AndrisN

Dennis, I have that cam and the motion detection does work in daylight with the Matrix DVR. I had to set the zones rto exclude swaying tree branches and reduce the sensitivity by 1/8, but it catches my dogs running but very small birds in the distance seem not to set it off. I also have a more expensive superhad model and its even more solid. But at night all bets are off (althought the superhad has much less noise), like I said I will use PIRs with alarm recording at night.

34Ford, I have 2 of the Clover color ir cams and they work ok with motion detection in daylight outdoors. I did have to adjust the zones to get tree limbs out etc. There is still some residual triggering sometimes that I can't figure out , but acceptable to me. At night, when they haven't yet switched to ir, the low light speckling/shimmering sets the MD off all the time so I switched to continuos slow frame rate recording and intend to use stand alone ir detectors to trigger the alarm input. When the cams are in ir mode I find the illumination by the LEDs are poor. The only good one is the cam with lots of LEDs but it also has the Sony superHAD chip which has excellent color anyway. Some SuperHAD cam descriptions mention digital signal processing capabilities to clean up the picture, this also stops the speckle/shimmer. Don't know if DSP part of SuperHAD or an add on. SuperHAD has a substate that bleeds off some static charge on the chip that causes noise in ordinary CCDs. Have decided to give up on cams with ir illuminators and just have superHAD cams. Can't locate any inexpensive EX-View. A SuperHAD at Sams is the Lorex $83, I am waiting for this one.

34Ford, yesterday I was at a SamsClub store and they had a Lorex 4 channel recorder w/80 gigabyte removable disk for $299. No internet connection but it did have better controls in front than the Clover 4010. It also had a remote control so you wouldn't have to sit right in front of the TV to control replay. About a year ago I remember spending $299 for a timelapse VCR (which served me well), this Lorex DVR is billed as a VCR replacement. By the way, I remain satisfied with with my Matrix DVR, returning the Clover was the right move for me. One more caution about SamsClub.com, I ordered their outdoor Clover EX-View cam but they shipped a superHAD, don't know if it was a pick/ship mistake but I returned it - also the lens fogged up (internally) overnight at 40 degrees - so much for 'outdoor'. It seems the hardware prices are dropping all the time but the setup and install complexity remains constant, so the business of selling and installing these systems should boom as these systems become affordable to a wider audience.

34Ford, I just when thru the exercize of buying the Clover 4010 thru SamsClub ($533) and returning it. The major problem was the motion detection which was terrible. The controls were awkward, especially replay. I got a Matrix E0400 from PolarisUsa ($538) and its a world of difference. The added features: 32 (or so) zones in each cam for motion detection, shuttle/jog control for zipping/reversing playback and a remote control for all configurations. Also the Matrix records one audio channel whilst the Clover records none. Remote login is limited to one user at a time in both systems, the Clover system seemed very slightly more resistent to dropping the connection, the Matix is solid in quad mode, not so solid in mux mode. Went thru some cameras and now conclude that Sony ExView is best, Sony SupperHAD if very good and all other color cams bad at low light even with night vision switching. The LED's (even many of them) only light up a small area, since my use is for outdoors I'm better off just with some low wattage night lighting. Rory's posts were right on about this subject and I have gone bac and reviewed more of his posts and now understand them better.

Rory, yes, the colors are slightly off, but pleasingly so, with the grass a little greener and the gravel driveway pebbles a little bluer than real life. Somewhat nicer than the non-superHAD where the colors washed out sooner as the light dimmed. And much better than the CMOS I started experimenting with where non-plant colors at least were there (even if not accurate) but plants had their own non-colored whitish hue (from the IR sensors running in daylight?). I thought Exview was better IR sensitivity for B&W ?

I just returned the Clover DVR system and ordered an E-400-DVR (Matrix) from Polarisusa. Almost same price and much more configuratable. In reading the spec for the Matrix it became apparent how pathetic the Clover DVR was. I just assumed that SamsClub would have the best value (performance/price) because thats their speciality, low selection but high value, how wrong I was in this case. The Clover OEM Sony 1/3 " SuperHAD with 40+ LEDs arrived and has a much better picture both in bright and dim light (vs. the Panasonic 1/4") but its still useless at night . It does cut out the low (or no) light speckling/shimmering (as I read in astronomy forums the SuperHAD was developed to do) but it does not really show much in the supposedly illuminated area. Since its a wide angle (92 deg.) I am not really surprised, but maybe the LEDs will keep it from freezing during our mountain winter nights.

I recently bought and installed the Clover CDR4010 from Sam's Club along with Clover cameras 2 B&W and 2 Color (1/4 " CCDs w/nite vision by Panasonic). I had been using a laptop w/Safeworld software and 2 USB2 video converters with webcams pointing out the windows. Webcams are built for indoor light, outdoor shots are often too bright (tried many cams). Also my wife objected to the constant flux of wires underfoot as I experimented etc. So I decided to invest in something more substantial and decided on this Clover system. Clover : the controls are straightforward but really too spartan, menu choices are yes/no/up/down/next/back - many clicks or button pushes to do anything. A lot of time recording slots, weekdays, sat, sun, holidays with several slots each day, good for programming optimal disk use for a business but irrelevant for home security. Motion detection is flakey - sometimes minor change in cloud cover sets it off, people or cars have to move rapidly, dogs have to really run. At less than maxumum sensitivity its poor, maybe it would work well in a building lobby where people could loom large in a camera, its not reliable at all outdoors. With Safeworld s/w I could set a % movement until I got slightly more than I needed, with Clover I am always seeing myself walking then vanishing then appearing ten feet further on. I am working on installing PIR detectors to trigger the alarm recording to make up for it (any inexpensive wireless recomendations?). The network connction is fine when not recording, but drops in recording mode when there is too much activity, I think the CPU is underpowered. The browser interface is click for click the same as the front panel buttons, with labels misspelled (ALRAM for ALARM), and the same tedious menu structure. The recording is solid, no artifacts of other problems. I tried to contact Clover USA about a possible software options to increase sensitivity but their site rejects the email address they publish for tech support. Summary, its probably good for a business recording a lobby and exit door, I don't recomend it for seeing whats happening outside a house. I just lost a cat to a coyote and hoped to be able to record critters prowling on our acreage. BTW, the B&W cameras are not very good a night (the color cams are worse) - they see only a small spot where the 8 LEDs illuminate, so I orderd a Sony 1/3" super HAD w/tons of IR LEDs to see if its any better.