HiLook cameras) and if you have access to the cameras you should be able to control the white supplement light settings to avoid the glare issues you are seeing (but you could also angle the camera away from the wall on the right of that image as that is overexposing and making the rest of the image much darker).

 

[mcfly72]

We would probably go with option 2, the AcuSense NVRs will let you apply AcuSense features like the Human/Vehicle filtering to up to 2 x 4MP non-AcuSense cameras like your IPC-T240H cameras.

Thanks Dan. I wanted to add Acusense support for camera 3 (Hikvision IPC-T259H) - adding to the other two T240H cameras is a bonus. The T259H is a 5MP camera with a 16Mbps bit rate www.hikvision.com/uk/products/HiLook-IP-Products/Network-Cameras/value-camera/ipc-t259h so I believe that the DS-7604NXI-K1/4P NVR should handle all 3 cameras as it can handle upto 40Mbps. However the data sheet says its limit is 4ch@4MP so Im not sure (maybe it would downscale?).

Alternatively would I be better going for an 8 camera NVR (even if Im just running 3 cameras) as it can handle upto 80Mbps incoming www.hikvision.com/uk/products/IP-Products/Network-Video-Recorders/Pro-Series/ds-7608nxi-k1-8p. Strangely though, the data sheet also mentions the 4ch@4MP limit.

Also, with the AcuSense NVR you might be able to access the cameras directly using virtual host (although we've never tested this with HiLook cameras) and if you have access to the cameras you should be able to control the white supplement light settings to avoid the glare issues you are seeing (but you could also angle the camera away from the wall on the right of that image as that is overexposing and making the rest of the image much darker).

Yeah, I will look at adjusting the camera orientation.

Thanks
McFly

 

[Dan]

Hi @mcfly72

The 7604NXI NVR can record up to 12MP so connecting the 5MP camera would be fine, the 4ch@4MP stat is related to Decoding which is how many cameras can be simultaneously streamed/played back at a certain resolution.

In regards to adding the AcuSense features to non-AcuSense cameras, Hikvision says the AcuSense NVRs will support either 1 x 8MP or 2 x 4MP non-AcuSense cameras so you might be able to run just the 5MP camera with the AcuSense features as it is over 4MP or if it will only work with 4MP you will have to downgrade the 5MP camera's resolution to 4MP.