FranciscoNET

Understood, this person will be a Self-Employed Sales Agent. She will not be promising any money outside what I will tell her to say. Plus, I am thinking of designing graphical flyers with price estimates that she will have to show to customers as part of her presentation. I do not foresee her inventing a different price other than what will be discussed with me. <---> or I might rather just take care of all pricing situations when the customer gives me the call and explains to me what they want and then I get to physically see the customer, survey their place and THEN tell the customer a price. Using this model, I only have to design a presentation that I will show her to get my customer initially exited about the service. There are many different ways that I might proceed with this plan, I will take user experiences as they post here under account to dictate who best I shall proceed in such a way that will guarantee that my "Self Employed" agent gets the highest quality prospects as possible. That is an excellent idea, currently I have been dealing with my contract sheets in a non NCR way, but NCR would make me look more elegant, will take a close look at it.

hi at 10% there is just no money in it. you will then loose money. your biggest problem is she has no experience of sales ........ or design. Are you saying that 10% is not enough money to pay for someone to refer me paying customers? If she refers me a job that paid $1,600 she will earn from me $160 and if she does things right, she can refer to me multiple paying jobs per day, so that's 160 times jobs per day, thats alot of money that she will be earning that she didn't had before. About that I will lose money, you have to keep in mind that she will only get paid if the customer she referred to me ends up being a paying customer and only 10% of the contract value. She will not get paid for customers that ends up NOT being paying customers. Please elaborate how I would then lose money?

Hi, As a system builder, I can probably tell you what is going on. On your shop it freezes (with all cameras connected) after 30 minutes of operation, but in your house (assuming without any cameras connected) it runs OK and doesn't freeze. This could be a number of issues here: Assuming it only freezes when all cameras are connected AND recording could tell that there could be a problem with the recording hard drive, and if the recording hard drive is the same hard drive where the operating system in installed, only separating the two with two partitions setup on the hard drive (one for the operating system+program and the other for the videos/recordings), if this is the setup, if the hard drive is not that good and it freezes because of heavy I/O activity, it will take the operating system as well, thus freezing the system. But here's the problem, this type of failure is typically followed by a Blue Screen of Death (because the operating system can read or write to important system files, etc) ^--- but you state that the dealer performed a benchmark, which I shall also assume that he did at least performed a SMART hard drive test followed with some what a semi extended hard drive checks which most likely turned up OK for he to tell you the system is fine. So, I would have to assume that the hard drive is not the problem here. The fact that the system freezes dead frozen, assuming that not even the mouse pointer moves on the screen could also indicate problem with the motherboard. The vendor could have used a cheap motherboard on you (I am only assuming here) and it could be based on the cheap VIA chipsets which is typically NOT recommended for a DVR production setup. Also, the motherboard could have bad capacitor(s) which is known to cause the system hangs that not even the mouse pointer will move, the BSOD (blue Screen of Death) wont even appear because I/O processes has come to a complete halt. What I would do is I would open up the system, use a flashlight, and see that no capacitors are bulging Take a look at the following example: http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/ka7/index.html (coutesy of badcaps.net) The piles of blue components that you see between the AGP port and the Pink Bulky parallel Printer Port are capacitors, please notice the top of these capacitors, some of them are bulged (as in Cone Shaped -- NOT flat) while some of them are flat. If you see ONE, and I mean ONE capacitor on your system motherboard that looks bulged, or like the example that I shown you on the above picture then you should take the system back to the shop, but this time, do not ask for a repair, because the shop owner had already their opportunity to check the integrity of the system and missing/overlooking bad capacitors is a huge turn off and speaks volume of the system builder, this time, ask for a full refund and purchase your system on another dealer. You claim that power spikes could be the cause of the issue, but most power supply units on Computers are regulated. Regulated means that it is tolerant to voltage fluctuations. In my house, I have a PC DVR that I assembled my self, and I used a Regulated Power Supply Unit manufactured by Thermaltake, 650Watts, and 2 months ago I had a brownout, when it happened, I took my volt meter, put it in AC mode and inserted the probes into my house's wall outlet to measure the voltage, and it went down from the standard 125.6 Volts AC that I normally get to 68 Volts, and guess what, my DVR what still up and running, all monitors, including my flat panel TV with cable box, my cable modem was fully operational. The only thing that failed to work was my refrigerator, because it requires no less than 92 volts AC for the compressor to start. Regulated power supply unites are very tolerant to a degree for plus and minus voltage fluctuations. if it doesn't go too overboard, then your PC DVR shouldn't fail. Another possibility could be faulty or crappy DVR PCI/PCI-E card being used. Again, your vendor probably checked on this before he gave you the OK that everything was working normally. I am always very meticulous on the components that I choose when I am designing my PC Based DVR servers, that's probably why none of them have failed since when I began building them on 2007. The motherboard that I have always used is the Intel Desktop Board, chipset is always Intel. Power supply unit is always Thermaltake 650W (way more power delivering potential than what is actually being consumed) to ensure that PSU will never be an issue. For the hard drives, I am under the impression that Seagate makes the best durable drives, as I was having issues with Western Digital Drives on the earlier years when I began my CCTV business. Therefore, all my drives are Seagates, 5 year manufacturer's warranty. You know that hard drives are sold with different warranty levels, starting from 1, 2, 3, and 5 years, if the manufacturer tells you that it has a 1 year warranty, dont go after that drive, and dont expect that drive to last 3 years either, it called planned obsolescence . Because I want the hard drive to barely be an issue with all my installations, I like to stick with 5 year warrantied seagate hard drives. I have made the observation that alot of installers use cheap components, I am called so often to perform complete system replacements to an installation that was performed by someone else about 6 to 10 months ago that keeps on failing, I see that a combination of bad capacitors, cheap hard drives, extremely cheap power supply units (#1 reason) are the majority of the root cause of the failures on systems less than 1 years. If you want, you can take the system back, tell the shop that the same problem is persisting. Ask for a new system. If the problem persist with the new system take the new system back to the vendor and get a refund, if the vendor wants to checkout your shop, then wait for that, but failing that ask for a refund. Don't wait past the vendor's refund policy (typically 14 to 30 days), and you might want to verify what warranty period the system has in the even you decide to stay with the system because vendor sorted out the problem.

and end up with a system that only does 6fps ... how does that blow away 30fps ? The DVR cards that I use is classified as "Real Time", the 4 CH version can do 120fps and the 8CH version can do 240 (30fps per channel). The choice IS there, I just, by default, design all my DVR's to record 6 frames per second, and no, its not 3 frames per second, there is a slider on each channel that I can use to select between 1fps to 30 fps, I just move the slider to 6fps. I will soon be posting a youtube video so you can see how 6fps on my DVR looks like. that would be six images which works out as 3fps (frame not field) or ips Nope, not 3 fps, this is not one of those DVR cards where you select 15 fps and you end up getting 7.5fps or 6fps and you end up getting 3fps. In my end, if you select 6 fps, you will get 6 real fps, if you were to frame pause, you will need to skip 6 real fps before the second jumps to the next, you actually get to see 6 movements, not 3. Come again? How do you figure that? I know, I am known to taking loooong brakes on forums and returning back when I remember about it. It is because of my long busy schedule in operating a 'one man operation' in my CCTV and computer repair business where I am the one who designs and do everything with absolutely no help and no employees of any kind with the only exception of my father helping me from time to time when he is off of his job or on the weekends where he does not work. I have done over 170 different installation, mostly consisting of small 4 to 8 CH jobs. Interesting, so basically its like a Ram drive, but costs money. Yeah, its like ram drive, only that the operating system (Windows XP in the case when I use the i865 Intel Desktop Boards) and my DVR software is non volatile while any changes made (whether malicious or not) is volatile and subject to eradication on the next power cycle/reboot. Normally the DVR will do that. Or just write a simple VBscript and use Windows Scheduler to run it. Although every 24 hours is a little too much, You can safely run a Windows DVR for at least 7 days. Additionally since most breakins happen at night, I would suggest restarting it in the middle of the day, which also helps get faster attention for repair if it should fail to restart for whatever reason - unless you are awake at 4am. Yeah, I have been betting on nothing occurring within the 5 minutes that the DVR is down to system integrity checks. I have though of what you said, but the problem is that the customer will eventually forget why the DVR restarts it self in the middle of the day, and will chalk it off as the DVR having some problem which will make my name look bad because the customer will then think that the DVR that I installed him is defective. So, to avoid these possible issues, I selected a time where the business is closed and the owner is not there to see the DVR restarting and running disk checks/integrity tests. Again, you can write a simple VBscript to do all of this, or even a batch command file. Use the TaskKill and Shutdown commands, and the built in Windows Task Scheduler. The DVR software should really be doing this though. Visual Basic is not needed on any of my DVR, My DVR software doesn't require the Visual Basic runtime to run so I just remove VB support when I nLited the operating system, only left there the bare minimum required to explicitly run my DVR software reliably and networking support. Even Internet Explorer support is removed. In the end, my c:\windows folder ends up measuring 189MB and boots in 3 seconds (you get to see "Starting Windows XP" for a period of 3 to maybe 4 seconds before jumping to the splash screen and from there another 2 seconds to enter the desktop) The High Level programming platform that I use is called AutoHotScript and since I am very experience on the AHK syntax I prefer that over Visual Basic where I have little to maybe no experience over. This doesn't sound like a good idea - you could be loosing video, basically auto fix errors never works good with Windows chkdsk. If the disk is bad, then the disk is bad, no amount of chkdsk is going to save it. Sell the client an APC Voltage Regulator with every DVR, and that would help prevent hard disk errors. To prevent file corruption of open data, the data file must be closed (in this case a video file) and thats where a UPS with AVR would come in - however some software will check the previously opened data file/s and rebuild it properly on app startup so that's not even needed in many cases. The DVR software that I use will stop recording if encountered with a bad sector and the Disk error warning is too small for the customer to notice, specially if the monitor is not that huge and is up in the ceiling area, there is no option to further enhance the warning to make it more noticeable, that's the only complain that I have regarding this software. I have learned to mitigate this issue by doing a check disk scan when the DVR is restarted. That way, its only a "its working" to "its not working" affair. Since I know that hard disk total failure is imminent after it starts accumulating bad sectors, I want the next failure to be that noticeable so that the customer can call me and I get to show up to replace the hard drive. I do not want it to be a issue of the DVR not recording due to bad sector, the customer not noticing the Disk Error warning for like 2 months and THEN finally calling me because windows wont boot, to replace the hard drive. with this solution, I ensure that the DVR is recording down to the last usable minute. Thats always a good thing Thanks. When you make sure that critical parts that are most prone to failure is NEW, not Refurbishes or used, and comes with 5 year warranty (Hard Drive and Power Supply Unit) you will increase the chances of having a DVR that lasts for years to come. Motherboard choice also comes in handy, I chose to use the Intel Desktop Board because they make the most reliable and durable boards. My choices in graphics/chipset ranges from i865 when its a small job (4CH to less) and i965+ when its a 8CH or so. 7 days is fine with Windows XP. I agree with you, infact, my personal computer in my house is running Windows XP SP3 and has been running reliably for over 60 days already since the last time I did a restart. I never shut down my PC, I just lock the desktop (Windows Key + L) when I am done. The problem was you were buying cards from Ebay. So you buy all the computer parts, 2TB hard drive, 16 channel DVR Card, 750watt PSU, all for $400? Also how do you know it blows away any stand alone DVR? I can get a 16 channel stand alone loaded with features that is guaranteed stable and never needs a restart and that only takes 3 minutes to install at the client's location, for less than that. And this is coming from using features of GeoVision DVR cards. Yes, I know that my problem was that I was purchasing cards from Ebay. I just did not tolerated the high prices that these so called "reputable dealers" were charging, they wanted to eat over 80% of my profit margins if I went with them so I just kept on exploring. I know that many people here thinks that everything made in China is crap and of bad quality or pirated, but the reality is that in China there are good and bad just like in the USA there is good and bad too. The company that I have been purchasing my DVR cards for years is in China and they are a major manufacturer of DVR cards, they are reputable and constantly updates their software. When I begun with them, they were up to version 5.5, now they are up to version 10.6 With Windows XP/Vista and 7 support and I am very happy that I found them. 750 watt?? WHY?? That's a ridiculously huge PSU for a DVR. It is not needed. I purchase all of my PC parts from a major distributor in California, I pay wholesale price and a resale certificate is needed to purchase from them. a 750watt thermalake PSU only costs me $55 tax free where in BestBuy a 600W power supply unit would cost me $75 plus tax. I just dont want the power supply unit to be an issue, ever. I tend to go very high on what I really need, power supply unit never fails. Finally, just because its a 750W psu, that doesn't mean that it is consuming a nominal wattage of 750 all the time, it only means that it can supply UP TO 750w continuously. I estimate that my DVR doesn't go higher than 200W of power consumption at any time. Okay so you get an outdated 8 year old CPU and Mobo and memory for $65, I am not surprised then about the low cost. They dont make that hardware anymore so it has to be used or overstock. DVD burner is rarely used these days in DVRs by the way, all you need is USB in most cases. And there is no way on this God's earth that Windows 7 will run stable on that system. I dont use Windows 7 on these motherboard, only on higher end motherboards for bigger projects where I can use my windows 7 licenses while I get to conserve my Windows XP licenses for the smaller projects for the i865 motherboards. The Intel Desktop Board i865 are listed as New Old Stock. I am surprised that my supplier list it with a 1 year warranty for an old stock product, I guess this speaks of good reliability of the product. This specific motherboard that I choose is very known to last for more than 5 years trouble free. Never had an issue with bad capacitors, north/south bridge failures, etc with these motherboards, THATS what I like about them and for as long as my supplier keeps on listing it there I will keep on buying them by the volume. And for what they give me for the motherboard, a 2.4GHz P4 CPU with heatsink, 512MB of DD1 (samsung and sometime Kinston) you can't beat that price, not even purchasing these 4 components individually). So, I guess I stuck gold twice, my 4CH DVR card that I costs me $35 + shipping from China, and the $65 motherboard/RAM/CPU kit, I couldn't be more happier. Actually your video is being converted to digital so there is processing even if it is just on the card. I guess you are right, there is processing done on the DVR card. All what I know is that these D1 images it is not being processed by the i865 graphics, it looks too good and very smooth and in real time for that kind of graphics processor. I take it that is 6fps due to PAL? I would agree that is fine in most applications, and it saves considerably on hard drive space. However it is nothing like real time, 20fps looks real time to the human eye, however its still not real time. 30 to 60 days can be covered with 20-30fps once you install the correct number of hard drives and sizes. well 20 fps requires me to shorten data retention by a factor a little over by 3. If I were receiving 90 days on a 2TB hard drive at 6 fps, I would be receiving 30 days, to make an example. Actually most would display a hard disk warning. Many utilize SMART and will deal with it appropriately. Additionally it can email you the error. It will also try to recover bad sectors. This is the same whether it is a PC or Standalone DVR. Hence, as with Windows, when the hard disk is bad, if it gets corrupt it will restart and try to recover on reboot. Another thing, with most stand alones the OS is not on the hard drive, it is embedded, so even if the hard drive fails, the system can still tell you there is an error. My software displays a "Disk Error" warning, but I complain that it is not too big enough and some customers might miss the warning all together specially those that are not checking too much on the screen. I needed to come up with a way to ensure that this POSSIBILITY wouldn't happen and one way was to running checkdisk scans upon each reboot. Actually, living here we deal with hard drive failures all the time, we have some of the worst electricity in the world - however Voltage Regulators help to prevent the failures (even had AVRs catch fire from power spikes). When the disk is failing though it will either freeze up or continuously restart - this happens regardless of a PC or Standalone DVR. Point being, I used PC DVRs for several years, and stand alones for even longer, and I dont see anything that sets them apart in this regard. One can run chkdsk until the cows come home but in most cases it wont actually do anything useful to save the drive or data. If anything it might block a bad sector but that is only prolonging the imminent total failure for a little while. And if it finds data in that bad sector the DVR software is hardly capable of using the unrecognizable pieces of data it spits back out into a filecheck format. Again that another nice pro of a stand alone embedded DVR, it will not hang in the bios if the hard disk fails, it may hang for a bit on start up trying to recover the disk and in SOME cases keep restarting but in the stand alones I use it will still startup into the embedded OS and at the least show there is a disk error or if you set it up, it can even email you the error. Heck I ran my stand alone DVR for 6 months with a failed hard drive, I simply set it to record over the network to my home PC. The key to having a durable hard drive in a DVR is by purchasing one that comes with a 5 year warranty, preferably from the brand Seagate. I would genuinely love to see a video clip from this super stable cheap PC DVR I will be posting videos on Youtube showing the DVR and the image quality it produces at 6 fps setting. [EDIT: formatting got a little messed up on the "/quote" tags, I dont have any more time to fix it up, so I will have to leave the post as it is, I apologize for that]

I have a PC card based system and I would not recommend it unless you like to tinker with computers. Adding in PC config details, OS stability issues and upgrades to the mix, etc isn't worth the hassle for most people. Actually you are wrong. Just because its a "PC Based" DVR it doesn't HAVE to be unstable. If you know what you are doing, you can make that PC based DVR even more stable and more reliable than those standalone DVR that will quit recording as soon as it stumbles with a bad sector on the hard drive. Here is my setup when I build PC based DVR for my customers: Faronics Deepfreeze is installed (license for that software is included on my final bill for customer). Deep Freeze will prevent any tampering with the DVR. I only instruct Deep Freeze to protect Drive C: where Windows is installed. The video partition is excluded because you dont want the recorded videos to be wiped out when the PC is restarted. I also instruct Deep Freeze to restart the PC every morning at 4:55AM I programmed a MACRO application that takes care of properly quitting my DVR server application just before DeepFreeze triggers the auto system restart at 4:55AM. This ensure that data errors wont accumulate on the hard drive (incomplete video fragments) due to an improper software shutdown. I program another MACRO application with instructions to run a CHKDSK (CheckDisk) scan on the video partition with the /F paratemers (to fix any data errors and patch any bad sectors found within the used up data sections) and then once finished, to immediately start the DVR server software to start recording. With that said, I have yet to have a problem with any of my PC based DVR setups. My oldest DVR that I installed for a customer of mines has more than 5 years operating and the customer has reported that is has never frozen and that he has never has the need to restart the DVR for any reasons and the DVR has never stopped recording. With my setup, Microsoft Windows up-time is limited to a maximum period of 24 hours before a forceful restart happens. Since Microsoft Windows is known to have a very bad long up-time stability issue, that's why I limit up-time to no more than 24 hours. The DVR spends no more than 5 minutes of downtime while performing the CheckDisk to ensure that the integrity of hard drive is OK for the next day before resumming recording. Also, at first, years ago, when I first got into the CCTV industry, I had problems locating good affordable suppliers that offered DVR cards with good software that recorded not using proprietary videos format, this meant that I spent over $1300 dollars in purchasing more than 10 different DVR cards (on Ebay) before I finally found one that I felt comfortable and that it was not going to make my name look bad in front of my customers. During my (expensive) testing session, these cards were tested only at my office and house, all of them, with the exception of 3 of them recorded using any of the proprietary video formats (you know? the ones where the video file extension ends with something like: *.dvr, *.kv, *.vid) that can't be DIRECTLY played back with Windows Media Player by just double clicking it and that your DVD authoring software would not recognize, but it only could be played by the DVR's manufacturer's special playback software, which often times consisted of a very buggy executable that crashed about 35% of the time and that was the only way you could play these proprietary video files in any computers outside the main DVR server PC. What made this situation worse was that before I made each purchase on eBay for these cards that I tested, I sent a question to the seller to make sure that their cards didn't use proprietary video formats and each time I was answered with no, only to find out that the seller lied, and no mention of this was even stated on their advertisement. So, it took me purchasing over 10 different DVR card before I came accross one that ended up being super stable and records directly to a file that ends with *.avi that my DVD authoring software happily recognizes and most video playback software also plays them back which is good for portability, finally I was in business to start installing CCTV with my super stable solution, and to this day, it has really paid off. I have only purchased my DVR cards from this one supplier and I can tell you, right now, that my PC DVR is more stable and has functionalities that blows away any expensive high end stand alone DVR all while keeping all my costs below $400 for all parts that I use to build the PC. Just that I make sure that the power supply unit and hard drive is descent since aside from the DVR card, these two components are what brake down most often in a computer, so it is very common for me to install a 750W Thermalake power supply unit at a 2TB Seagate Hard Drive). Finally, as long as you are using an Intel Based Chipset motherboard, stability will remain with you since most of these DVR cards requires you to use a Intel based chipset motherboard. An Intel 865G has proven to be very stable and successful for me when doing small jobs, its a bugjet motherboard that costs me $65 and includes integrated video and for that prices they give me 512MB of DDR400 RAM, P4 478 CPU @ 2.4GHz and heatsink. That big chunk of component costing me a total of $65, all what I need is the hard drive, DVD Burner, PSU, Case, and of course the DVR card that I purchase now directly from the manufacturer in China and I have a cheap, highly stable PC-DVR. Sometimes I hunt Ebay for a used home edition Windows XP or 7 (if applicable) to save even on money, and the Deep Freeze License is simply passed on to the customer. So YES, it IS possible to have a highly stable PC-DVR system. You might be wondering why I sometimes use the video card (integrated) of i865G since that video processor is not that fast, and my answer is, since the software that comes with my current DVR cards passes directly, as overlay, without any special processing all video signals to the PC monitor, (see it as a virtual multiplexer), there is no video degradation, uncompressed and in full D1 while the part that is processed by the computer is the compressed *.AVI files that are recorded directly to the hard drive. So videos looks always smooth on screen for real time live viewing, even when viewing recording it looks smooth too since typically the customer playback one camera at a time, even playing back 4 cameras at a time looks smooth still. I have also made it a standard to record in 6 frames per second for each cameras installed. When played back, 6 frames per seconds looks like real time, you have to be paying special attention to notice that its not 30 frames per seconds, also that helps to save disk space and prolong data retention since in my area its very common for law enforcent/lawyers to send letters to some of my customers requesting some footage from 30 to 60 days ago for something that happened outside and a 6fps you are able to cover that. For those who dont have an ideal what 6fps is, just imagine taking 6 picture every seconds that pass by. at 6fps everything that happens is still guaranteed to be covered. Now, going back to the standalone DVR solution. If you use a standalone DVR and a bad sector just accumulated on the hard drive, the minute that your DVR reaches that bad sector it stops recording, and most DVR wont even display a warning showing that it stopped recording. Since its a stand alone DVR, you can't install any special software, or write a MACRO for the DVR to scan the hard drive for errors/bad sectors so that it can repair the hard drive and resume recording. Most often, the DVR stays quiely just displaying videos in real time and not recording for months and months until a crime happens and then the owner finally realizes that there are no videos recorded. At which point, the installer looses credibility, the customer finds another installer to install a new DVR/PC DVR in the hopes that this time the incident wont repeat it self. Because I am able to install custom programs and program MACROS on my PC based DVR because in essence its a fully functional computer system, that kind of scenario has never happened to me. for something serious to happen, the hard drive has to fully fail, which it will become very noticeable, as the PC stays on the BIOS complaining that the hard drive has failed, etc for which the customer calls me and I go there right away to replace the hard drive, but I dont loose the customer because of some DVR's not recording for ages. So: PC-DVR + Stable DVR Card + Deep Freeze (or even Steady State [free alternative]) + MACRO to check video partition daily with daily reboots = a super stable PC-DVR that beats the crap out of any standalone DVR and a happy customer.

Hi, I have purchased alot of these QX2006 8CH DVR Cards from Ebay about 1 year ago. Now, the problem is that, even tho its a great card, has a very nice motion detection sensors that works really well with about 1% or less of false positives per day and a great remote viewing app, it has a display resolution of 640x480 per channel, BUT a recording resolutoin of 352x288 MAX per channel. Now, the thing that I dont understand here is: If this 9bit Phillips card itself can process and send 640x480 VGA videos to my computer's RAM for then to be processed by my CPU and then finally be sent to my display screen and the software is receiving these live feeds directly from my DVR card, then WHY can't the software also RECORD in that same quality? I have 3 D1 quality high resolution cameras in my house, BUT I am only recording at 352x288, thats insane! Who uses QVGA (320x240 ~ 252x288) now these days??? As a result, I am not getting the quality I am looking for, people's faces look kind of blurred, sometimes you MIGHT be able to get a positive identity, depending now far the person is from my cam. (I had to even put a 12MM (zoom) lens to cam#2 in my main outside camera pointing directly to my outdoor entrance main door fence just to increase the positive identification of anyone that passes at that point, in assitance to my other camera (#1) with a 90 degree lens covering the whole area of my garage and street view) I have downloaded a couple of different drivers, such as: Phillips SAA7134 (supposely it is compatible with most of the phillips based DVR cards and turners out there) I installed it and the driver starts up the device successfully, but then when I download a simple application such as AMCAP to see if the video feeds can be seen by that app, nothing shows, just a black screen even though AMCAP successfully identifies my "phillip" video device. So far I have not been lucky in getting a third party "generic" software in working with my DVR card. I need a software that can record in VGA mode to take full advantage of my DVR card and, or course the high resolution capabilities of my cameras. Here is a bit of information regarding what came with my "QX2006" DVR card: the driver file is: QX2006.SYS the information file is: QX2006.inf" these are the two files I need to install the driver for each channel. The main executable of the DVR software is: QX2006.EXE The software does have quality controls settings, such as High Medium Low I have set it to High, compression bit rate I set it to the highest one I find. For this crappy software, High settings means 352x288 and low means something like 160x120 I have struggled in also finding other DVR cards in many sites, also in ebay that records in 640x480 VGA resolution, but so far I have not been pleased with the results, the price is so prohibitive (higher than $800 for 4 CH). While the cards that I have I paid $99 for them. Can any 1 help me find a good compatible software so I can take full advantage of my VGA card so I can RECORD IN VGA? (not just display?) Thanks!

Try opening the videos with VirtualDUB and then save it again under a different file name. If it works without crashing VirtualDUB, then you can import the resulting video files to Adobe Premier and do your compilations there successfully. Be sure to select an appropriate compression codec in VirtualDUB otherwise you will end up with one super LARGE video uncompressed when saving with VirtualDUB An alternative method you can use, but time consuming since its done in real time, is to use a screen capture video software, like CamStudio which is freeware, to video screen capture the videos as you play them back, select your desiged FPS (frame per second) for CamStudio, codec and quality) then you will have a good copy of a video you can use for adobe premier.

Hi, I know that it might be too late for your reply given that you asked your question a few months ago. But I will post this for future reference and in case if another member is facing a similar situation like yours, and even for your self to reference in the future. When dealing with stand alone DVR that records in a proprietary format, whether its .dav .dvr , etc and the user wants a format in standard industry format that is as crisp and clear as the video shown in a proprietary format, I like to use a freeware program called CamStudio. Install CamStudio in your Windows based PC, then copy the *.dav proprietary video file into the computer, then use the manufacturer's windows based video player for your *.dav video file and open up the file to confirm it plays. Open up CamStudio, go to the settings, select your quality and prefer codec to encode your videos (it will detect any codecs you have installed in your PC as available codecs, if you have crappy ones only, then download and install K-Lite codec pack which is another freeware, comes with great codec for high quality video processing), now, back to CamStudio, press then Record button, the mouse cursor will change to an X cross so you can select which portion of the screen to record, just drag the X cursor matching the video dimension as shown by the proprietary program, after letting go of the mouse CamStudio will begin recording the screen only your selection area, immediately press play on your proprietary program to playback the video. What this will do is the following: as the proprietary video is being played back through the proprietary software, CamStudio is recording it, when you are done, just press the Stop button on CamStudio, then save the video. Your saved video will be saved in a *.avi format that can be opened even from Windows Media Player. The format will be so standard that even Linux users will be able to open it, in essence, it will be just like any other regular video files and best of all, this will eliminate the pink band on the button of your video caused by an apparent bug in the *.dav to *.avi conversion process. I have helped numerous people export videos into *.AVI format matching original video quality and resolution. Resolution will be in terms of screen selected pixels, so make sure the original video is sized appropriately to allow at least 704x520 recording if they are full D1 files, otherwise you can just re-size for 352x288 if the original is CIF quality (most proprietary software size up correctly when playing back the video, so this will certainly not be an issue most of the time) When I install CCTV systems, I always like to think for the future scenarios the customer might be faced, not only the "shininess" that the customer is seeing on day 0, that is why I make sure that the DVR server I am installing does not record into a proprietary format, I make sure that the format that it is always recording is either *.avi or *.mpg and the ONLY trans coding that I will ever have to make for selected video files is when transcoding the *.avi to *.vob files to they can be played back naturally in any standalone DVD players (just like any regular DVD video "movie"). Manufacturers that only design their stand alone DVR's to record in any of the "stupid" formats like *.dav, *.dvr and others are only giving customers "future headache", its a design flaw in part from the manufacturers and in this area is where I see many CCTV installer failing miserably. When I first got into the CCTV business a few years ago, I immediately recognized the dangers of dealing with these types of formats (and the potential trouble this could caused the installer if they fail to retrieve/convert the format to a standard industry format) and chose not to use them. This decision of mines have not resulted in any quality loss of the videos and the videos are already in a *.avi format when ever the customer needs them, (if the cops does not need a "DVD Playable disc", then its just a matter of dragging the videos to a windows CD recorder software, and just hitting "burn cd" and in 2 minutes the CD-R is ready, If I had to go to the place to assist my customer in this task, my stay will never be longer than 10 minutes, thats the beauty of installing systems that records directly in a standard video format straight from the get go. As of now, I have yet to find a Stand Alone DVR that records directly to *.avi or *.mpg standard format without having to go through a conversion process in order to get them into this format, for this reason, I have resorted to building my own PC based DVR server each time I have a new job as this is the only way I get to offer a DVR that goes according to my strict policy of "no proprietary videos what so ever". If you or any one knows of any stand alone DVR that records directly in to *.avi please let me know, if would be a great choice addition for my business.

Hi, I am in search of a "Universal Remote Software" that is compatible with Multiple Server DVR Software's Remote Video Transmission. Here is my scenario: I have dealt with three different DVR cards with totally three different DVR servers and I would like to have just ONE remote software that can accept videos remotely from all of these remote softwares. Another scenario that I Have here is that I install a CCTV system to one of our customers, and the later on he tells me that he has another place with an existing system already running GeoVision (that some one else installed 1 1/2 years ago), but on the secondary place I didn't use GeoVision, I used my software (QX-DVR) for the server, now he has to use two remote software, one to view his GeoVision videos and the other to view my software's videos. He wants me to find out if its possible to consolidate his different brand DVR servers into ONE Universal Remote Software that is capable of connecting to his GeoVision DVR server and my QX-DVR Server? Perhaps can the GeoVision Remote Viewer software itself be able to connect and accept videos from Non-GeoVision system? I see that when I get to the screen to input the IP address, it asks me for the connection port number which is a good sign so far, when I enter my DVR server's IP address with the connection port I dont get "unble to connect" error message, it seems that it may have connected to this non-GeoVision system, but no video from the non-Geovision DVR shows up on the screen. Thanks.

No Soundy, what I mean is a remote client program that allows users to watch all of their cameras simultaneously in one screen from different card brands. Here is an example: At my house I have a DVR server based on the QX-2006 software (Uses the Xvid codec), and this software requires a player called "XNetClient" to be able to view its cameras remotely, and this server uses ISP IP address (example only) 2.40.45.88 to broadcast its videos. At my business I have a DVR server based on the DigiVue software (Uses the Divx Codec), and this software uses a player called "ClientMain" to view the cameras remotely. Then, I decide to go for a vacation and I take my laptop with me, and if I want to check on my house I have to execute the "XNetClient" for me to be able to do so, and if I want to check on my business I have to execute the "ClientMain" software for me to do so while I have XNetClient" minimized. The problem with this is that I wont be able to see images from both locations at the same time. If I try your book marks technique from the web browser I would have the same problem as I would have to alternate between two bookmarks to switch places (or be dealing with two different tabs on my browser for this). I want to know if there is a universal DVR remote software that will allow me to see all of these cameras from my two places simultaneously in one screen. If I have 8 channels at my house and 16 channels at my business, I would like to have 24 channels being displayed on my screen displaying in total all these cameras. That should be a matter of only telling that software the port number of the server, control port #, IP address of each server, etc and it should connect and display video streams from the server regardless which brand and DVR card is being used on the server. Is this possible with any software out there? I have tried GeoVision's remote application that I was able to download off the web with no success despite of IP addresses and port numbers being set right for the servers, and I have tried like 3 other remote software from other DVR software developers and it looks like if its not connecting to a DVR made by them, it wont work, no matter if I set the port right for a particular server.

You may be dealing with a proprietary format that cannot be opened by anything else but the DVR it self where the video was recorded. Try the following: 1. Download K-Lite Video Codecs and install it on the computer you are trying to view the video. 2. Open the .ADV file using Windows Media Player, if that fails, then try to open it again, but this time with K-Lite's enclosed Media Player Classic program, if that fails then proceed to next step. 3. Rename the .ADV to .AVI and then see if you can view the video. Some users here say that they had some success by simply renaming the file extension, if the video does not play after renaming it to .AVI be sure that you had installed the K-Lite video codecs in FULL as any of those codecs on that pack may help you out. 4. If you still not able to playback the video at this time, is because the .ADV file is genuinely encoded into a proprietary format meant with intention of nothing else being able to open it. If that's the case, see if you are able to open it on the DVR, if the DVR is still working you may have to do a "manual export", you will need a VCR or a computer with a video capture card, connect the video output of the DVR into that external video capture device and as you playback the video on the DVR press Record on the VCR (or start Capturing the video on the Computer). That way you will have something that can be opened up anywhere. If the DVR is busted and you dont know the name brand of the DVR, you are then on a difficult situation. You will need to take a look on the back of the DVR for any sticker possibly identifying the manufacturer because you need to know who manufactured the DVR so you can go to the website and download their particular player software that would playback these .ADV files.

Hi, I came to this forums long time ago in search for a DVR card that records in true D1 resolutions, but at that time, the few *aceptable* ones that I found were too over priced. Maybe now new brands/prices has dropped and new supported brands are even introduces into the market so I will try again since I am trying to leave the CIF 352x288 outdated resolutions in favor of 704x756 WITHOUT sacrificing a few GOODIES that I have been enjoying with the currents CIF cards I am currently working with. Here is what I am looking for * Card should record at full D1 resolution. * software should record in a file extension ending in *.avi or *.mpg to the hard drive (without having to deal with converting videos in order to get that resulting video format). All those other software that records in a format such as *.dvr, *.BIM (like the Kodicoms), *.dat and others not standard video formats does NOT qualify my business. In other works, if Windows Media Player doesn't understand the file formats, if my Nero Vision DVD Video Disc creator cannot parse the video created by said software, it does NOT quality my business as its VERY important that software like NERO Vision can read the DVR recorded videos for my case. Currently, when I need to burn an evidence to a DVD playable disc, this is what I do: I open up My Computer, I go to the partition that I have designated all videos to be saved (Drive E: in my case), I go to the folder matching the date, then the folder matching the channels, then I select as many videos I want to include in my burn job and select "COPY". Then I start NERO Vision and select "Create DVD Video", then on the box I select "PASTE". After transcoding the .AVI videos into .VOB MPEG2 DVD format, then it burns the DVD discs that the police can easily play back in a court in the TV they got at the Jury room. All what they have to do is pop in my DVD into their DVD player, press Play, and that's it. Pretty much easy, right? Well exactly this I would like to be able to do, but with that other software at D1 resolutions. At CIF resolutions, sometimes its very VERY hard to get a positive facial identification, specially if the subject is a little too far away from the camera(s), and having 600TVL cameras here at my places it would make much sense to switch to full D1 recording resolutions as that would greatly help. (I have been combating the quality of the video by not compressing the videos too much to make them look as cinematic as possible, but STILL 352x288 pixels is still 352x288 pixels and no matter how I optimize the settings, I am still bound by the CIF limitations). In the past, we have spend a great deal of money purchasing a few cards, mainly off Ebay, that records in D1 resolutions only to find out that we dont like the software, therefore these cards are sitting at my drawer doing nothing. EVERY card that we have purchased that records at anything higher than 352x288 stores their videos in any one of the above mentioned PROPRIETARY video formats crippling the functionality of my DVR server. While it is true that some of these software comes with a "converter" to convert their .dvr video file into an .avi it does so reducing its quality to 320x240 leaving me back to square one, with the added pain of waiting 30 minutes to even hours for larger videos to finish 'converting'. So, we do not want to deal with that kind of hassle and special not-standard-video-formats, so this means NO Kodicom (that currently records in *.bim files), and no a few others I have tried already. So, I would like a list of DVR cards I can try that meet my specifications. Thanks to all in advance!!

No kidding. Well, I guess the customers get what they pay for, too - when their vendors sell them systems built on pirate cards and $60 eBay specials, that's what they're gonna get. While its true that pirated software tends to be unstable as in "Tranquilino's" example here, in my case I dont deal with pirated software, at least I haven't got any evidence pointing to QX-DVR being pirated, and definitely DigiVue is not a pirated product either. The point is that if you go the Microsoft Windows way, at some point you HAVE to restart your DVR, since there is no such thing as a really long UPTIME when your operating system is Microsoft Windows. I am almost guarantee you that if your Windows based computer has been on straighup for maybe like 20 to 40 days you WILL have to restart it. The only operating system that I know of that is capable of having such as great deal of UPTIME in excess of 300 days straight up without requiring A SINGLE RESTART is Linux, so no matter HOW shinny and perfect your Windows DVR software is, is only a matter of time before you HAVE to restart it because of any reason(s) (maybe such as GDI32.exe, RunDLL.exe, Explorer.exe crashed?? <-- these are strictly windows components that EVERY windows installation has, if any one of them stops responding chances are that you may have to restart your box to ensure continued stability). So a good GeoVision or Avermedia's software can't magically make Windows more stabler than Linux, inpossible. That's why a person may rely on scripts like mines to ensure that a Windows box is that reliable to have it on for all year long and just "forgetting" that DVR there, and still find it recording perfectly well after the year's over.

There are plenty of other legit cards and software made in China, but for some, it's a lot less effort to tweak someone else's, thus gaining the benefit of their name. Well, you've already bought it, so you might as well keep using it, if you want - NOT using it won't change things at this point, other than maybe addressing your stability problems. But yes, any software and drivers that work with those chipsets should work with the card. Tranquilino, if you do decide to continue using these cards I have a few tips for you that will help you at least maximize stability. Since on your previous posts you mentioned that the software will get frozen like in a week or two of the DVR UP TIME, then you may want to consider automating a system restart once every 3 days (or once everyday if you want). You can start by opening up notepad and typing the following there: shutdown -r -t 15 -c "Restarting DVR for Maintenance Free Operation" then click on SAVE, on the save field type the following: *.* then press enter (this will enable you to save notepad documents in any extension of your choice) then just give it any file name (but it has to end with .bat), example: c:\restart.bat (the "c:\" part will save the DOS batch script on the root directory of Drive C, you can see it by opening up "My Computer" and entering Local Disk C:, there will be that file). Then open up Scheduler (Start > Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks) and create a new scheduled task pointing to c:\restart.bat with instructions to execute it every day at 5 in the morning. You will need to have a password protected XP user account before you are able to create scheduled tasks, if you do not have a password protected user account then create a new user account. Example: create a user account named "tasks", and set a new password for that account (example password: psswd09), at this point you will have two user accounts in your welcome screen which may prevent automatic logins, to set automatic login for the main user account you use for the DVR just download TwealUI (google it) and set your desired XP user account to autologin every time you start the DVR (dont forget to set your correct password (if any)for that account to autologin, if it does not have a password, still click on the password but, but on the password field leave it blank and press OK, this will tell TweakUI that the account to be set for auto login does not have a password) Then, go back to Task Scheduler and create that task to set c:\reboot.bat to start every day at 5AM or every 3 days at 5AM and on the User Name field type the password protected user name you created for this purpose. example: Tasks Then on the password field for that user account type the password you created for it. My Example: psswd09 then press OK, if no errors showed up then the tasks has been created successfully. To test it right click on your new tasks and then click on Run (make sure your DVR software is running at this time to make sure that Windows has no problems closing it down), the watch and see if windows is able to close your DVR software successfully and see if your system restart. If it does restart then you are set, and you have converted a unstable version of the program into a very stable environment since uptime will be limited to 23.59 maximum hours or 3 days (which ever one you decided to use), there should, at this point, be no reason why your DVR should hang anymore. Now, there is some, badly written DVR software that simply doesn't like Windows closing it down and will get deeply frozen, if that is the case for your software, then there is one more step you need to ad to your automatic restart wheel, you will need to use a program called AutoHotKey (so google it and download it, its freeware), then use AutoHotKey record program to record your move as you prepare to manually exit your DVR program. When the Record program start, dont click on the red "Record" button yet, but maximize your DVR software and make sure its running in the same way and style it looks by default when the software is first ran (the AutoHotKey Recording window will always be the top most window, so dont get worried about it being hidden by your DVR software), at this point then click on the red "Record" button from AutoHotKey recorder, now AHK is recording and watching every mouse click's screen position, at this point start the closing procedure of your DVR software, when your DVR software has successfully exited, then click on the STOP button to stop AHK recording your mouse clicks, at this poing you should see something like this, example: WinWait, QX-DVR - Module-1 IfWinNotActive, QX-DVR - Module-1, WinActivate, QX-DVR - Module-1, WinWaitActive,QX-DVR - Module-1, MouseClick, left, 1624, 991 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 1001, 545 Sleep, 100 Attention: dont copy my above example script, it will not work for you since your program is different than mines and every program has different "Exit" buttons and positions on the screen. The first step will be to change all "Sleep, 100" to: "Sleep, 3000" this means that instead of waiting 1/10th of a second, your script will wait an interval of 3 seconds before making the NEXT click. Then, you will need to ad "Sleep, 3000" before the first MouseClick instruction, example: WinWait, QX-DVR - Module-1 IfWinNotActive, QX-DVR - Module-1, WinActivate, QX-DVR - Module-1, WinWaitActive,QX-DVR - Module-1, Sleep, 3000 // <-- I added "Sleep, 3000" on this field MouseClick, left, 1624, 991 Sleep, 3000 MouseClick, left, 1001, 545 Sleep, 3000 This will make sure that your script waits 3 seconds before starting. instead of starting right away. In my example, the first Mouse Click instructions (MouseClick, left, 1624, 991) will click on my Red (x) button that appears on the lower right corner of my DVR software, then after doing this "Sleep, 3000" line will be executed telling my script to wait 3 seconds, during this time a popup appears in the middle of the screen asking "You you really want to quit the DVR software", it presents me two options "YES" and a "NO", then after waiting the 3 seconds the next MouseClick event gets executed on screen coordinates 1001, 545 (MouseClick, left, 1001, 545) exactly the pixel location where the "Yes" button is located at, clicking on that button which will close the DVR, the software takes about 3 seconds to close, making sure that what ever was on the system's Memory gets commited to hard disk before closing DVR, at that point I want to change the LAST "Sleep, 3000" command to "Sleep, 10000) so it can wait 10 seconds before executing the last line that we are about to ad now. On the last like add the following: Run, "c:\restart.bat" Now, the script should look something like this: WinWait, QX-DVR - Module-1 IfWinNotActive, QX-DVR - Module-1, WinActivate, QX-DVR - Module-1, WinWaitActive,QX-DVR - Module-1, Sleep, 3000 // <-- I added "Sleep, 3000" on this field MouseClick, left, 1624, 991 Sleep, 3000 MouseClick, left, 1001, 545 Sleep, 10000 Run, "c:\restart.bat" So, this means that after everything has been executed and your DVR software has been politely quitted "on its good terms" not freezing your system, then finally your script will execute c:\restart.bat (the batch script we created earlier) to proceed to restart windows. So, this means that if you HAD to go the AutoHotKey way, you will need to create (or modify) the scheduled tasks to run the AutoHotKey script instead of running the c:\restart.bat DOS batch script first. So, save your AutoHotKey script, Example, you can give it the following file name: c:\QuitDVR_then_restart_Windows.ahk (note, it must end with .ahk to denote that this is an Auto Hot Key script so it can get executed with the AutoHotKey runtime library). So, using my example here, just point c:\QuitDVR_then_restart_Windows.ahk to your Task Scheduler with instructions to execute it every 5 in the morning or every 3 days at 5 in the morning and you should be all set. Note: The DVR software restarting is not only limited to pirated software. Here in my CCTV business we use three main DVR software, DigiVue is one of them, and Digivue is 100% legit that we get directly offline from a mayor distributor that has been in the CCTV business for over 20 years so I am pretty sure they deal with Legit software only. Well, Digivue crashes and exists in about 3 weeks of UPTIME, at first, I just told my customers to manually restart the DVR every week to ensure consistency, but some of my customers are so computer illiterate that they forget to do that, or simply forget how to restart it, so at first this was giving us some problems, and we created a script similar to this and now the oldest Digivue based DVR server we have built has over 2 1/2 years running perfectly, in the eyes of these customers their DVR has a perfect uptime of over 2 years without a single restart, but what they DONT know is that they DVR restarts automatically every 3 days at 5AM. So, if any one out there is having a similar problem with your software, now you have an idea how you can maximize consistency with scripts like this. Hope this helps.

I have dealt with Dico-800 a few years ago when I was helping people migrate from Pico2000 to Dico 800 when some one else did massively lots of "Pico2000" installations. But never came across any one asking me to help them view their cameras over any mobile device, only via laptop/desktop. But, I have a solution for you that may work fine, I would like to call it the RealVNC way. Since I am almost sure that there is a RealVNC app for the iPhone that allows you to connect to RealVNC based servers using your iPhone, you can install RealVNC to your Dico-800 based server, configure RealVNC to listen to a port that your Internet Service Provider isn't blocking (I use 5600 for all my VNC based servers with good results, so you may use that port if you want). If you used port 5600 then on your router allow port 5600 external TCP access to the private IP address in use by your DVR server. I personally recommend that you set a static IP address to the DVR server, for example, if the gateway of your router is "192.168.1.1" then set "192.168.1.99 as the IP address of the DVR, then on the router configuration page set 192.168.1.99 port forward to 5600 and then set Windows Firewall (if you use that) exclusions for WinVNC (full path of WinVNC is "C:\program files\realvnc\VNC4\winvnc.exe) and then set exclusions for port 5600 under Windows Firewall. If you use other firewalls instead of Windows firewall (such as COMODO FW) its only a matter of setting winvnc.exe as a trusted application and then setting 5600 as part of your "priviledged port". If you use Zone Alarm firewall, uninstall Zone Alarm as it will interfere with you trying to connect to your DVR servers (except if you add your remote IP address in the "Trusted Zone", you will need to add every remote IP address from all of your locations into Trusted Zone within Zone Alarm which can really be a pain expecially if these remote IP address are dynamic and changes from time to time, just Uninstall Zone Alarm and use Windows Firewall). The Only NON Windows firewall that reliably works under a remote DVR application is COMODO Firewall. After you have Real VNC up and running properly on your DVR server, download and install the Real VNC viewer app for your iPhone, set the IP and Port and password and hit connect. Once connected it will give you screen level access to your iPhone, which means that what ever is being displayed on the computer screen at your DVR is what you will get to see on your iPhone screen, so if there is 4 channels being displayed you will see 4 little squares in your iPhone, to make any given channel full screen so you can see it better just double tap in your iPhone screen to maximize that window remotely so you can see if bigger and double tap again to return to normal quad view to select another channel to maximize. Hope this works. But everything that I just explained here are my theories that based on my previous experiences with RealVNC (not in an iPhone) and my expertise, I am almost 99% sure that it will work for you on your iPhone, only if there is a VNC viewer for the iPhone).

Tranquilino, I appreciate your suggestion, but the QX2006 software's Display Resolution is NOT the same as the RECORDING Resolution. If you didn't knew that just examine any of its .AVI video files's properties and you will see that all of them are 353x288 resolution. I am looking for full D1 (Display and Recording all in D1). Some DVR card vendors would say "Our cards is D1" but what they wont tell you is that its for Display only, we had to deal with some of those types of cards. Thanks anyways and welcome to the forums!

If you are still working with this hard drive, and have not come up with a solution by this time, and the videos on that hard drive is that important, then I think you would have to send that hard drive to a data recovery company.

Why do you say that? There is very good open source Software existing. Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. I use all this Software and it is often even better than the Software that costs money. I thought that there might be something like that for CCTV as well. If it doesn't exist yet, I am sure it will come in the future. I have to get to the site to check what version I have currently, but I am pretty sure it is an older one. It is running very badly with constant lags, smart search is for sh... , motion detection is unprecise and it freezes about once a day completely. Yes, Open Source software developers are getting there when it comes to software for DVR/Surveillance applications. Example: ZoneMinder. This software works for Linux, so you will need to get compatible BTTV / BT878 generic drivers for your cards (if your cards supports that) or even search for generic drivers that will work for multiple DVR (supported) cards (google it, I had that info once, but can't find it within my piles of papers to give you the reference). I haven't really tried ZoneMinder before, but there are excellent reviews for it, So a person can just purchase a cheap DVR card that comes with generic drivers but doesn't come with software and then one can try ZoneMinder (or any other Open Source DVR software) under linux to see how it works.

According to : http://www.geovision.com.tw/english/product/GV-600.htm Quote: Total Recording Rate At 320 X 240 Resolution 30 fps (NTSC), 25 fps (PAL) Rory, I appreciate the suggestions and input you have given me, but these Geovision GV-600 cards records at maximum 320x240 which is slighly lower what my current cards are doing which is at 352x288 (CIF) which is 32 more pixels horizontally and 48 more pixles vertically which I know is not that much of a big deal, but if I had to choose between the GV-600 QVGA cards and my QX-DVR CIF cards, I would be of my best of interests to pick the QX-DVR CIF cards, its cheaper, quality is a little better than the GV-600 and its realtime per channel. (there is no point for me replacing a NON D1 card with another NON D1 card)... Rory, what is the chceapest (4CH) GeoVision cards (model) that they got that does full D1? Thanks.

10104?, well at least the "104" part of it reminds me of the old days of PICO2000 cards, and thats what you might have there (correct me if I am wrong). Try downloading the freeware "DICO 800" software which comes with Device Drivers for the "104" 4 CH PCI DVR cards and see if it works.

like i said in my first post for $60 or $120. you are not going to get a good card. plus going from the cards you use to something like d1 recording you are going to have to spend alot more on building your pc. then you will have to spend more on cameras than your $75. no point recording d1 with low tvl cameras. what would you call a good price for a card. ??? And who said that my cameras, because they costs $75 in WHOLESALE PRICE is low TVL?? These cameras that I get has 540 TVL, 24 IR Leds, CCD Sensor (NO, they are NOT CMOS, I NEVER deal with CMOS sensors), 90 Degree wide angle view, and at night they look perfectly cinematic, but with white pixelations like on cheap infrared cameras. Here is an image of these cameras: I am pretty sure many of you know about these cameras as most mayor distributors of these cameras have them in stock and know how good and sharp the images can end up being if you know what you are getting and can understand the specifications. I do not think that I have to spend a fortune to be able to record in D1 resolutions, its not like D1 is the highest possible quality that any one can get for a CCTV applications, now we have Megapixel cameras and NVR's that are meant to "replace" D1 making D1 look like nothing in comparison to Megapixels systems. Software developers that still charges a fortune for their D1 cards are taking advantage of people who thinks that D1 is the highest possible ceiling they can go, those who are yet not aware of the newer megapixel based technologies and megapixels IP cameras. The actual D1 PCI/PCI-Express DVR card doesn't costs that much to manufacturer, I am pretty sure there HAS to be generic D1 cards out there that can work with ANY DVR software, and these are the cards that I am more interested in, since I can just load up any software I want and any software will pickup the images being received by these generic D1 cards. I am pretty sure that there is a way that one can obtain a D1 card at less than $200 and still be a legit card, thanks to OpenSource software. FREE (GNU) software doesn't necessarily have to mean of lower quality, as it is evident with OpenOffice.org that competes with Microsoft Office, every one that has worked with OpenOffice know how stable and of better quality OpenOffice is (whic his 100% free and open source) compared to the paid-for counterpart of Microsoft Office. We have the GIMP, that is a freeware alternative to Adobe Photoshop, and we even have an entire operating system, the Linux variants which is more stable than the counterparts of MS Windows X (Where 'X' = any version of Windows that has been in existence). So, if our experience tells us that OpenSource software can be MUCH better and more stable than the closed source paid for software, then all what we need is an Open Source DVR software that can work with generic DVR cards at D1, and if there isn't (which I really doubt) such projects yet for a D1 specifications, I am pretty sure that its only a matter of time before we start seeing Open Source DVR Software that can do D1 perfectly well and better than the other $2,xxx counterparts rip offs. There is already an OpenSource DVR software, its called ZoneMinder, it works for Linux, but its CIF based (since last I heard from them). So, its only matter of time before any of the millions of enthusiastic programmers who really care for the betterment of society rather than getting rich off one individual start developing an open source project for D1 specifications that can be compatible with lots of DVR boards. *** So, the bottom line is that PRICE itself does not have any weight in telling me or any one else how good a product is and if PRICE alone is the sole basis in you determining how good a product is (Evidence: all the good OpenSource software in existence today outperforming paid-for software), then you will do lots of money spending, cutting into and interfering with your profits.

Ok, I think that we are slowly moving off topic of my original post here. From what I am looking for -- to -- paying too much attention to the CIF-Recording software I am using with my actual DVR cards and slowly starting to forget what I came here in the first place - to look for a new full D1 DVR cards that matches my requirements. The software that I am using now with my DVR cards is not that important and the basis of my concentration of me being here, I dont want to get into a lenghly discussion and devote a great deal of time in describing every details of my current software because that's not what I would like to cover in this thread. Lets get fully back to original topic and I need people to provide me with a LIST of DVR cards with Name of the Software I can use and price expectations. So far, I have been recommended GeoVision here, and GeoVision, specially the GV-250 might be a good choice for me since I was told that GeoVision records into an *.AVI format and a codec installed on the system makes that .avi file work with any video related software on that system, which SHOULD mean that I can just right click on that .avi file and insert it into one of my NeroVision DVD Video Creator projects and should be able to burn my DVD Video Playable Disc with no problems. So, I need a list of DVR cards I can purchase that records directly to .AVI, and if the codec is somewhat proprietary it BETTER has a codec that can be installed on the system so other video processing software can DIRECTLY WORK with the .avi video files. I would NOT accept DVR cards with software using a proprietary enough format that disqualifies compatibility with other video processing software. A good hint here is, if Windows Media PLayer can directly open and playback the video files with no errors, then chances are that your software is what I am looking for. * It MUST record in FULL D1 Resolution, since that's the whole point of me searching, otherwise I would stay with my current cards if D1 weren't that important. So, a LIST of DVR cards that I can see, compare and contrast, Thanks!

Try the "Dico 800" freeware DVR software that comes with drivers. If it doesn't work, then google up for the generic drivers.

I think you have many options to restarting your DVR computer for a maintenance free operations (assuming that's what you want). First, you can try AutoHotScript as your programming language to program your script using the Recorder that comes with it. The recorder will record all mouse clicks position pixel exact to ensure that you get your desired results. For example instruct your AutoHotKey script to click at the Red close button, then instruct your script to wait 5 seconds allowing QX2006 to come up with the popup asking you the close question, then click on Yes (while the script is still recording your move). Then once QX2006 quits click on STOP to stop AHK from recording your clicks. You can then use programs like Cron-z to schedule an automatic execution of that script at a specific time of the day (like 5 in the morning), then you will create an MSDOS batch script with the following command: shutdown -r -t 5 save the MS DOS batch script as "c:\restart_dvr.bat" then go back to your AutoHotKey script, right click on the script, then choose Open with Notepad, there in the last line add the following: Sleep, 10000 then on the next line type the following: run, "c:\restart_dvr.bat" This will execute your Batch Script after 10 seconds has passed, this ensures that QX2006 had closed completely down by this time before telling Windows to Restart the DVR. Hope this helps you.

No, QX2006 will only work under Windows 2000 or Windows XP. There is no point in doing that upgrade to Windows Server 2003. I would not upgrade what its working fine, so just go back to Windows XP SP2 or SP3, nLite it if you want to remove unnecessary features of Windows XP (optional). Alternatively, you can search for an update to QX2006 that would be compatible with later operating systems... Ask your DVR card vendor if you really need Windows Server 2003 to work with it.