Amcrest IP8M-2496EW - Recording Question

[sydney]

If the 24x7 recording that I have been observing is by design because is an outdoor camera. I'm fine with that. Unfortunately I can't get a definitive answer from my recent Amcrest chat with a sales guy. They couldn't answer my questions and directed me to call tech support. So I picked up the phone and called. I gave them all the details and explained to them what's happening, just like i'm doing in this post. I asked them to explain to me why camera is doing the 24x7 recording. They said "ah... you have to setup the schedule to do that". Obviously they had no idea what I was asking. Fine - it was probably a 1st level support. I proceeded to ask them about Threshold. They said "Well that's a unit. Like ah 1 foot is 12 inches and X cm = Y km." I know it's a unit. Explain to me in Amcrest context. They couldn't. I said "Thanks for your help" and hung up. I didn't want to waste my time. This is when I decided to come to this forum.

[sydney]

Just wanted to show you guys my 12/09/19 recordings. You can see each mp4 is an 8-minute segment.

[Revo2Maxx]

Yes that is how my FTP looks as well. The good thing and odd thing is your times are right so it seems where mine has been wrong for long time... However looking at the files tonight they are all within the Right Time LOL Meaning the times on the right never matched the times on the left lol However after my Last Purge lol The times are right that is strange... Sadly My Cameras are still Changing the Time format on the camera even after I have set up the time to be 12hr and M, D, Y within a few days it is back to 24hr and date back Y, M, D lol Drives me nuts....

About Support.. Sorry sometimes people are like me have hard time remembering things as it should be... Like I have loads of Cameras and I forget sometimes the ones that are on Controller or Over Coax or over IP what ones I can access a Menu from and I try to get a menu to come up on a camera that don't have one lol...

But yeah heard before someone asked about a Fan in there NVR was it needed seeing it wasn't there... Support told them yes it needed to be there for it to work... They RMA'd it and get another one lOL... It don't have one either.... Sadly not all of the DVR or NVR's have them... SOme that might have a Fan today might have new hardware that don't need a fan tomarrow so without knowing Design Upgrades they might have only known of last years Model even though same # could have had a Updated CPU or controller that no longer needed to be cooled like last years.... Just a Thought....

Amcrest has been more help then another Brand I own... Sadly I have spent loads of Cash on the older system and the Lack of Support is crazy and one reason I found Amcrest to start with.. I have cameras from Brand N from 2010 out of all my OLD cameras I think oldest one I have left.. is 04 but have owned many years and years before that lol...

[jack7]

Sydney,
Your outdoor camera automatically recording 24/7 General records with factory defaults makes no sense. There would be no intended reason for that. But you could be recording 24/7 eight minute yellow Motion Detect records if motion detect is scheduled 24/7 in Event and Storage, there is something in your camera view that is moving all the time, and your Sensitivity/Threshold settings pick it up. To check that, disable Motion Detect in Events and see if 24/7 recording stops. I am assuming you set up and enabled NAS recording in the Storage section.

[sydney]

Jack7:

When I was reviewing my videos everyday for two weeks, I kept saying "This makes no sense".
I kept asking myself "What is it that is triggering the 24x7 recording?". If I have mp4 files from
00:00 to 23:59, then everything is being captured. I can tell you what's happening at every minute
and every second. You said something must be detected (ie movement), well I have reviewed many
mp4 files, I can tell you nothing was moving including the late night ones and when days were calm and no
wind at all. Yet it produced these files.

Now one thing I didn't mention in these posts is, for the JPG files, not everything is being
captured and there are a lot of gaps. Example, I see my mailman driving his delivery truck in mp4 but not
in the JPG files. Again my T/S settings are 90/5 respectively just like my other IP2M-841's.

So if we are saying the reason for 24x7 recording is because of the camera settings and this outdoor camera
doesn't do 24x7 by default or by design, then why I have so many gaps in time for the snapshots? Example, everyday I exit my front door and walk to my car on my driveway, I have found NO snapshots of me. Obviously there's HUGE movement here. But why no snapshots?

My other IP2M-841's inside the outside, they seem to be working to my expectations. These don't record 24x7. Yes, there are LOTS of movements inside the house but they don't record 24x7 which is what I expected.

[sydney]

Here's another weird thing about those 8-minute segment mp4 files. Why precisely 8 minutes? It can't be
movements. That I can tell you. Nothing moves during the wee hours. I live in a cul de sac inside a very quiet development.

[Revo2Maxx]

So while I don't have that Camera... Sadly I can only go by guesses... What i can tell you is in my Uneducated mind a Outdoor Camera is more setup like a Security System... It would make more since to have a Camera that is going to be watching something outdoors for Protection setup to Record 24/7 by design... That is just my Dumb Mind with an idea....

So Real fast to answer the 8 Min... that is under the Record area... WebUI, Login, then setup, Storage and Then Record Control by default all the cameras I have come setup with 8min for how long to make the package and to prerecord for 5 seconds... I can't remember if it is setup to Over write or setup to stop but that option is in there as well...

So because I like making a mess of things lol... While I know this is different Hardware all together but I wanted to see what happens when I do a Factory Reset of my Amcrest DVR... Is it set by default to record 24/7 and it was... The only thing I needed to change was the the Sub-Stream aka Extra Stream is setup to record on encoding menu it isn't setup in the Record HDD area... With the Click of all now both Main and Extra stream was recording... Now I had to change loads of things back lol. Because the system was a DVR and I had to tell it to remove the last 2ch and make them IP Ch... Other then that once all was setup and Wizard was done even with the 2 last Chan not having my IP cameras on there the Record Button was there saying it was recording a Blank screen lol....

So while as I said... It is a different Hardware... It is designed to Record for Security Cameras...

I Might be wrong in what I said before about it being By Design... However in my Uneducated Mind it would make since to me to have it already setup to Record 24/7 as a Convenience setup....

I do know at one time I had my system Recording from my outdoor IP camera 24/7 in JPG to my FTP server without knowing it at first lol... Becasue I setup to record as scheduled and motion and thought I had to have the Motion area set all day in the schedule for the motion JPG to work so I had thousands of JPG files in my folder for pictures lol on top of the 24/7 recordings because I had the motion schedule allday in the settings lol...

So only real outdoor IP camera from Amcrest that I own is the Ipm-751... I am not sure how it was setup anymore out of the package.. If it wasn't for the fact that I have bad Rotator cuffs in both right and left, and reset for Camera requires me to take off the Dome, That being over head on a ladder, and besides all that pain the pain it would be to Reset it back up after doing a Factory Reset... I have at this time no other idea of what it is or should have been setup from factory as... The settings are by design the owners right to change at will anyway...

Sorry I guess I am not much help

[jack7]

8 minutes is what you have set as record size in Record.
I doubt the snapshots are causing the 24/7.
While it's recording 24/7, go to Event- Detection Area and see if any squares are lighting up in the image and there's activity in the graph on the right. If not, there is no detected motion going on. Adjust sensitivity and threshold there to see what happens.

Or it may be something else or a broken camera.

[sydney]

I have to play with this camera a bit more and make observations. There are no real useful Amcrest documentations for this camera to explain everything about this camera from a user's perspective as well as from technical perspective. So I've play with it to learn about it.

Thanks to those who've contributed to this thread.