Category: Sunluxy DVR

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Connect Directly to SunLuxy Camera Streams

For a while now I’ve used a cheap SunLuxy H.264 DVR as the heart of the CoopCam project and initially couldn’t get a direct link to the camera stream so had to screen captured the bog standard web interface using VLC and break the feed down into separate streams but recently after a fair bit of trial and error I discovered a much easier solution!

I had researched on and off for months, went through masses of trial and error with various software and ultimately found no solution but after being inspired again I headed to the DVR’s web interface to start from scratch. I stumbled across source code in a file called /js/view2.js that constructs an RTMP:// address to show live camera feeds through the web interfaces flash player – See snippet of code below:

dvr_viewer.ConnectRTMP(index, "rtmp://" + location.host, "ch" + index + "_" + (dvr_type=="main"?"0":"1") + ".264");

After removing the jargon the link came out as rtmp://dvraddress:port/ch#_#.264 with the first number being the channel you want to connect to (starting at 0) and the second being the stream (substream being 1 and main being 0)

I headed to VLC player, selected Open Network Stream and entered the following:

rtmp://192.168.0.100:81/ch0_0.264

Broken down you can see my DVR is on the local network as 192.168.0.100 at port 81  and that I wanted to view channel 1’s main stream, low and behold after a few seconds the camera started to play!

Notes

  • To convert the stream to something more useful you could use rtmpdump and ffmpeg on Linux systems
  • If you do something wrong and overload the DVR then you’ll hear a beep as the box reboots
  • If this works for you please comment your DVR make and model
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Sunluxy H.624 DVR Factory Reset

I had previously purchased two Sunluxy DVR’s for various projects and was impressed with how easy they were get up and running, it was literally a straight forward task of fitting a hard drive and then setting and forgetting… literally… setting the admin password and then forgetting it.

Not to worry though, the user manual will have some helpful tips on what to do? Wrong! Poor translation meant the manual ended up in the bin, never mind the Internet will be able to help surely… maybe not. After much research I thought my box was going to end up living with the user manual in the bin but then I turned to good old fashioned trial and error as a last resort.

Factory Resetting the DVR

So lets get to the juicy bit! For the steps below you will need to be near your Sunluxy DVR but before you continue please be aware that this process will not only reset the admin password, it will also remove any settings entered previously such as network configuration, recording preferences and so on. The hard drive and all existing data will be left untouched.

  • First things first switch off your DVR. In my case there was a power switch on the back that I flicked, so far so good!
  • The next step is to hold the Back button (the one that lets you flick back to the previous menus – labelled with a back arrow, sometimes also labelled ESC) whilst switching the DVR back on, the button can be seen circled in the image below:
  • After a short delay you will see that all lights apart from the power light go out and hear a beep, this means the DVR has reset itself  and will automatically restart so release the Back button and you will see the DVR begin to boot as normal
  • Once everything has loaded you will then be able to login to your DVR using the default username of admin and leaving the password field blank

Notes

  • In this example we used a Sunluxy branded DVR, however this process (or something very similar) should work with most generic H.624 DVR’s as well
  • The steps above assume your monitor is connected via the VGA connection, as Chris suggested in the comments below, try using the BNC connection if you have trouble with menus not showing
  • Finally, if you could let me know if you run into any problems or if the process works on other brands or models I’d be grateful