FI9818W record to a hard drive / sd card

Other Devices & Integrations Door Locks & Sensors
#1

Hey guys,

Bought a FI9818W and I was expecting this to be able to record directly to a SD card.
Besides having a computer always on, is there any way of recording the video directly to a SD card or hard drive?

I’m new to the surveillance cameras. Trying to decide if I should return the camera. I have no problems with developing code or tech. I’m a developer.

#2

got a feeling you bought a model without SD card functionality and dont think many (if any) of foscam cams are designed with a usb socket to write direct to usb.

if you bought from somewhere which suggested otherwise probably worth requesting refund.

Stu

#3

Anyone knows if ftp works fine on these? Do ftp connection records video also? Otherwise… I’ll send it back.

#4

I have a few of these type of cameras and the FTP system works reasonably well. It will record video when it alarms, and those get uploaded as they occur.

I use a mac as my record-to location as it has a built-in FTP server that can be easily turned on, and I just created a camera user account for the machine. The downside is for the FTP setup is that there’s no real directory structure - it’ll just upload everything to one directory, with filenames that reflect the date and time the image was acquired. I have two cameras uploading a shot every 15 seconds, so I amass about 4400 images per day. I wrote a php script that combs through these images and sorts them into directories by date so things don’t get too terribly clogged up.

Sometimes, when I’m so inclined, I’ll use ffmpeg to encode these into a time lapse video to watch what goes on. I’m pretty pleased with the setup and I can share the php script if you’d like.

#5

I have have around 6 foscams, which are all junk after less then years use. The one you bought is only 59.00 mine were over 100 each.

Your doing yourself a favor if you just return it now.

The better ones can record to SD card, but I have found trying to relay on Foscams to handle motion detection, wifi, recording, and anything more then just streaming a video is overloading it.

There is a reason it cheap, me an many others learned the hard way.

I use BlueIris and Hikvision 3MP cameras now.