If your Hikvision NVR shows the message "No more IP camera allowed" probably is because the IP cameras are connected to a PoE switch and not directly to the unit. If that's your case, keep reading to see the solution to the problem.
If the NVR mistakenly identifies that more devices are connected to is, a warning message because it "thinks" they are Hikvision IP cameras.
To fix the problem you need to set up your network in a way that prevents the NVR to assume that other devices are IP cameras and change the NVR's method off adding new cameras from plug-and-play to manual.
The firmware update also helps to solve the problem because some bugs are fixed.
Let's understand this better and how to solve the problem...
How the Hikvision PoE NVR works
The Hikvision NVR was designed to have the cameras directly connected to it and power them up using the PoE (Power Over Ethernet) ports.
Direct connection
The diagram below shows the concept of cameras directly connected to the NVR.
If your system is connected like this, there's no problem at all.
Since each camera is connected to its port the NVR register its MAC Address (a unique number that identifies a network device) and add the camera to its table.
Connection using a PoE switch
If you change the network topology and add a PoE switch to power the cameras up things work a little bit differently and the NVR "sees" everything that is connected to the switch as an IP camera because other devices also have MAC Addresses that are in the switch table.
See the picture below to better understand the concept.
As you can see, the laptop or other devices that are also connected to the switch show up as a device in the network (which in fact they are).
Let's see how you can solve the problem...
Use VLAN to isolate the Hikvision cameras
You can isolate the cameras from other devices in your network by using VLANs (Virtual Local Area Network) which allows the NVR to "see" only the IP cameras and thus avoidind the "No more IP camera allowed" error.
The concept is very simple, each one of the switch ports can be assigned to a VLAN so you just need to create a VLAN for the security devices and add the ports that they are connected to. So they will share the same brodcast domain.
As you can see in the picture, the NVR and IP cameras are in the same VLAN.
Don't worry, this is not complicated as it seems, I have an article about this topic. Please read "How to setup VLANs for CCTV" to learn more.
You can use a switch such as the Netgear to power the cameras and create VLANs.
Add the cameras manually
It's necessary to add the camera manually to the NVR, otherwise it will try to use the plug-and-play methog which is default to this device.
Open the NVR menu and add the IP cameras manually as shown below:
The process is very simple but you need to know the cameras IPs and ports.
Update the firmware
Firmware update is essential to correct bugs and sometimes it can even correct the problem without changing the network topology or use a VLAN.
If the firmware can identify a list of MAC Addresses that belongs only to Hikvision cameras that can quickly solve the problem, so please update the firmware.
Check the bitrate usage
Make sure the bitrate is not too high, otherwise the NVR won't have enough resource to handle the network traffic and can display the message "No more IP camera allowed" just because there's no way to add them.
The picture below shows an example on how to adjust the bitrate.
As you can see, the Max bit rate is set to 3072 that represents 3Mbps.
The configuration if for the IP camera 1 and you just need to do the math to find out how much bandwidth the sytem will use. Let's say the NVR is for 16 cameras, the total banwidth is 16x3 = 48 Mbps.
Let's say you are using the Hikvision DS-7616NI-Q2/16P 16-channel NVR, the device specification shows that it can handle up to 160 Mbps as shown below.
Now you know that 3Mbps per camera won't cause any problem because the NVR was designed to work with much more than 48 Mbps, right?
To learn more, read the article "What is bitrate of IP camera"
Conclusion
The "No more IP camera allowed" message indicates that the maximum numbers or IP cameras were added to the Hikvision NVR, however sometimes the recorder is just confused by the presence of other devices in the network.
If you need more information, please visit the Hikvision website.
Make sure you understand the concepts explained in this article.
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