Remote Viewing of CCTV Part 1 – P2P
Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today in the first part of our two-part article series on CCTV Remote Viewing. First, it’s important to understand what this process even is, and how it can benefit you. Remote Viewing, simply put, is the ability of the operator/administrator of a CCTV system to view the streaming live footage of that system over the internet on a device such as a Personal Computer, or a Smartphone. With remote viewing, you can look at live footage as it is occurring, download footage to the smart-device or PC to be viewed later, receive notifications for alerts such as motion or IVS trigger rules, control PTZ cameras, and much, much more. With our recorders, and in fact most recorders, there are two ways to accomplish this. One method is called Port Forwarding and this will require a little bit of network knowhow. We’re going to discuss port forwarding a little more in the next article. Today we’re discussing the other, more common method called NAT or P2P. First, we’re going to explain a bit about what P2P actually is, and then include a small guide on how to set it up on one of our recorders. Included as well will be 4 videos, one for the p2p explanation, one for the activating the function on the recorder, one for adding the recorder to our app- elite Viewer Pro, and one for adding the recorder to the Desktop Software Smart PSS.
What is P2P?
I’m sure you’ve heard the term P2P thrown around quite a bit, but what does p2p even mean and how can it help us with remote viewing? P2P is short for Peer to Peer networking and is the name for a style of network configuration. In a Peer to Peer network, One or more computers connect directly to each other and act as both servers and clients simultaneously. A server is a computer that handles, manages, and processes network traffic. A Client is a computer that simply uses the available network. So in a peer to peer style of the network, all computers are equally working together to share data and form the network. This is different from the more commonly used client-server model. In the client-server model a single, or group of powerful high-storage capacity, large data-processing capable computers act as the sole servers. This means that any other Computers joining the network pass all their data through these servers to be managed by them exclusively. As you can see these models are quite different.
Setting Up P2P on Your Recorder
So how does P2P benefit your CCTV system? Well P2P is a simple and easy method by which you can connect your PC or smartphone to your Recorder or cameras. Using the QR code in your recorder, you can scan or type that into your device running the correct app, in combo with your username and password to connect directly to your camera system from anywhere in the world. Unlike port forwarding, the process to set up p2p on your recorder and accompanying device is relatively simple thanks to the p2p options. Follow the guide below alongside the video if you have one of our recorders to get Remote viewing up and running using p2p:
- Firstly, make sure that your recorder is powered on, and has a mouse and monitor connected.
- Make sure that you have an Ethernet Cable running from the primary LAN port on your recorder to a router or switch supplying network/internet. If your recorder has more than one LAN port use LAN 1
-DO NOT USE THE ONBOARD POE PORTS OF AN NVR FOR THIS, THESE ARE FOR CAMERAS ONLY- - Log into the recorder using your pattern or password. Be advised that even though you can log in, and activate p2p from the recorder itself using the pattern- you will need to know the actual password in order to add the recorder to your computer or Smart Device. The pattern is only for use at the recorder itself and this option is not possible on other devices.
- Navigate to the NETWORK settings tab, found at the bottom of the page if accessing the recorder directly
- Click the P2P option to move to that tab.
- Now, simply enable P2P using the slider
- Hit Apply
- P2P is now active however you still need to add the recorder to a device. Take note of how to get to this Page (Login > Netowowrking > p2p) and take note of the QR code that is labeled Device SN. You will need to access this page again later and use this information.
Adding Recorder to Your Devices
Now that you have P2P enabled on the recorder, you should be able to add it to a device. There are two ways to do this. One is using the app Elite Viewer Pro (EVP), available completely free now on the apple store or the play store for both iPhone and Android. There is also software for the PC called SmartPSS, available on our downloads page, links below.
Elite Viewer Pro (Android) (iPhone)
Smart Pss (Windows XP\Vista\7\8\10) (Mac OS- Beta Version)
Video Guide: Add Recorder to Smartphone
This Guide is for both p2p and port forwarding, you can ignore the parts regarding port forwarding.
Video Guide: Add Recorder to Smart Pss for PC
This Guide is for both p2p and port forwarding, you can ignore the parts regarding port forwarding.
Coming Soon- Port Forwarding!
We’re glad you checked out our article and video guides on P2P and remote viewing setup. If you enjoyed the videos or found them useful- don’t hesitate to toss us a like and hit subscribe for more CCTV content. For more info on any of our products or services, or for technical support please call 561-288-5258. Also, be sure to check back later this week for Part 2 of this guide on the Port Forwarding setup. Until next time, thanks for visiting SecurityCameraKing, and Stay Safe!
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