Brian_B
FPS Enthusiast
- Joined
- May 28, 2019
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Ok, so this isn't exactly the forte of this forum - but a lot of you have the right background and are good at it, so figured I'd ask. And Cameras are very much a part of security - physical security.
At work, once upon a time in the not-so-distant past, I set up some security cameras for some of our work areas. I used Hikvision POE IP Cameras. I already had Synology units at the site doing local backups and storage, and I just threw the DVR Security package on there and hooked the cameras up there. I think I picked the Hikvision because it was recommended for good compatibility with Synology - and they do work well together.
Worked pretty well. Better than the Costco 8-cameras-in-a-box thing anyway that we had been using circa 2006 or so.
So now, some years later. I am not in our IT department. I work in a remote office and I handled the IT stuff locally for a long time just because they didn't have a budget big enough. Now they do, so I'm slowly divesting myself of all of this.
All of our sites get this super cool VPN thing, and... I need a new subnet for all my cameras. Of course, I can't find where I wrote down the password for the cameras.
These Hikvision cameras do not have a factory reset button. I have no idea what the security questions were/are. I can't figure out the password for anything. There is a 1-800 number to call, and we'll try it on Monday, but I'm not holding my breath.
Strike 2 - the configuration for these cameras requires Internet Explorer. I have some old VMs with it, but a lot of my Win10 VMs that I had used in the past, Microsoft thought it would be awesome to remove IE from all together, so I'm digging back to Win7/8 VMs just to load up the camera configuration
So I'm already at strike 2. I could just hand this over to my IT department. I know they will probably go ridiculous on it and their solution will be massive overkill, and come out of my department budget. Or they will do something silly like buy me a bunch of Blink cameras and tell me to link it to my Amazon account.
I doubt anyone knows anything about Hikvision, but awesome if anyone does. The real question is, in an attempt to save my department budget, does anyone have an IP camera recommendation to replace these things? We have POE run already, and Synology Surveillance Station licensed and set up ... so it should just be a matter of configuring the subnet and plugging them in and pointing Synology at them to start recording.
Or - should I just toss all this and start over, there are much better things to recommend? Or just say "screw the budget, I'm not IT any more" and let them handle it?
At work, once upon a time in the not-so-distant past, I set up some security cameras for some of our work areas. I used Hikvision POE IP Cameras. I already had Synology units at the site doing local backups and storage, and I just threw the DVR Security package on there and hooked the cameras up there. I think I picked the Hikvision because it was recommended for good compatibility with Synology - and they do work well together.
Worked pretty well. Better than the Costco 8-cameras-in-a-box thing anyway that we had been using circa 2006 or so.
So now, some years later. I am not in our IT department. I work in a remote office and I handled the IT stuff locally for a long time just because they didn't have a budget big enough. Now they do, so I'm slowly divesting myself of all of this.
All of our sites get this super cool VPN thing, and... I need a new subnet for all my cameras. Of course, I can't find where I wrote down the password for the cameras.
These Hikvision cameras do not have a factory reset button. I have no idea what the security questions were/are. I can't figure out the password for anything. There is a 1-800 number to call, and we'll try it on Monday, but I'm not holding my breath.
Strike 2 - the configuration for these cameras requires Internet Explorer. I have some old VMs with it, but a lot of my Win10 VMs that I had used in the past, Microsoft thought it would be awesome to remove IE from all together, so I'm digging back to Win7/8 VMs just to load up the camera configuration
So I'm already at strike 2. I could just hand this over to my IT department. I know they will probably go ridiculous on it and their solution will be massive overkill, and come out of my department budget. Or they will do something silly like buy me a bunch of Blink cameras and tell me to link it to my Amazon account.
I doubt anyone knows anything about Hikvision, but awesome if anyone does. The real question is, in an attempt to save my department budget, does anyone have an IP camera recommendation to replace these things? We have POE run already, and Synology Surveillance Station licensed and set up ... so it should just be a matter of configuring the subnet and plugging them in and pointing Synology at them to start recording.
Or - should I just toss all this and start over, there are much better things to recommend? Or just say "screw the budget, I'm not IT any more" and let them handle it?