We recently did a site walk for a customer take-over and came across what we think is a very odd Amcrest setup from previous installation(s). What is your take on this? Added a pic for visual reference.
They currently have 29 cameras. Our confusion out of the gate was why they didnt populate all the camera ports on the 16 Ch NVR, then move remaining to the Switch. There is a 8 Ch NVR there and we have no idea yet why that is even involved as a separate NVR in the equation.
Additionally, both NVRs are Uplinked into the Switch from Camera ports on the NVRs.
Two NVRs and Switch.JPG (456.77 KiB) Viewed 1238 times
(1) Amcrest 16 Port (32 Ch) NVR (Camera ports partially populated)
(1) Amcrest 8 Ch NVR (Camera ports partially populated)
(1) TP Link Switch (appears to have some of the camera connections)
So hard to guess why someone would do anything the way they ended up doing things..
But here is my guess.. 29 cameras on a 32ch NVR with 16Ports can be done depending on the cameras used. However here is where things can take a twist. 5 years ago maybe only wanted normal cameras and 32ch NVR. Over time they wanted Ai tech and rather then buying a new 32ch AI NVR they bought a 8ch seeing they only wanted 4 of the cameras to be updated to the Ai tech or maybe they are doiong face captures
Without knowing what the Model numbers of the NVR is is only guessing..
Then about why only 4ch on the 8ch is running to POE NVR my guess is they are closer to the NVR and able to run directly to the NVR in a home run. Then the Switch my guess is there is some long range runs or the switch has the power to be able to power the cameras where the NVR while they can power a good number of camears there is still a total number of wattage that a POE NVR can work with..
Plus there is no telling they might have had the switch in place powering all cameras at the location going to a normal Non POE NVR and they just never made the change from switch to the POE NVRs..
There is many different reasons why someone has what they have.. I mean I have a mix of POE and NON POE NVRs and I have 3 switches 1 giga, 1 POE and one POE+.. I am going to guess that the TP Link has more Power to provide IP cameras and other devices then the 32ch POE NVR offers the 16 POE ports.. Plus without knowing what cameras is going where and how. Maybe the TP link is setup with SFP to a distant location of the property something that isn't offered in the NVRs.. Looking in my Security Closet seeing only 2 switches and 4 NVRs that isn't all that is on the local property. I have another switch 150 feet from there connected using SFP and a 8ch POE NVR that is hidden in the same location as the switch 5 cameras are in that location with 3 cameras connected to that NVR from the house. so 8 port POE only 4 cameras are populated in the POE ports 1 cameras is wireless connected to a router at that location as well and the 3 from the front data goes through the SFP connection and added using the normal Ethernet port..
So for your area there.. There are many different reasons someone might have setup the sytem the way they did.. Just need to setup a road map to know and understand why..
What are the models of the NVR.. Help understand little of what might be going on..
We are slowly "peeling back the rotten banana" of info since the initial quick walk-through. We are looking to plan our first service call with them soon for a few cams that are out. We do know that the 16 Ch NVR is a Amcrest NV5232E-16P. We couldn't get a visual on the 8 Ch that's there so we need to log into it and get more info once on site. We do not yet know what cameras and models are installed at the site.
Our first theory was also that they were compensating for lack of power budget from the NVRs This is yet to be determined.
We are also working in conjunction with Amcrest Tech Support via a Support Ticket on this site. We do know that Uplinking a NVR to a Switch from a NVRs Camera ports usually isnt a recommended install practice, depending on the NVR.
So normally when people do that they are using the pass around as a bridge. However what is odd is that the NVR 5232E-16P has a Bridge built in so why would they do the pass around..
Here is what I mean. When you have your camears setup on your POE NVR you don't have access to them cameras without using the NVRs Virtual Host, So you have to access the NVRs WebUI and then you can click on the camera you want to mess with and it will open in NVRs IP with a port number normally starting at 10080 and well that fails with Chrome.. So to keep things faster if there was an open port on some devices you could pass around cable and have access to all the cameras so you can just go to WebUI of that camera without first opening the NVRs WebUI...
However the 5232E-16P has an option that other NVRs don't offer and so it kind of shocks me to hear they went the pass around when the NVR has a built in Bridge mode.. In the Network area of the NVR will be a tab that you can enable that will turn off the NVRs POE Switch and open all the ports to the local network. That means all camears connected to the NVRs POE port will now get the IP address from the Router and not the NVRs Switch.. So if they were not using the system with a Router then maybe why they didn't just use NVRs Bridge Mode.. Some NVRs can only access 1-4, 5-8 and so on with a pass around on other machines can be all ports and or 8 if there was say 16. Yet most times it is only 4 ports of the block you connected to. SO if you were to connect to 11 that would give access to the 9, 10 and 12 camera also able to pipe in the 11 spot a 4th camera maybe it is IP or Wifi only no POE.. So it is something that people do..
Don't know the switch. But some are able to be setup with Vlan or some are not managed with Dip switches where you can setup ports to act like a VLan and maybe that is how they have the Switch working with the Cameras and the POE NVR ports. Because I know that on a system reboot if connected with full Network access it will try to hand out IP to other things in your network lol and that isn't good. So if doing a pass around good to keep it in a small eco system of cameras
Working with Amcrest Tech Support, they are saying these NVRs should not be Uplinked to Switches via Camera ports, as they do not have a Bridge port. Makes sense. Could "work" but could also be related to the problems the owner has been having with the same Cams going down.
"That is correct. The NVR's POE ports do not function as a bridge; instead, they create their own isolated network with unique IP addresses. It is not recommended to uplink an NVR's camera ports to an external switch. The camera ports operate within a dedicated subnet, and connecting them to an external switch could cause network conflicts or prevent the NVR from properly managing the connected cameras."
We are heading to the site to begin more in depth work and discovery on this system and looking forward to finding out more there.
