Unfortunately, this is a situation that we have encountered quite a few times – so this post will hopefully help people avoid the same problem.

The typical scenario is: a client decides to buy a Hikvision camera online via our e-store without first consulting with any of our technical team members. After having done some due diligence (well done!), he decides to go ahead with a 5 MP analogue camera (say, a DS-2CE72HFT-F or DS-2CE56H0T-VPITF) and, to go with it, an HQHI DVR – e.g. DS-7208HQHI-K1.

If the client had called us to discuss his choice of the cameras, we would have advised him that for a 5MP (or above) camera, he would need to get a DVR that supports recording (under an analogue signal format) of at least the maximum resolution of the camera. The logic is simple, if the camera is up to 5MP and your DVR can only go as far as 3MP, then the DVR would create a bottleneck, limiting the resolution of your home CCTV to just 3MP.

Alas, the HQHI DVRs only supports up to 4MP at an AHD (Analogue High Definition) standard, so it would NOT be able to process video data of a 5MP camera at its maximum capacity (to check your DVR's resolution - just check its datasheet).

Worse still, if you accidentally (or intentionally) switch the camera’s resolution from the default 4MP on that DVR to, say, 5MP to match the camera’s max resolution, your camera may disappear from the list of available cameras altogether and will no longer be accessible through the DVR.

To reset the camera back from 5MP into 4MP you would need a DVR that can work at 5MP – such as a HUHI Turbo DVR – e.g. DS-7208HUHI-K1 (which you can also buy online here as well as a range of other Hikvision products). If you happened to have one, then you can reset the camera yourself (below are simple steps that you would need to take). However, typically, to resolve the issue we end up asking the client to send the camera back to us, resetting it for him and returning it again – a lot of hassle for everyone.

All that can be avoided if the right DVR was bought in the first place. We looked at the differences between the two main Hikvision DVR models in one of our earlier posts. However, if you have any questions – don’t hesitate to give us a call to ensure that you are getting all the right things.

Steps for lowing the resolution of a Hikvision analogue camera:

Option 1 - If your DVR (supporting the set resolution of the camera) is connected to a monitor:

Option 2 - resetting via DVR's Browser interface - log in to the DVR and click 'Configuration' 

then, click Video / Audio and there select the resolution option you need 

#Hikvision #TurboDVR #Troubleshooting #CameraResolution