Playback from FTP server

[davidt]

Well I guess you know you are getting desperate when, a year on, you are resurrecting an old thread for a newer camera with the same issues

I have an IP8M-2496EW-V2 camera and it is giving me all sorts of grief

* It is chewing through SD cards like nothing else, it has killed now 3 of them and I can only assume it is due to the constant read-writing that it is doing, so I am purchasing a high endurance card now to see if that will last longer than a week

* FTP barely works if at all, one minute you click the test button and it says connected, and then for hours on end you click the test button and it said connection failed

* Recordings dumped on the FTP server (TrueNas) are also continues 5 minute blocks, assuming it actually manages to connect, instead of being broken up into proper blocks it just keeps writing to the same file until it is closed out, the surveillance pro software wont even recognize the file at all, with it being a .mp4_ (Yes you can rename it manually and remove the underscore)

* You cannot download the file and just rename it, it will be corrupted, so you have to wait for the tile to actually be properly closed by the camera, which is 24 hours later (This is just plain dumb, and I mean so dumb you cannot even call it a proper surveillance camera)

* Dropdown menu says SD-CARD only for looking at playback files... I mean like WTF???? Seriously Amcrest? OK I will just laugh at this and move on as there are work arounds I just didn't think one would have to do that at all...period....ever!

* In the settings if you tell it to being writing files from the beginning of the card and overwrite old files, it just formats the whole card it seems and starts recording on a blank slate, so it doesn't even honor the settings you tell it to follow

I'll give the camera one more chance on this new 64G SD-CARD but that is the last time I will shell out more money to compensate for TERRIBLE product development, and not so well thought out systems/Sofware.

Don't get me wrong, the picture quality on these cameras including night vision is pretty darn good for 4K, still struggles to do number plate recognition unless it is within 5-6 Meters, but the picture quality is enough to do basic facial recognition at a distance.

Aside from the poorly written and thought-out software, the only other thing that blind sided me was the false advertising on Amazon, with it being listed has having features of similar camera, but turns out it did not, and 2 weeks later Amcrest fixed that up, but not before I purchased it, and sadly no offer to remedy the situation.

Happy to take feedback from others who have found some workaround or any advice as to what they did, I dont want it to be a loss and I am hoping to continue using the camera.

Cheers,

David.

[Revo2Maxx]

Welcome to the forum

First thing to do when a camera gives you Grief is do a Factory Reset. There are times that maybe something was changed that didn't like being changed and a Simple reset will make the camera work as Expected...

Then about the Detect Plates? I mean there are Cameras that are made for this, With software and Lenses that work to get every plate, But even they have very strict rules to make them work the way you wish they would right out of the box..

For ID that camera says it needs to be at around 24 feet? Recognize is like double that. I mean it only has a 2.8mm lens. Most good LPD or LPR cameras have a 9-22mm lens...

Problem is there are things with FTP that needs to be setup, then you need to have events setup or setup full time Pictures problem with that is it will take loads of space on your FTP server.. I mean I have a camera that I have had Pictures working every hour, I moved it to every 4 hours then back to every hour for the longest time going to FTP. Yesterday I don't know why but after making update to my FTP server that camera now started having issues and only records until 8am then picked back up again tonight at 1900 Don't know what happened there lol..

To be honest, Best bet is to buy a NVR and use your camera to record to that.. In truth if your camera is really one with IVS I would look into a AI NVR.. I don't own that camera but for the cost and if it does offer IVS then I am going to be adding some of them to my Setup.. A AI NVR isn't needed to record but is best.. I have used my 1046EW-AI camera with my 4108E, 2116-HS and even some others. But works best with my 4216E-AI NVR..

[davidt]

Hi @Revo2Maxx ,

Yep sure thing, I have done about 4 factory resets, one directly after the firmware update as I know that is good practice, then another when I had the first issue with the camera locking up and not allowing me access (Sometimes a complete POE shutdown for about 10 minutes and then reboot would fix that) and a couple more times because support had asked me to do it, which I obliged as I want to make sure they can do their jobs and help me out.

I'll keep hacking away at it, but their systems appear to have some major shortfalls and I didn't want to have to shell out for their NVR just to use an ONVIF compliant camera, this should be able to work with their own Sofware without issues.

Appreciate your feedback and response either way

Cheers,
David.

[Revo2Maxx]

Well one of the issues as well to keep in mind. With bad MSD cards the camera will crash, Will stall when you try to log into the camera. I had a card running in one of my cameras since 2019 and about 2 months ago it just wouldn't let me access the camera anymore and kept crashing. I would reboot the camera by removing the power and restoring power and it would work for a little bit once I tried to access the MSD was when I noticed it was bad. I went and removed the card, added the camera to a different NVR then my main and it has not had an issue with access or connection since.

I just ran into an issue with what you had mentioned. On my 4116E-HS, I copied some footage from the device, went to play it and just a dead screen. Looked at the file it saved it as and sure enough it had _ at the end. Now have to go look at what asp will do with the footage.

[davidt]

Well today I installed this new card into the camera: https://www.cheapchips.com.au/sandisk-h ... -card-64gb

Turns out the camera really likes this one and writes the files in half the time as what it did with the Samsung EVO card (Which I find odd) but since it is a high endurance card, lets see how long it lasts, I truly hope the camera does not chew this one up and spit it out.

the whole .mp4_ file name issue is a bit of a concern, but now that I have the card in, if you download it from the web or software it saves it in the correct format, so I am assuming it does some form of encoding on the fly? if that is the case then it is using the camera CPU/Chip to do it (Just guessing here).

I want to buy the Nite Colour version 4K one next, but just want this one to work solid for a minimum of 3 months before I make another investment, but I am annoyed that I cannot use my own NAS system, that is frustrating.