Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[JavaLawyer]

Are there any DNS-325 owners using the Surveillance Center package to monitor D-Link network cameras? I just started using the app on the DNS-345 and like what I see so far, except for the lack of Firefox support.

First impressions?

[wylajb]

Yes, I agree.  The Surveillance Center Package works pretty well for me with DNS-325 nas and DCS-2230 and DSC-932L cameras.

To get good performance with the DCS-2230 camera, I needed to skip wireless and use powerline networking...that avoids drop-outs with the 720p stream.

To get smooth fast forward playback (scanning through the previous day's video, for example), I found that MJPEG video format worked best (even though it uses up the most space).  MPEG4 and H.264 had a lot of strange artifacts in the playback...people and objects would distort as they moved, and some objects that moved out of view would linger on screen in a strange way.

When playing back, the Serveillance Center offers 1/4x, 1/2x, 1x, 2x and 4x speeds...it would be great if there were an 8x and 16x option.

Also, when one pauses the playback and then unpauses while 2x or 4x speed is selected, the playback speed drops back down to 1x, even through the faster playback speed is still selected/displayed.

It only works with IE...I'm using IE9...I agree with Javalawyer, it's a shame that it doesn't work with Firefox.

[JavaLawyer]

Do you happen to know where recorded video is actually stored? There aren't any visible directories that I can see.

[wylajb]

As near as I can tell, the video is recorded to the "Volume_1" share...the files themselves are not visible or accessible.

As time went by, and as the nas accumulated more video history, I noticed the "storage status" space used percentage went up and up for "volume_1."  This is the readout on the upper right-hand corner of the "home" web screen.

At about 80% space used, I figured out that I could set it to delete footage older than a certain number of days in the Surveillance Center Package's "recording setup" section.  One can set a time limit to retain footage for each camera.  I'm saving 20 days back on each camera and holding to ca. 80%, as far as "storage status."  My video format is set to MJPEG, I've got two cams (DCS-2230 at 1280x720 and DCS-932 at 640x480), and I have about 1.5 TB of space.

There is a feature, where you can export footage to portable files...I tried this once, and it works.  On the playback screen, where one selects the camera or cameras and the time range to play back, there's a backup button that lets you save the footage to an archive folder.  The archive folder is then filled up with lots of avi files...I think one for each motion trigger event.

Also, the backup function can be accessed under the setup options...

The backup archive files can still be accessed in the playback screen as long as you leave them where they were first created by the Surveillance Center software.  This is an ok way to preserve footage that would possibly be deleted by the "Keep file within x days" feature.

Unfortunately, the Surveillance Center software doesn't appear to be able to stitch all of the archive avi files together to make one portable video file...I think one could do this with some kind of video editing software like AsfBin.

[JavaLawyer]

Thanks. . . kinda what I expected.

I would have preferred an implementation that provided direct access to the directory containing the recorded footage. . . and yes, exporting all video from a particular day as one contiguous file is more useful than a collection of disjointed clips.  I would also like to see all video for a particular day to contiguously play in the playback section within the Surveillance Center.  Jumping to each clip using the timeline, especially when dealing with disjointed motion detection events, is painful.

[wylajb]

Hey, JavaLawyer,

One can play back a whole day by clicking on the timeline and then dragging the whole way across to select the entire day.   The time frame in the selection is highlighted in black.  It works with one or multiple camera playback.

This feature is pretty good, I think.  If something happened within the last 4 hours, one can click and drag over just the last four hours and view just those hours (instead of the entire day).  When one clicks and drags, there's also a text tip that appears to show the starting time for the selection in hours, minutes and seconds.  The small video preview window starts playing the selected time frame at 1x speed...this is helpful, if one is trying to catch the beginning of some action...

I think it would help to have nicer instructions or better help documentation for the Surveillance Center package.  The "Record Information" screen with the playback timeline doesn't have any help text, so it's trial and error to figure out how it works.  I think other people might also fall into the painful trap of playing back the video one motion event at a time...ouch.  Just select a time period for viewing and press play.

When I first saw this software, I wasn't too optimistic, but as I got more experience with it and also as I compared it with some other software alternatives, I came to realize that this is a nice bonus that comes with the DNS-325.

wylajb

[JavaLawyer]

wylajb -- thanks for the tip. I've only been playing with the Surveillance Center for about a day now, so I have yet to uncover all its hidden secrets.

[D-Xtreme]

I've been using the surveillance package with my DNS-325 & DCS-930L for a few months.  It works much better than I expected.  Never have any issues with it.  Motion detection works great. I'm about to purchase more cameras, since it's passed my testing.

Any idea when they will update the package to support the new D-Link cameras?

Thanks!

[JavaLawyer]

For those of you who are interested, the manual for the Surveillance Center app is posted here: Surveillance Center Manual v10.

[theburk]

JavaLawyer,
Is there anyway to get DCS-2310L working with Surveillance Center?  I spent alot of money on these and its upsetting to find out they are useless to me right now.

[redone23]

It works well with my old DCS-1100, expect that it's not very friendly in setup process.
Anyone can tell me that is it possible to use my new DCS-931L with this app. Thanks in advance.