Community Edition Patreon Integration

The download link of the most powerful free NVR software is gone? Don't worry, there is an explanation. This page tells you how to get the download link back. (If you just want to try out the software function or, if you are looking for "Commercial Edition" instead, you can download trial software here, the free trial period is 60 days and you can purchase license here. There is no functional difference between the free trial and the Community Edition.)

If you are active patron who came before 2018/1/12, please use this link.

See also

Step 1. Click "Get Software" button.

Step 2. A pop-up will appear. Click "Get Software" item. You need to become a patron get obtain download URL link.

Step 3. You will be redirected to Patreon platform, which is a popular platform for creative crowdfunding. Click "BECOME A PATRON".

Step 4. Select a patron pledge. To us, of course the higher the better. Minimum $5.00+per month will get you a download link. We will appreciate your contribution to become a patron.

Step 5. After completing payment information, the URL link will be unlocked.

Step 6. You will be redirected to a login screen. Please select "Sign-in with Patreon".

Step 7. Click "ALLOW" for us to access your Patreon account information

Step 8. You will be presented patron-exclusive downloads. Please continue to support us and play fair.

The reason of adopting "Patreon" integration with NVR Community Edition

Software development and maintenance is an expensive work, and it costs an entire software team hundreds hours of work every month in order to do it right.

Through the years of business development, we found the majority of users have chosen to utilize our free-for-noncommercial edition of "NVR Software Community Edition" software, to replace the need for license fee payment to Genius Vision. Although it is our clear knowledge that in fact, many of those users are actually applying our software into commercial scenario, we don't have an actionable plan against those users.

Nevertheless, the aforementioned fact has severely hindered our career toward software development and our strength to continue to enhance our software to benefit all our users. There are so many exciting things we plans to do exclusively for our passionate users, including:

H.265 integration
Add support to High DPI mode.
Telegram notification integration
Microsoft Face API integration
(more...)

We want to continue to enhance our software to benefit you, but we need your help to do this.

This "Patreon integration" direction change gives our team a new hope for a better tomorrow. Please consider to appreciate our creative effort by actual action -- to become one of our patron. Even a patronship of $1/month is a great encouragement to us, and we will be very appreciated to your contribution. Also you will get our exclusive content.

We are trying various way to increase our revenue. If you have any suggestion, please do tell us. Also, if there are some features that you hope that Genius Vision NVR to have, please also tell us. We will appreciate your input.

See also

Does becoming a patron permits commercial use of Community Edition?

Unfortunately at current stage, the answer is "No". But it doesn't mean it's not possible in the future, as we will explain more below.

After becoming patron, the usage of Community Edition software is still restricted to "non-commercial use". However you will get exclusive content (rewards) according to this article:

Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging Version 3

These rewards are in preparing and will be released soon. In the meantime, with your encouragement, the process will be expedited.

Goals toward Community Edition for commercial use

We've set the goal that when reaching $20,000+ per month, we will authorize Genius Vision NVR CmE to be used outside non-commercial context for patrons.

Before reaching the goal, all "non-commercial only" restriction still remains. In order to apply on commercial context, you'll need to use Commercial Edition instead, and purchase commercial license.

See also

What is the exclusive content for patron?

After becoming patron, you will get exclusive content (rewards) of the following article:

Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging Version 3

These rewards are in preparing and will be released soon. In the meantime, with your encouragement, the process will be expedited.

See also

On the Patreon platform, why not use "per creation" but instead use "monthly"?

Apparently in the Patreon platform, the creator must select monthly or one time. The two options are mutually exclusive on the platform. For a software development team, one-time payment is not very meaningful, as we will explains as below:

A very different aspect of software development from other type of creation is "maintenance". Meaning if you have 1000 features, adding 1 feature can cause bug in the existing 1000 feature. Thus, in order to add 1 feature, the effort of making sure previous 1000 feature still working, is not trivial.

Since what we primarily need is "monthly revenue", we have to put the one-time revenue on a lower priority.

Also, software development is a "full-time job". It's a bit different from "artists". As software engineers, we must be constantly focusing our brain on this software knowledge. If we just "occasionally" do the software development, then we're afraid the knowledge will soon decay and the software will be containing a lot of bugs. Many users appreciate our software is because our software is very stable. From the engineering point of view, it means we must have high-quality and strict coding and testing process. It could not have been achieved without a full-time dedicated software development team.

An interesting story to share is when I used to work in another company (that is also doing video surveillance software) many years ago, we had many customers asking us to add a lot of software features. At that time, that company didn't have very strict control of coding like what we have now (as most of software company in the world did), the software soon became very unstable. It crashed too often to a stage that the customers couldn't bear it anymore and shout out that "I don't want anything fancy at all, not anymore! I just want your software to record 24x7 without fail. I just want this single feature!!!".

Ironic, right? Achieving the simple 24x7 running, turns out to be the most difficult task at all. When I was at that company, we never had the chance achieve that goal because the problem was in the architecture and methodology. There was no way to fix the problem unless we restart the software development from the ground-up, and back then this was not an option. It's fortunately that I turned out to start-up my own company, so I'm able to develop the high quality software like what we currently have.

This is a story that tells you about the importance of "software maintenance".

How to become a patron in Patreon platform?

Step 1. You might be redirected the Patreon platform, which is a popular platform for creative crowdfunding. Click "BECOME A PATRON".

Step 2. Select a patron pledge. To us, of course the higher the better. We will appreciate your contribution to become a patron.

Step 3. After completing payment information, the URL link will be unlocked.

Step 4. You will be redirected to a login screen. Please select "Sign-in with Patreon".

Step 7. Click "ALLOW" for us to access your Patreon account information

How to access Patreon-exclusive materials?

Step 0. You need to become a patron in Patreon platform first.

Step 1. When prompted login-type, select "Sign-in with Patreon"

Step 2. Click "ALLOW" for us to access your information

Step 3. You will then be presented patron-exclusive downloads. Please continue to support us and play fair.

See also

Why do you choose Patreon over other platforms such as Indiegogo or PayPal to collect funding?

The purpose of Patreon is adopting the concept of "crowdfunding". Also, because we watched the "in the nutshell" YouTube series, and was deeply inspired by the creator, who highly recommends the Patreon platform.

The aim is to utilize a big advantage our NVR Community Edition has, is that we have "many" users, who may not be able to pay very much. We have tried the "Indiegogo" platform before, but it seems unfit for our working model. As explained in this article, our strength is at "software development & maintenance". In a general type of crowdfunding, almost no one will pay for this "strength".

Stereotyped crowdfunding projects, besides of Patreon, often emphasize on something that is very "glamorous" (or has a glamorous cause), or at least appear to be beneficial in an obvious way. A piece of IP video software that contains many complicated professional features, like ours, is nowhere near that definition.

Also, we want a reputable platform to back Genius Vision up. We want a framework like "paying small while continuous", and someone to advertise that idea, so that we won't have to do it ourselves.

Most often, advertising some concept is the most difficult task. Our primary focus should be on advertising our software and its benefits, so we'd prefer someone else to advertise the patron-like framework and concept, so we can just use it. After research we found Patreon to be a great fit, but of course if anyone has better suggestions we are open to other possibilities.

See also

What is High DPI mode?

According to MSDN:

As display technologies advance, manufacturers have increased the number of pixels supported by their displays. While text, images, and user interface elements look much sharper and more readable on high resolution displays, the operating system must scale up to support the visual experience; otherwise, everything just looks smaller.

So your "free software" isn't free after all? Can I download trial version?

It will be free again when we completed the planning and repackaging. Right now you can download Commercial trial at http://geniusvision.net/.

Remember that nothing is truly free in the world. Genius Vision Community Edition has been released free for non-commercial use for over 7 years since 2010. Now, because of the reason explained here, we have to make some kind of adjustment.

Very soon, after the strategy is confirmed it will be announced, and the new free version will be released. The packaging of the new version will be largely depend on the experiment result (that how people will become patrons) in these days.

Thank you very much for your continued support for Genius Vision software.

See also

Can I download archived Community Edition software package?

Sure. It can be downloaded here. Instruction is here. It's a patron-only ($10+/month) content.

Note that:

Please do not re-distribute anything you downloaded from our website.
Please play fair.
If you are active patron who came before 2018/1/12, please use this link.

Can I download archived versions of Commercial Edition, Lite Edition, Enterprise(x64), and Subscription Edition software packages?

Sure. It can be downloaded here. Instruction is here. It's a patron-only ($10+/month) content.

Note that:

Please do not re-distribute anything you downloaded from our website.
Please play fair.
If you are active patron who came before 2018/1/12, please use this link.

Patreon charge cycle and auditing

NOTE! Because there have been too many incidents, we have decided to change our Patreon policy to "charge upfront" at 2018/8/2 to void this kind of problem in the future. After this policy change, this article can be considered obsoleted.

The Patreon platform does not immediately charge your payment card. Instead, it waits to the 1st of every month to make the charge. If one cancels the patronship before 1st of next month, we receive nothing for that month.

Normally, we trust all patrons who accessed patron-only materials (files or rewards) will have the courtesy to allow at least one cycle of charge (as the name "patron" suggests). Thus, we would make the exclusive content accessible before we even receive the payment. After all, we believe the patronship should be built upon trust.

However, we observed about 5% of users seems to exploit the Patreon platform's trusting nature, by cancelling patronship right after accessed exclusive content (for example: downloading the files or activate NVR rewards). As the Patreon platform charges the card only at the 1st of every month, this practice can be considered as cheating. These accounts will be flagged by our audit department in a monthly review for further actions.

If you just want to try the software, please download our commercial free trial edition at http://geniusvision.net/. You can try this full-function commercial software for 60 days freely, without having to become any patrons.

If for some reasons you are compelled to do this, and you don't want your account be flagged by our audit department, please contact us and explain your reason. Perhaps we can work out a way to deal with your issue.

Currently flagged accounts

The accounts listed here has downloaded Patreon exclusive content and withdrew the patronship immedately without actually paying anything. They will be denied from any future Genius Vision services.

Wayne (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=12423782)
Robert DeHate (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=12093672)
Joel Lalchan (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=11306853)
DAVID BAINBRIDGE (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=10972721)
daniel santana (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=10622695)
Alberto Ramirez (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=6981967)
RP (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=9507487)
Robert Bliss (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=9324731)
Stefan Engelbert (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=9320712)
Nur Arofatullah (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=9037255)
Eric (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=9030848)
Michal R (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=9013568)
Jean Brito (https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=8960139)

If there are any misunderstandings about these flagged accounts, please contact us to sort out. Thank you for playing fair!

2017/12/30 Patreon blog: Integration update

Synopsis

We'd like to share our experiences up to now, that since we joined the Patreon platform initially at 2017/12/15. We performed some experiments thereafter and has formed some rough initial ideas about our future strategy. Also we'd like to explain why the so-called "free nvr" CmE is not able to be downloaded freely for the time being.

Blog content

Greetings! We'd like to share our experiences up to now, that since we joined the Patreon platform initially at 2017/12/15.

As inspired by the "in the nutshell" series, also by the spamming-like message about iOS 11 request, we are entering a new area of small-amount continuous crowdfunding trial, which is totally strange to us. The initial thought is to utilize a big advantage our NVR Community Edition has, is that we have "many" users, who may not be able to pay very much. (See: main article)

In order to really do this, modifying the NVR software itself to be tightly integrated with the Patreon platform is necessary. This takes time, and it also takes the right strategy. Modification software is a lot of work no matter how you do it, so we need to collect some measurable data before deciding what is the correct strategy. To do that, we need to perform some experiments. So below we'd like to share some experiences about these experiments so far.

The first and the most important question, to us, is very simple and straightforward: "Does this Patreon platform really work? (Does someone like us really get paid on this platform?)". Subsequently, more questions like "How will someone likes us to raise fund? How much will this get us? Will it be sufficient to support a professional software development team like us?" etc, arised.

Well, it seems like a lot of questions because we're new to this concept. Patreon platform is not like most other crowdfunding platforms, which mostly require a glamorous and obvious goal to work. It just might work for us. However, the small-amount nature hinted us that it might not be enough to support a professional software development team like us, well at least not enough at the first few months, because the momentum is yet to be gathered. About this point, we have decided to separate our Commercial Edition away from this project. So all CmE we talks from now, will still be under non-commercial use (See: main article).

Anyway, we decided the first two important questions that needs to be answered before a concrete strategy can be formulated, are:

Q1: Does someone like Genius Vision really get paid on this platform?

Q2: How much will this get us within what kind of timeframe?

To answer Q1, we did an experiment, that starting from 2017/12/15, we started to put a "Help us to grow" button beside the "Download software" button. At that time, the 930 CmE software can still be downloaded just by clicking that button. To our surprise, after 4 days, no one has chosen to become our patrons. If this situation continues, all subsequent experiments, and effort toward Patreon platform won't mean anything at all. At that time, we couldn't tell if we were not doing this the right way, but we had to make a change to this experiment, one way or the other, otherwise the entire project fails.

At 2017/12/19 19:30 (GMT+08), we moved the 930 CmE software download link inside patron-only content. To our surprise, again, just one hour after we doing this, we got our first patron, Mr. Steve (thank you very much, Mr. Steve). Although it was only $1/month, already this was a huge encouragement to us.

Since that 2017/12/19, we had been keep receiving about new 1~5 patrons everyday consistently. (A great encouragement to us, thank you patrons!). Within another few weeks we will be able to answer Q2, and therefore be able to announce our formal strategy. This conclusion made us to believe that merely "hinting users" to become our patron is not nearly enough. Not even for $1/month. It's not because our software unworthy for that $1/month, but because there is "no need" to become a patron. It seems that people only put the idea of "paying" in their head, when they "need" to. I mean, if there is this button that is just sitting next to another button, which allows you pay nothing to get what you want, perhaps even I couldn't resist the temptation. So here we came to our current screen: 3 buttons there but none of the buttons will get you the free download of CmE software:

Since then, we had received about 3~4 "disgruntled" users, who were "seriously complaining" why they couldn't get the free software, as advertised by the "Best NVR, for free" wordings. Well, I admit for the time-being, the wordings could be misleading, so we have written an explanation. Nevertheless, to these disgruntled users, the explanation seems to mean nothing at all.

Our CmE will eventually be free again, but will, obviously, need to be be under different packaging. As the similar reasoning to the "3-button" experiments mentioned above, if the freely available CmE is too powerful that satisfies everyone's need, then it will be very difficult to gather more patrons. That is, there is "no need" for people to put the idea of "becoming patrons" in their heads. I guess it can't be helped. With all the good intentions the Patreon platform tries to advertise, it's still a product under the social framework of capitalism, and so is its audiences.

Thus, to make CmE over Patreon platform really work, we need to differentiate our CmE capability, and make it different to free users, and to various level of patrons. Also, in order to be able to gather sufficient number of patrons, the free version need to be "insufficient" by definition, while favoring patrons with more powerful software capabilities.

After the patron-integrated CmE is released for free-to-download again, we can make more exciting software enhancements, based on this arrangement.

That's all for now, I hope it's not too long (don't read). We'll be releasing more updates soon.

With that being said, please become our patrons at anytime to give us more encouragement forward.

See also

Summary of Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging

Packaging Version	Status	Effective date
Version 1	Inactive	Starting from 2017/12/15, ends at 2018/1/18
Version 2	Inactive	Starting from 2018/1/12, ends at 2019/10/1
Version 3	Currently effective	Effectivated since 2019/10/1

See also

The reason of adopting "Patreon" integration with NVR Community Edition

Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging Version 1 (Legacy)

Current status

This packaging is the inactive. Effectiveness started from 2017/12/15, ends at 2018/1/12. Active patrons started before 2018/1/12 still enjoy this plan.
The NVR software and Patreon integration is still under development.

Patron levels

Patron level	Description
$1.00+ per month	➤This tier and above can always download latest version of CmE software.
$2.00+ per month	Allows to use 16-Channels for single NVR server. Non-commercial usage only.
$5.00+ per month	Allows to use 32-Channels per NVR server, up to 3 servers. Non-commercial usage only. ➤This tier and above can always download archived version of CmE software.
$10.00+ per month	Allows to use 64-Channels per NVR server, up to 5 servers. Non-commercial usage only.

See also

Summary of Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging

Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging Version 2 (Legacy)

Current status

This packaging is the inactive. Effectiveness started from 2018/1/12, ends at 2019/10/1. Active patrons started before 2019/10/1 still enjoy this plan.

Feature levels

Firstly, we introduce a "Patron+" new attribute to each tier of reward. To simplify, one either have this Patron+ attribute, or doesn't have. Pre-existing patrons are considered to have this attribute. The key-features corresponding to the Patron+ attribute can be broken-down as follows:

Feature	Without Patron+	With Patron+
Full remote control	Yes	Yes
Remote control through Internet Explorer	Yes	Yes
Multiple monitors	Yes	Yes
512x Smart Search	N/A	Yes
Central management system	N/A	Yes
Event and trigger rule management	N/A	Yes
Mobile apps	Yes	Yes
eMAP	Yes	Yes
Export to AVI	N/A	Yes
Software motion detection	Yes	Yes
Visual tamper detection	Yes	Yes
Object counting	N/A	Yes
Missing object / foreign object	N/A	Yes
Panoramic features	N/A	Yes

Patron levels

Patron level	Description
Free tier	Allows to use 2-Channels. Non-commercial usage only. Without Patron+ features. ➤In free tier, software download might not be always available. Available hours will be announced.
$5+/month	Allows to use 4-Channels for single NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features. ➤This tier and above can always download latest version of CmE software.
$6+/month	Allows to use 16-Channels for 3 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. Without Patron+ features.
$10+/month	Allows to use 16-Channels for 5 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features. ➤This tier and above can always download archived version of CmE software.
$20+/month	Allows to use 16-Channels for 10 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$50+/month	Allows to use 32-Channels for 5 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$100+/month	Allows to use 32-Channels for 10 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$200+/month	Allows to use 64-Channels for 5 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$300+/month	Allows to use 64-Channels for 10 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.

See also

Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging Version 3

Current status

This packaging is the currently active. Effectiveness starts from 2019/10/1.

Feature levels

Feature	Without Patron+	With Patron+
Full remote control	Yes	Yes
Remote control through Internet Explorer	Yes	Yes
Multiple monitors	Yes	Yes
512x Smart Search	N/A	Yes
Central management system	N/A	Yes
Event and trigger rule management	N/A	Yes
Mobile apps	Yes	Yes
eMAP	Yes	Yes
Export to AVI	N/A	Yes
Software motion detection	Yes	Yes
Visual tamper detection	Yes	Yes
Object counting	N/A	Yes
Missing object / foreign object	N/A	Yes
Panoramic features	N/A	Yes

Patron levels

Patron level	Description
Free tier	Allows to use 2-Channels. Non-commercial usage only. Without Patron+ features. ➤In free tier, software download might not be always available. Available hours will be announced.
$5+/month	Allows to use 4-Channels for single NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. Without Patron+ features.
$8+/month	Allows to use 4-Channels for single NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$10+/month	Allows to use 16-Channels for single NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. Without Patron+ features.
$15+/month	Allows to use 16-Channels for single NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$20+/month	Allows to use 16-Channels for 3 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$30+/month	Allows to use 32-Channels for single NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. Without Patron+ features.
$50+/month	Allows to use 32-Channels for 3 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$100+/month	Allows to use 32-Channels for 10 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$200+/month	Allows to use 64-Channels for 5 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$300+/month	Allows to use 64-Channels for 10 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.

See also

What is the purpose of this chat? (Patreon)

Chat join link

Before using the join link, make sure you have read the entire guidelines written below.

https://discord.gg/YCfSPhU

Chat guidelines

Genius Vision NVR Community Edition is released under free-for-non-commercial-use for 7 years. We are changing it since 2017/12/19, so you wouldn't be able to use it like it has always been. There is a reason for this, and this is a temporary measure. The aim of this channel is to discuss how to increase the revenue of Genius Vision so that our continued support to this free software is possible.

With that being said, this is not really a "chat freely" channel. All things said are still under admin-moderation. We need to keep language clean and keep discussion productive. If someone just want complain without any constructive suggestions, we wouldn't want that. The langauge guideline is at followng section. Also, we need to concentrate on the topic a channel is designed for. Aimless discussion is not productive in any situation.

In the forum, we will direct the topic of discussion, please follow the discussion, and try not to control it. Please also scroll up the chat history and try not to ask duplicated question that has been repeatedly answered before.

Also, if you just want to try the software in full function to see if it fits your need, please download our commercial free trial edition at http://geniusvision.net/ or (64-bit at http://geniusvision.net/nvr-enterprise-x64.html). You can try this full-function commercial software for 30 days freely, without having to become any patrons. There is almost no functional difference between the trial edition and the Community Edition.

Language guidelines

The language rules of the #general also apply in this channel, specifically: do not use languages of "high frequency" or "strong demand" to disrupt the order and focus of the forum.

To put simply, I think it's safe to assume most people come here don't know each other personally. In a way we are all strangers coming together to discuss a common interested topic. We'd expect the same politeness you would give to any other strangers.

I mean, you wouldn't go in front of a stranger, who doesn't owe you anything, and say: Hey stranger, I need you to do this for me! Why don't you do what I want? Why would you do something I don't want? If you don't do what I want you to do, I will say something bad!", or something like that, would you?

If you would, you are generally not considered to be a polite person, and therefore will not be treated like one. In that case, we might try to give out some warning before issuing a perma-ban, but in our experiences, some users are set out to use bad languages so warning seldom works.

If we can all respect each other, we can live with different opinions. Please kindly keep in mind that, if something is free, then no one owes you anything.

See also

2018/1/9 Patreon blog: Integration update

Synopsis

Happy new year everyone. We'd like to share some update about NVR-Patreon integration. Primarily, the updated packaging and reward restructure has been decided and is scheduled to be announced soon. We'll also explain our rationale behind the change. Pre-existing patrons will enjoy same rewards at the time they become our patron.

Blog content

First of all, we'd like to inform everyone that we have successfully received our first cycle of payment from the Patreon platform at 2018/1/1. What a significant day to Genius Vision! The amount is $43.35 USD in total. I know for a development team like us, this kind of amount isn't really a "helping amount", but it represents the support from our users which gives us strength to move forward. So we are genuinely appreciated. This "actually receiving cash" step is very important to us, because it helps us to understand the entire process the Patreon platform has presented to us, from creator page design, writing, recruiting patrons, and actually receiving payment. From this perspective, we have just completed the necessary verification for the Patreon platform. Here we like to thank everyone who has participated the patronship in the Dec. 2017.

However, there are some new facts that we discovered during this process that was previously unknown to us. One of them is the so-called "transaction overhead". Of the $43.35 actual payment we received, an additional 14.72% of the cash is deducted by the Patreon platform (not counting another 5% Patreon platform fee, according to its dashboard as shown below).

According to Patreon platform's explanation, the high percentage of "processing fee" is caused by the small-value transactions, particularly the $1 (or $2) transactions. For payment platform like PayPal or credit cards, the payment platform itself set a minimum per-transaction fee. As a result, the more small-value transactions we have, the more the "transaction overhead" will be incurred. I guess this is quite straightforward like physics laws. We just have not thought about this earlier, because, well obviously we are new to this Patreon platform.

I guess that's why I've read somewhere that the average patron's contribute is about $10/month in the Patreon platform. If the campaign is properly arranged that makes each transaction become average $10, then the transaction overhead will become negligible, and the distance to our goal will also be shortened significantly.

Shortly within one week after receiving the first cycle payment, another unexpected thing happened. Although new patrons still coming in on daily basis, on the other hand, slowly, some patrons (especially $1 ones), are leaving. As a result, the patron amount stuck at certain point.

This is a unfortunately phenomen, because it shows that part of our small-value patrons has the tendency to be patron for only one cycle. For those users, $1/month means exactly $1, not /month. It clearly means these users "strongly want to use our software, but strongly don't want to pay". They are paying because they are compelled by our current policy. Our current policy states that "minimum one cycle of $1" is required to download the CmE software package, and this is exactly what they were willing to offer.

This fact completely changed our plan, because in our original thought, if we accumulate enough number of $1 patrons, then the number will still be good and the goals will still be within our reachability. Now, it would seem the situation isn't anywhere near what we have imagined. It seems that allowing $1 to download CmE ironically opens a gate for those who are "forced to pay" to become our unwillingful patrons. Those users are, for the lack of a better word, pretty "counterproductive" from the viewpoint of Genius Vision. But this is just from the viewpoint of our new business plan. I still thank everyone who has ever became our patrons, even including those $1 users. So we're not being unthankful here. It is just a fact we observed. Careful obversation during this period is essential for developing our future plans.

If our software is not worth even $1/month, then the total usage of CmE should be "lowered" since we enforced the patron-download policy after 2017/12/19. However, according to our constantly monitoring effort, the result is otherwise: the total usage of CmE actually became higher. (Another interpretation is that maybe that some people suddenly realized that if they use the software later, it may not be free? Like after a season of water shortage, the demand of water will suddenly increase, because people anticipate they may be in lack of water.)

Later on, a concensus has formed inside Genius Vison team, that maybe we should raise the download patronship barrier to $5/month. Although for those "forced patrons", it's only $5, not /month, but for people who actually wants to be our patrons, the $5/month is still way under the average patronship in the platform (which is $10/month). We need our patrons to be in the right mindset, and $1 (with only one month) patrons is "not at all" what we are looking for.

I guess what we really want to express here is:

Please become our patron, only when you want to.

If one feels "compelled" to become our patron by our current patron-download policy, then it means one may have some kind of urgency to apply our software. In this case, maybe what one really needed is the Commercial Edition, because for personal-use, there is seldom any "urgency" that one must be compelled to be $1/month patronship (and not very willingly so one must withdraw the patronship right after the minimum 1 month cycle).

In order to avoid the compelled patronship and to recruit patrons in the right mind, raising download barrier may be the only way.

The conclusion

Therefore a revision to the V2 structure is needed, based on the two reasons mentioned above, which are:

Small-value (such as $1 or $2) transactions incur much higher transaction overhead.
Small-value download barrier opens a gate for unwilling users to become our patrons and immedately withdraw their support after minimum one cycle.

The updated packaging and reward restructure can be looked-up here.

This revision primarily removes all reward layers under $5. Also, we added "software downloadability descriptions". To summary, in the V1 plan, $1/month or above will grant you to download the latest version of CmE package, while $5/month or above will grant you download the archived version of packages. In the V2 plan, however, $5/month or above will grant you to download the latest version of CmE package, while $10/month or above will grant you download the archived version of packages.

Another main point is that we introduced a Patron+ attribute to each patrons. To simplify, each patron either have this Patron+ attribute, or doesn't have. Pre-existing patrons are considered to have this attribute. This attribute is much equivalent to the "Lite vs. Professional" difference in the commercial packaging, so it will be easy to understand.

A noteworthy addition in the V2 plan, is that we designed in the free tier, "Software download might not be always available. Available hours will be announced. " As a free software package, download requires bandwidth and server maintenance. Since free users don't want to share any cost at all, the availablility will not be always-on.

We consider this to be pretty fair. In that way, disgruntled user can't claim that "free NVR is not really free". Well, it's free, just not always available for download. So, if one want it to be "always available for download", then patronship $5/month is required.

See also

2018/2/1 Patreon blog: Integration update

Synopsis

We have released Community Edition version 960 at 1/31 for free download. Let's see how everything goes, cheers!

Blog content

The biggest news is that we have released Community Edition version 960 at 2018/1/31 for free download. This version complies with the Version 2 reward structure. Therefore the free-tier will have 2-channel without Patron+ function. We also designed the Patreon-backed NVR trial that allows users to try out what will be rewarded before actually becomes a patron. Users who already became our patrons can also claim their rewards in this version of NVR software.

To deal with the "offline license" issue, we also designed the Patron Credit Level (PCL) mechanism, that will address the concerns of some users who might want to apply our software on a distant farm that doesn't have a persistent Internet connection. To properly support the occasionally connected NVR installation, one will need to prepay a one-time-per-pledge PCL fee directly to Genius Vision. After that, the offline license is possible to some extent. Currently maximum consecutively 30 months is supported.

For the current time being, we open the Community NVR version 960 for free download, without any strings attached. Exactly like the good old days, before 2017/12/19. In the meantime, we will continue to observe the activity of people joining (or leaving) our patronship. If everything goes well, meaning people are steadily joining our patronship, the free download will be continued. Otherwise, we may have no choice but to revert to the "three buttons" scenario, where the loving free download will be blocked in some less-than-pleasant way. I hope we can all work together to a brighter tomorrow.

See also

What are other software enhancement planned?

This is a place holder for new software enhancement planned.

Privacy filter.
Home automation platform integration -- Insteon, Vera, and OpenHAB
More simple way to support multi-monitor.
Recorded video together with real-time weather condition.
Vacation schedule for trigger policy.

How to activate Community NVR Software?

(To be written)

What does the "(in development)" mean in the rewards description?

The Patreon integration to Genius Vision NVR Community Edition is a fairly new development and direction of Genius Vision team. Some part of the rewards is still under development. The integration will be soon completed and be announced.

Please stay tuned.

If there are any input or questions, please utilize our chat room.

What does "Quota exceeded" mean in the Community NVR list?

It means the total number of "Enabled" NVR exceeds the quota specified in the reward structure. In order to fix this issue, you can either:

Increase your patron pledge.
Disable some of un-needed NVR records.

Introduction to Patreon-backed NVR Community Edition

There are mainly two ways to activate NVR Community license. Firstly, you can click the "Config System" button and navigate to "Community License Manager", as the screenshot below. You will be given the two options, as explained as follows.

If you want "free license" or "free trial", please use the "Activate Free Edition" button on the NVR software. Free license does not require any type of registration. Instruction about "free trial" is at:

Can I try for the patron rewards of NVR software functions before I pay?

On the other hand, if you want to extend Community Edition functions or capacity, you need to become our patron and pledge for a reward. This means you need to pay a small monthly fee, for the cause of supporting our creativity effort. In exchange, we will offer extended function in the software, as a reward. In this case, you can use the "Activate" button. Instruction to do this is available at:

How to pledge for rewards of extended NVR Community Edition through Patreon platform?

Following is a list of related topic below:

See also

Community NVR - TBW4

(To be written)

Community NVR - TBW4

(To be written)

Community NVR - TBW4

(To be written)

Can I try for the patron rewards of NVR software functions before I pay?

Sure you can. You will need to create a Patreon account first. Before actually becoming our paid patrons, we allow users to try for the patron rewards for 15 days. In this case, only one trial instance is permitted. After trial period expires, it automatically converts to free edition.

However, If you have already activated the free edition, this option will not be available. This is because you are considered "have tried" our software so it's time to pay. To re-enable trial on this occasion, complete removal of the software (including all its data) is necessary.

The steps of Patreon trial are as follows:

Step 1. Click "Config System." console button.

Step 2. Navigate to "Community License" Manager, Please click "Activate Free Edition".

Step 3. Your default browser will pop-up. Please choose second option "Activate Patreon-backed NVR Trial"

Step 4. You will be presented your current Patreon profile. Click "Activate Trial NVR License"

Step 5. Select your trial type and click "Confirm activation". That's done!

How to activate patron rewards in NVR Software?

Step 1. Click "Config System." console button.

Step 2. Navigate to "Community License" Manager, and choose to claim your patron rewards by clicking "Activate" button.

Step 3. You will be redirected to a login screen. Please select "Sign-in with Patreon".

Step 4. Click "ALLOW" for us to access your Patreon account information

NOTE!! If you have not yet become our patron, you need to do that first: Check
How to pledge for rewards of extended NVR Community Edition through Patreon platform?

Step 5. You will be directed to the list of your NVR definition. If it's the first time, you will be asked to create the first record. Just input a "User friendly name" and click Create.

Step 6. In the list, select the one NVR record you want and click Activate.

Step 7. When confirming, click Confirm activation.

Step 8. The webpage indicates completed successfully. Now switch to NVR software.

Step 9. In the NVR you can see the License Information is properly downloaded. Your NVR is ready to use.

See also

Can I activate the same NVR record (of patron rewards) on many different computers?

In patron rewards, one NVR record basically represents one single computer of NVR software usage. If you want to activate NVR software on multiple computers, you need to create multiple NVR records.

However, if for some reason the NVR installation must change, (for example, change computer, OS reinstallation, etc), we offer some extent of flexibility to this kind of reactivation, but it's not unlimited. The limit of the reactivation for a single NVR records is defined as follows:

A single NVR record can be activated no more than 4 times within 30 days and 6 times within 180 days. Both conditions must hold true for (re)activation to succeed.

How to activate NVR Community License?

Step 1. Click "Config System." console button.

Step 2. Navigate to "Community License" Manager, and choose either to use "Activate Free Edition" button, or claim your patron rewards by "Activate" button.

See also

I have a farm where Internet connection isn't always available, can I use Community Edition?

I have a farm where Internet connection isn't always available, can I use Community Edition?

The Internet connection is required for the first-time activation of license. After that, there is a certain degree of flexibility about this "occasionally connected" situation. Please check the following article for the required information:

Do I need persistent Internet connection to use Community Edition?

Do I need persistent Internet connection to use Community Edition?

Generally speaking, Internet connection is required for the activation of license. After that, the free edition has 180 days of validity. The software automatically renews the license daily, so there is no practical time limit for free edition. However, if the Internet is severed the software will not be able to renew the license so it will expire after last known validity date. This 180 days validity is just an initial value we set for now. Depending on how people will join our patronship, it can be extended to 365 days or even longer.

As for patron reward license, the validity is 5 days. It is defined so because a patron can cancel patronship at any moment. However if you are willing to pay a one-time-per-pledge PCL fee, it will be possible for you to use Community Edition in offline mode, for a long period of time. If you need to increase your PCL value, please contact us.

Also, these validity ranges are not hard limits. Please join us on the chat to provide your input. As long as we can keep up our revenue stream, anything is possible.

See also

What is Patron Credit Level (PCL)?

What is Patron Credit Level (PCL)?

Definition

Patron Credit Level, or PCL for short, is a per-patron attribute, designed to resolve the "offline license check" issue that many users have indicated. By paying a one-time-per-pledge PCL fee, a user can extend this PCL value, and therefore solve the "offline license check" issue, to some extent.

PCL itself is an integer value that can be roughly understood as the "number of future months" of license valid range before the user cancels patronship. All users' PCL value is initially zero. At the PCL=0 special case, the license will invalidate by itself if Internet cannot be reached within 15 days. If a user is a $P/month patron, by prepaying a one-time-per-pledge fee $P*N directly to Genius Vision, the user can increase N to his own PCL value. This PCL will remain valid as long the current pledge is valid. The moment a pledge is changed or canceled, the PCL associated with that pledge will be void. New pledge will need new payment to change PCL value. Currently, the maximum allowed PCL value is 30.

To apply for increase of your PCL value, please fill out this application form. We will be in touch shortly.

More detailed explanation

Following we explain more about PCL:

As one can probably picture, for the Patreon platform to be linked to Genius Vision NVR, as a license verification mechanism, then it's conceivable the NVR local installation must have a persistent Internet connection in order for this to work properly. This, however, will introduce the "offline license check" issue. For example, if a user has a farm located in the outskirt of the city, that only has "occasional" Internet connection, then online-license-check requirement might become a real problem.

To deal with this issue, we introduced a new attribute called "Patron Credit Level", or PCL for short. This PCL attribute is an integer value that can be assigned individually to each patron. This value can be roughly understood as "the number of months" the NVR software needs to check the license status with the server. To alter this value, a patron must pay an additional fee per pledge (not per month). Let's describe its use by an example:

Let's say there is a patron called Adam, who subscribed the $5/month starting from 2018/1/1. At first, Adam's PCL value is 0 (zero) like everyone else. Adam then downloaded NVR software and activated the license at 2018/1/2. When the license is initially activated, the valid range is 2018/1/2~2018/1/16, precisely 15 days of range. The new Community License scheme is designed to check license status with the server every day. So when the Adam's NVR continue to be running at 2018/1/3, the valid range becomes 2018/1/3~2018/1/17, and so on. As long as the NVR have a persistent Internet connection, it will be always running, until Adam (hopefully not) cancels the patronship. At the moment the patronship is canceled, the license subscription immediately terminates. So, if Adam chooses to terminate patronship at 2018/1/5, the NVR server will be able to run at latest to 2018/1/6, at which timing the NVR will have already checked with the server and find out that the license is actually invalidated, therefore NVR function will cease to work. Adam can, however, choose to sever the Internet connection of the NVR right before he cancels the patronship at 2018/1/5. At that time, the license status is still 2018/1/5~2018/1/19. So as long as Adam keeps the NVR from reaching the Internet, the NVR will continue to work to 2018/1/19.

In the above example, it shows that since Adam can cancel patronship at any moment, we have to treat Adam's credit level as zero. So as soon as Adam's patronship terminates, we want the NVR to cease to function as soon as possible. However, if Adam is willing to predeposit a credit level, this can be changed. This is where PCL (Patron Credit Level) come into play. Currently let us define that by prepaying N months of patronship directly to Genius Vision, the PCL value can be increased by N, only for the current pledge. If the pledge is changed or canceled, PCL will be voided. So following the example, if Adam pays PCL-5-months-fee, which is $5*5 = $25 directly to Genius Vision, Adam's PCL will be updated to 5 for the current pledge. Then, when the NVR license is activated at 2018/1/2, the valid range of the license will become 2018/1/2~2018/6/2. (Note this is an approximated example. We internally use 1 PCL=30 days. Here we use one month for easy-understanding). This means if Adam severs Internet connection and cancel patronship at 2018/1/5, the NVR will still be able to run to 2018/6/5. However, if Adam does not sever Internet connection, the NVR will still cease to function by 2018/1/6. Also, by canceling patronship, it will also make the previously paid PCL void.

We think it is a fair and cost-effective way to deal with offline license checking issue. This payment is one-time per pledge.

The maximum PCL currently allowed is 30. If more is required, please have a discussion with us.

How to pledge for rewards of extended NVR Community Edition through Patreon platform?

Step 1. Enter the Patreon platform Genius Vision, which is a popular platform for creative crowdfunding. Click "BECOME A PATRON".

Step 2. Select a patron pledge. To enable extended function, $5/month or above is required.

Step 3. Please complete the payment and go back to NVR

Contine your steps at: How to activate patron rewards in NVR Software?

See also

Does becoming a patron permits commercial use of Community Edition?

How to extend NVR Community Edition function through Patreon platform?

Extending the function or capacity of Community Edition is possible through the reward system by joining our patronship through the Patreon platform. We also allow you to try the rewards before actually paying.

Here is a brief overview of various layers of patronship. The free-tier is included for comparison. Detailed function matrix can be checked here. Also, there is definition about Patron+.

Free tier - Allows to use 2-Channels. Non-commercial usage only. Without Patron+ features.
$5+/month - Allows to use 4-Channels for single NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$6+/month - Allows to use 16-Channels for 3 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. Without Patron+ features.
$10+/month - Allows to use 16-Channels for 5 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$20+/month - Allows to use 16-Channels for 10 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$50+/month - Allows to use 32-Channels for 5 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$100+/month - Allows to use 32-Channels for 10 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$200+/month - Allows to use 64-Channels for 5 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.
$300+/month - Allows to use 64-Channels for 10 NVR server. Non-commercial usage only. With Patron+ features.

See also

What is "Patron+" features?

Comparison table between with Patron+ and without Patron+ features is as follows:

Feature	Without Patron+	With Patron+
Full remote control	Yes	Yes
Remote control through Internet Explorer	Yes	Yes
Multiple monitors	Yes	Yes
512x Smart Search	N/A	Yes
Central management system	N/A	Yes
Event and trigger rule management	N/A	Yes
Mobile apps	Yes	Yes
eMAP	Yes	Yes
Export to AVI	N/A	Yes
Software motion detection	Yes	Yes
Visual tamper detection	Yes	Yes
Object counting	N/A	Yes
Missing object / foreign object	N/A	Yes
Panoramic features	N/A	Yes

Community NVR Free Edition Activation

You reached this page because you are using Community NVR Free Edition Activation. To upgrade function or extend capacity, please check following links:

For technical support, please use forum at: https://goo.gl/XmdcQy

For a chat with us, please use Discord: https://discord.gg/YCfSPhU

See also

How to claim your patron rewards?

Thank you for becoming our patrons. Following is a list of topics showing how to claim your patron rewards.

Activating NVR software rewards

Firstly, please download the Community Edition NVR software following this post.
Install the software. You might need to know the default login at: What is the default account and default password?
After the Community Edition NVR software is properly installed, activate the rewards according to the instruction: How to activate patron rewards in NVR Software?

Download archived version of software

If you are a $10/month or above patron, downloading archived version of software becomes part of your rewards, as follows:

When I try to activate the license of the Community Edition, it shows as "INVALID"

The Community Edition, even when it is free, requires some hardware tokens for our license mechanism to lock on. One of the essential tokens to be locked on is the "hard disk ID". Without any detectable hard disk ID, the license mechanism may fail and therefore appear to be INVALID.

We found that some users put all hard disks under the RAID system, and some RAID does not support detection of hard disk IDs. As a result, the software licensing subsystem cannot find the essential token to be locked on. This could be the cause of the problem.

In order to resolve the situation, a workaround is to attach a physical disk directly to your computer (without being put under the RAID). Some users report adding a USB external disk also works, but we are not able to confirm it.

Android APP crashes a lot, can you fix it?

We found a major cause of Android crash is caused by problematic IP camera video bitstream (especially when processing of the bitstream require more memory than the phone has). Therefore the cause of the problem is not directly related to our software. Genius Vision was originally a piece of software that depends on a lot of third-party components to work properly. Therefore, when one encounters problems that manifest on the software level, we will be much appreciated if one does not try to blame the software first.

We understand that from the point of view of a user, they see the APP crash so it looks like a fault of the APP, however, please try to imagine and compare to this scenario: if you cut the network cable, the software will also stop working, and there is absolutely nothing we can fix in the software that helps with the severed network cable .

Genius Vision is a piece of professional software and require such knowledge to make it work. We understand it's a bit incompatible with the thinking of mobile APPs, but it's how it is. If users can try to understand that with limited CPU power both on Android side and NVR side, there is no chance that our software can " re-encode" the video bitstream. We have to accept the video bitstream as it is when it came out of the camera. Also, if the bitstream is originally damaged that causes the APP to crash, there really is nothing we can do.

Can I move Patreon license to another computer?

Patreon license of CmE NVR can be acrivated and reactived on different computers within certain constraints. One can "move" license within this flexibility, but not unlimitedly. The constraints are described as follows:

There's a limit count one Patreon NVR license record can be reactivated. It can be activated no more than 4 times within 30 days and 6 times within 180 days.

If you reach the limit for a single NVR record, you may consider to upgrade your Patreon level, where more Patreon NVR records will be available.

See also

Summary of Patreon-backed Community Edition Packaging

Community Platform Patreon platform upgrade

Background intro of Community Platform

Community Platform is an initiative to improve global IP camera compatibility. By sharing IP camera connectivity information, you can contribute to the IP video community to help everyone connecting to the same type of camera you're using. You also benefit from the knowledge shared by others. Visit our official website for more information: http://geniusvision.net/cp

Rationale of Policy Change

Use of the Community Platform will always be free. However, it takes human power to review user-submitted content. As the Community Platform has grown more and more popular, reviewing these changes takes significant human power. Some of the users may notice a prolonged waiting time before a change is approved by the administrator. This is because too many change requests has piled up in the queue, and we insist on maintaining the high review standard. Especially during these days, information such as default password could be used as an security exploit tool. We want Community Platform to be useful, but we don't want to be an accessory to cyber-crimes. Therefore, some measures need to be taken in order to offer more careful review process which is required to maintain the high quality standard of our Community Platform.

Policy Change

Starting from 2019/3/1, all change proposers need to have an active $5/month patronship established through the Patreon platform.

Note:

This does not guarantee your change proposal will be approved after you become one of the patrons. This is merely a simplified measure to reduce our reviewer's loading and to increase the barrier of change proposal submission. All change proposals are still under the rules specified at "Community Platform proposal and approval guidelines". Please read the rules carefully. If there are any doubts, please use the forum to discuss.
We cannot guarantee review timeframes at this particular moment (even if you think you may have "paid" for the service). The fact is, becoming a patron does not mean you're purchasing for a service. It merely means that you are supportive of our causes, and we appreciate that, but it will not bend the rules that have been in the place for several years. Again, if there are any doubts, please use the forum to discuss.

See also