Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I IP camera

Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I
Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I

Very sturdy all metal construction. Quality casting and solid mount.

Bought it on amazon for ~$120 USD.
Seller didn’t ship to NZ so got it sent via Youshop.

It is a PoE camera, so I hooked it up via TP-LINK TL-SG1008PE 8-Port Gigabit PoE Switch

The camera came preconfigured with unusual static ip address of 192.0.0.64. In Windows world it supposed to be configured via some utility, so theoretically it is not a big deal. All I had to do is RTFM and add the 192.0.0.1/24 to the machine I was trying to configure the camera from.

The web interface can be used with OS independent browser for basic configuration (beyond that you are out of luck, unless you use Windows).

It came with firmware Version V5.2.0 build 140721 and encoding Version V5.0 build 140714.

The picture quality is very good (substantially better than Ubiquiti AIRCAM HD)

Day:
DS-2CD2032-I-sample-day

Night:
DS-2CD2032-I-sample-night

Night+Light (low level flood light):
DS-2CD2032-I-sample-night-lights

There are two streams that can be configured independently.
I have configured one for 1080p/15fps (not 25fps due to increased frequency of stream errors, see below in the issues), and another for 320×240/10fps for motion detection. The key issue is to increase I-frame frequency to at least every 10 frames (due to RTSP stream errors).

How to access camera:

Default username/password: admin/12345

Main stream URL: rtsp://{CAMERA_IP}/Streaming/Channels/1 (although rtsp://{CAMERA_IP}/ works too.)
Sub stream URL: rtsp://{CAMERA_IP}/Streaming/Channels/2
Main stream snapshot URL: http://{CAMERA_IP}/Streaming/channels/1/picture
Sub stream snapshot URL: http://{CAMERA_IP}/Streaming/channels/1/picture
EDIT: sub stream snapshot is exactly same as main stream snapshot, in fact using any number above 0 in url /Streaming/channels/{X}/picture leads to same result.

Technical details:

Linux version 2.6.38.8 (root@HIK-RD-CI-Frontend) (gcc version 4.6.1 (Sourcery CodeBench Lite 2011.09-70) ).
CPU: ARMv6-compatible processor [4117b365] revision 5 (ARMv6TEJ), cr=00c5387f

# cat /proc/cpuinfo 
Processor       : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 5 (v6l)
BogoMIPS        : 525.92
Features        : swp half fastmult edsp java 
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 6TEJ
CPU variant     : 0x1
CPU part        : 0xb36
CPU revision    : 5

Hardware        : Coconut
Revision        : 13ec300a
Serial          : 0000000000000000

# free -m
             total         used         free       shared      buffers
Mem:         95436        89024         6412            0          528
-/+ buffers:              88496         6940
Swap:            0            0            0

It looks like it is based on ambarella chipset…
The camera runs “hot”, with loadavg hovering around 5 (it sometimes for no apparent reason gets to 10, and causes issues).

The stream can be accessed via avplay/ffplay:
avplay -rtsp_transport tcp -i rtsp://$IP:554 (or VLC). To do so without authentication it must be disabled from web UI.

It would have been an awesome camera if not for the issues…

Web UI (if you can call it “web” with all the windows centric crap)

Login page:
Hikvision-webui-login

Live View:
Hikvision-webui-Live-View
Note: MJPEG selection is also broken. Only way to get Live View working is to install vlc plugin for Firefox.

Image Configuration:
Hikvision-webui-Basic-Configuration-Image
Shit be broken: none of the things in the image settings sub-menus can be changed except the IR schedule.

Maintenance:
Hikvision-webui-Basic-Configuration-Maintenance
More shit be broken: I guess the idiots who built it never actually tested this page, beyond IE. The export config button does nothing. Thank you Hikvision for working reboot button!

The BIG issues…

UPDATE: As per , the firmware update resolved 99% of the stream error issues.

Most show stopping issue is (are) stream errors. Currently the camera is completely unusable with UDP RTSP stream. It is usable to a degree when stream is forced to TCP (-rstp_transport tcp).
The stream errors get worse when load average reaches 10 (it normally does so after 24-48 hours of operation). Once it hits 10 the camera needs to be rebooted to be usable again (otherwise every second or third frame is corrupted).

The Stream errors look like this:
 

...
[h264 @ 0x20fdd20] error while decoding MB 71 13, bytestream -22
[h264 @ 0x20fdd20] concealing 6578 DC, 6578 AC, 6578 MV errors in I frame
....
[h264 @ 0x20fd4a0] Cannot use next picture in error concealment
....
[h264 @ 0x20fdd20] left block unavailable for requested intra4x4 mode -1 at 0 62
...
[h264 @ 0x20fee20] cabac decode of qscale diff failed at 89 48
...

quick google search shows other people reporting same thing for this camera.
I found a random Russian site describing the issue with different camera from Hikvision, specifically stating that the issue started with firmware v5.X (while v4.X was fine). Here: http://anteh.ru/notes/freebsd/notes_ipcamconfig.html

I have contacted Hikvision regarding RTSP erros, they never replied… From google searches it looks like Hikvision provides no support whatsoever.

The “web” interface is a joke. When logging in you are greeting with multiple of “no plug-in found”. Only basic configuration can be changed (thank you for that Hikvision, otherwise I would be returning the camera).
Image setting does not work (the sliders do nothing), out of all settings in Image tab only thing that works is the IR schedule.
The export config does not work, not sure about reset to defaults or update firmware. The layout is broken on that tab as well.
It looks like the “web” interface never been tested on anything other than IE. Making web interface windows-centric is very stupid and short sighted. You can install VLC plugin in firefox for Live-View to work, beyond that you “need” Windows. Good thing is that I will not be using web interface very often.
Someone needs to make openwrt/tomato style project for IP cameras, to liberate the users from stupid web interfaces that these cameras come with. It is ironical that you need Windows OS to manage a Linux device. We can thank piracy for windows “developers” that flooded the market and creating crappy software like the web interface on this camera.

Admitting defeat I have bought Dahua IPC-HFW4300S. Initial reason I settled for Hikvision (and not Dahua) was simply because of the firmware availability. Dahua does not provide firmware updates whatsoever, stating that the only official suppliers are provided with firmware (good luck finding one in NZ).

It seems to me with all these cheap cameras the whole firmware thing is a big GPL violation….

UPDATE: I managed to borrow a windows machine, and web ui still didn’t work until I used IE and installed their activeX plugin.
Why Ubiquiti (who BTW do not specialise in IP cameras) can do a nice web interface that works on all devices while Hikvision cannot?

3 thoughts on “Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I IP camera”

  1. I have three of these cameras and everything works great for me. Yes a plugin was needed for the live view to work but that installed pretty effortlessly right from the web interface.

    I am using Google Chrome and it all works beautifully. I have a Synology NAS DiskStation with the free to download Surveillance Station software installed and it works great as a NVR for these cameras.

    I also don’t have any stream errors and I’m recording at the 1080p x 30fps… so I’m guessing you just had a bad unit or something is not setup right….?

    1. Hello there,
      thank you for your feedback.
      After upgrading the unit to fw 5.2.3 it looks like the stream errors were resolved for 99% of time (I get occasional dropped frames once in few hours but that is OK).
      I chose not to use NVR (I use my own written software), but perhaps that most of NVR will hide occasional stream errors?
      I will also revise the RJ45 connectors (just to make sure they are not dodgy), and perhaps will replace the cable to eliminate hardware fault.

      Sergei.

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