FranciscoNET

This software has "QX-DVR" as its name, doing a google search for "QX DVR" didn't reveal to me who developed this software. The software it self has no references to any company names, and the user manual doesn't say anything about any company name. The only version that I deal with is the one that my distributor hands over to me, and it has been the same exact version all this time. Well, the software has been stable since day 1, no bugs that I have found, it does it job -- record videos, can't complain, (except for the CIF recording res. part). So, it looks like my particular software is not being worked on any more and/or the company who developed it may have done out of business, etc..... So I cannot tell you where you can download this software simply because there is no website active today that talks about this software and hosts it. Also, this software would only work on the cards I have here, will not work on any other DVR cards, so there would not be a point for you to download this software if you dont have the accompanying DVR card for it to work.

+1 I just can't fathom spending $60 on a card when you have these specs for a PC... Hell, the power supply alone would be worth more... QFMFT. Hell, let's just build a freakin' Ferrari and then put a $200 Clarion radio in it. Or more the point, put a Chevy Sprint three-banger in it, and say it's because people want a more fuel-efficient Ferrari. Sure you can do it, and some people will probably buy it, because they believe the hype, but what's the point?? Just sell them the Sprint in the first place, and walk away - less headaches. Just because my current DVR card are worth $120.00 (but I get them for about $60.00 because I pay wholesale) does not mean that I have to build a cheap computer system for my customers. Sure I see others just giving away cheap pentium III's @450MHz dell systems with their cheap $9.00 PICO piece of cr@p cards they get off china, but keep in mind that these servers are supposed to stay on for 24/7 and these cheap old outdated computer systems arent meant for that kind of overtaxed jobs. You would be lucky if any of these Pentium III's systems last for anything longer than 3 months. I contruct with quality parts because I want my DVR servers to stay functional for as long as it possibly can. My vision is that my DVR servers lasts more than 5 years working straight up with no problems. I purchase everything that have to do with computers and cameras in WHOLESALE prices and for computer parts I rely on a one of world's mayor distributor located in California. Almost anything you can get at Tigerdirect for $80.00 I can probably get that exact same item for about $40 new, not refurbished at my supplier. So an Asus mainboard $40, the Dual core CPU $55, 1GB of RAM $22, 500GB SATA Hard drive $45, DVD Burner $15, Case 10 if appearance doesnt matter, or $35 for a server grade case (same case you see being sold on Tigerdirect or around $60 to $80), and alot more. With these prices you come to understand why I just decide to build super high quality fast servers for all of my customer, before if you add the math, the costs of building the DVR PC will almost equate to a person purchasing a used old system. One of the most expensive component here is the Power Supply Unit and that's because I go with either 650W to 800W (depending) --> I just dont want to see another Power Supply Unit failure which can be common with those cheap 350W PSU's that comes with most of these cases. For cameras, I dont go cheap, I get them at $75.00 each SuperHAD 24Leds IR, vandal proof 0.1 Lux Color. Here is an image of the DVR card that I am currently using (the ones that I am looking for faze out in favor of D1 cards): As you can see, these cards were built to last, with heat sinks on each chip. THIS is the card that I referred to on one of my previous posts that has been up and running flawlessly for the past 4 years being the oldest installation that I have done based on THIS card. The software it came with, I LOVE it, it has more than 30 user adjustable functions/settings (most of them in configuration files that I can edit my self) buts it a shame that this card records at CIF max res. and to tell you the truth, this card has given me such a great satisfaction that, even after I find my D1 card that I like I will still plan to continue using these cards ONLY for lower applications such as installing a surveillance camera on a "bedroom" sized small office where CIF would be more than adequate quality to obtain a positive facial identification of a subject, etc. So I dont actually plan to abandon this card but to work in conjunction with these and the D1 cards. And given the fact that all of my customers have high end DVR's, later on I can give some of them a call to offer them to upgrade to the D1 cards for some of my customers where I really feel that they would benefit with the D1 recording quality more, after I get the good D1 card I have been searching for the longest, which of course translates more future business for me. So, as you can see, everything that I do is with high grade materials meant to last Oh, by the way, for those of you people that are finding this card to be priced too low, keep in mind that this card has been out in the market maybe for more than 4 years, so dont expect this card to be priced the same as it was 4 yo 5 years ago. Its like an old GeoVision DVR card (Maybe the GV-250) you can get today at $150.00 that probably has been out for a few years versus the latest model-of-the-year they have now priced at like $1,200

Ok, I think I have a good, but a bit manual work around for the time zone resetting to GMT 0 problem. You will need to download AutoHotKey and create a Auto Hot Key auto script that would execute each time you restart the DVR server. Now, here is how this would work, lets say that in your particular program you have to click a button, then a pop up would appear, click another button to get to the time zone settings, and then click another button to pull up the GMT list, and then finally click the GMT time zone of your choice and then click OK. An simple AHK script can do this for you. After you have installed AutoHotKey, you will need to go to the program's group (folder) on the start menu, and then (while having your DVR software running) click on Record. A small box will appear with a big record button, make sure your DVR software is running (not minimized) before you click on the Record button. What the record button will do is record all of your Clicks positions. Click on Record, and then proceed to manually change the time zone of your DVR server software. When you are done click on Stop to stop AutoHotKey from Recording your Clicks. Minimize your DVR software, then you will see a window with the scripts for the actions you took. AutoHotKey sets a very rapid interval of 1/10th of a second per click, (as you can see on each "Sleep, 100") this is too fast, you will need to change it to "Sleep, 2000" so that AutoHotKey will execute each click in a interval of 2 seconds allowing it more than sufficient time for any window/task to come up/execute before AutoHotKey makes the next click. Also, on the very FIRST click instruction, you will need to ad the following: Sleep, 5000 So that the script can wait 5 seconds before beginning to execute all of your programmed clicks. Example: When you finish "Recording" your clicks and you click on Stop, you will immediately see something like this: WinWait, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, IfWinNotActive, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, , WinActivate, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, WinWaitActive, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, MouseClick, left, 657, 397 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 1272, 541 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 1478, 141 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 479, 553 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 1044, 699 Sleep, 100 So, you see the VERY first "MouseClick" instruction on the list, as you can see, there is no wait commands before that, so you will need to go up one line and add the instructions to wait 5 seconds before proceeding, like this: WinWait, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, IfWinNotActive, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, , WinActivate, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, WinWaitActive, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, Sleep, 5000 // MouseClick, left, 657, 397 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 1272, 541 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 1478, 141 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 479, 553 Sleep, 100 MouseClick, left, 1044, 699 Sleep, 100 Also, on this line make sure that your DVR server program or its NAME is the one listed on that line. On this example, Firefox is listed there because I recorded my script session on Firefox, so AutoHotScript goes by the first program you make a click to set its "Wait for" parameters for this program. What this really means is that your script, once you run it, wont start until you start that program listed on that line starts and is running. IF for any reason you are having trouble with the WinWait because AHK might have failed to adequately detect the name of your DVR server, you can just delete the whole wait blocks: Example, you would delete: WinWait, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, IfWinNotActive, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, , WinActivate, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, WinWaitActive, CCTV Forum • Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox, Just these 4 lines, only the MouseClick instructions would be left there intact, in that case, you will need to time how much your computer server takes to completely boot from the point where the desktop shows to when your DVR server starts and is fully running to set the time in seconds that you need to have your script to wait before starting your pre-programmed scripts. Example, if after the desktop starts, your program takes 30 minutes to load, you would then set your "Sleep" command to 35000 which means to wait 35 seconds before beginning, example: Sleep, 35000 would be in line #1 at the very beginning. Now, if "WinWait" IS working right for you, meaning that the script properly WAITS for your DVR server program to start, then you dont need to set this to wait 35 seconds, but you can set it to wait like 5 (5000) seconds as in this case your script will wait for your software to load before starting your instruction sets. Hope this helps at least for now. ----- Thanks to the very same software that I have recommended you (AutoHotKey), I am able to automate lots of things, for example, on my customers that wishes to connect remotely to all of their cameras on multiple locations (those with like 4 different business with 4 DVR servers), I program an AHK script and just tell them to run my script, and my script will take charge in connecting them automatically to all of their cameras in exactly the shape and form that they want, so what seemed to be too complicated to "Regular Joe" can become very simple thanks to AHK.

Software: DigiVue EEPROM CHIP Revision: 2 Current EEPROM Chip Revisions (Card Versions) on the Market: 3 Maximum Cameras Support: 32 regardless of EEPROM Version. Additional Notes: Aside from the three EEPROM Versions, the software for all three of them looks the same, has same exact features, but they are not inter compatible (you can't install a Version 3 software on a Version 2 based card, BUT they are intercompatible when remote viewing the images) Availability: Local Distributor in my area and on their own website, not available on Ebay, or any other website based on what I have checked. Price: Mid-Ranged Affordable (about 60% of all DVR cards on the market would be more expensive than these cards) Durability: Excellent (Oldest DigiVue based DVR card I installed is 5 1/2 years old and its running good)

Keep in mind that ordinary people would NOT be spending $60.00 for these cards that I use, but $120.00 average because I get them in wholesale price. I learned of my current supplier at first in Ebay when I purchased another DVR card that came with a software that recorded to a .dvr file using a proprietary format that no other software could read the video files but their own software with very limited export rights. After this, I emailed the vendor to complain about this problem and to explain to him what I wanted. After this, he got back to me and suggested another DVR card that they sell based on a phillips high quality 9 bits per chip with each channel with its dedicated Phillips chips with heat sinks on each chip. Each card had a total of 8 real time channels. At that point, when I asked the vendor what was the video resolution, he replied back with "640x480" per channel, but he never specified to me that that was only the DISPLAY resolution, not the recording one (recording is at 352x288 max). I initially ordered 4 of them just to test them out, to see the format this thing recorded videos to and how stable the software is and the remote video functionalities and other quality control duties before I settled with this card as my main card for my customers. The Video codec that this card uses is Xvid, it records directly to an *.AVI file under this codec, after installing the Xvid codec (or the K-Lite Codecs Packs) on the target PC, it can immediately playback the videos, NeroVision can parse the video files and create a playable DVD video Disc. The software was so stable that the fact that after I learned that the Display resolution WASN'T the Recording resolution really didn't bothered me that much because after a long, struggled search in finding a DVR card that came with a software that recorded into a video format that I liked, the last think I wanted was to go back and search for another DVR card, specially with the amount of money I had previously wasted in purchasing other DVR cards just to find out that they were no good -- AFTER I got them (that's why vendors should state IN THEIR ADs what format their software uses, and how videos are SAVED initially) I wouldn't call these cards, at least the ones that I am getting, crap. The oldest installation that I have done with these cards is 4 years old, system is running perfectly, customer is very happy and no complains. I have done a truck load of installation during the last 4 years most based on these cards I have described and I have not had the first problems yet. I am happy with the cards I have, but still, its time for me to move to D1 as soon as a SUPPORTED card is made aware to me with price ranges that makes me feel comfortable. Nope, not a single job where I had to go back to fix things. These cards are giving me 100% success rate with no failure rates 4 years straight up so far (when it comes to the actual DVR cards, but about 5% of jobs in total I had to go back dues to defective hard drives, and since hard drives are mechanical with read/write heads with multiple discs spinning at 7,200 RPM, that is understandable and acceptable for me, something I can't really help -- manufacturer defects, but NONE for the actual DVR card it self). It is true that Hardware compression is better than software compression because in hardware compression the actual DVR card is doing all the processing and compression for the video streams, where software compression the CPU of the computer is the one that does all the work, and since my current DVR card is software compression I mitigate this by building high end DVR servers all based on Dual Core CPU's at 3 GHz with 1 GB of RAM using Asus mainboard. All systems with 800W Power Supply Units. So, the actual systems that I build is powerful enough to ensure that it wont have any problems video processing. Finally, I configure a WatchDog program to monitor system integrity with instructions to forcefull reboot the system if there is any failure (because there is no such thing as a extremely elongated up time of weeks to weeks on a Window based system without requiring a restart at one point) So, as you can see, I am extremely happy with my current configuration, no failure rates, even though all recordings are CIF res. BUT, if I can find an equally affordable card that does D1 recordings with the same stability that my current cards is affording me, I would be an extremely happy person. The driver of my current card works with Windows 2000 or XP, but does not support Vista or Windows 7. I dont care about Vista or 7, not only is Vista a huge piece of bloatware cr*p, its overly slow, and less stable than XP, Windows 7 is only a mini redo of Windows Vista with a few fixes, tweaks and a graphical User Interface Redo (new Themes, Icons, etc). I wouldn't trust surveillance on Vista or 7, and besides, Windows XP Licenses are cheaper than Vista or 7. So, businesswise with XP I am saving more money and I am dealing with the best operating system you can possible deal with for surveillance operations. And in top of that, I nLite it first to even make it more faster (boot up time), less RAM foot print, and even more stable by removing features and functionalities of XP that is really not needed for a surveillance application. The remote software supports any operating system and its also very stable. As for linux, I havent really checked so I can't comment if its supported under Linux, but I dont really care about that area yet. I have dealt with many cards that records in a proprietary format, but that EXPORTS to AVI (just like what you stated), but the AVI exported version is of alot inferior quality than the quality of the *.dvr proprietary file. For example, I purchased a true D1 card for $250.00 that recorded to a *.DVR file in a HIDDEN PARTITION (even worse, make it proprietary and then hide the file away from you! ) This software supported exporting the files to either .dvr that can only be played with ther player.exe program in D1 quality, or to an *.AVI file in ONLY 320x240 QVGA resolution? besides the fact that you had to wait half an hour to get a 5 minute *.AVI exported video clip at this quality. Now tell me, if my objective is to create a D1 quality playable DVD disc, how am I suppose to do that if this software exported to only 320x240 pixels maximum? That was DECEPTION #1, that card is currently collecting dust somewhere in my basement. Deception #2 was alot much worse than the first one. In total I had like about 7 of these kinds of Deceptions with different brands and software before I finally settled with the current cards I have now. Dealers really dont like to tell the other half of their truths when it comes about selling their cards, in most cases you have to find out IN THE HARD WAY that you card(s) records in a crappy format and how the "converter" strips a D1 *.dvr into a CIF *.AVI file when ever you want to get a video file that can be read with other players and video processors. What about exporting to a high quality D1 Divx .AVI file or any other relevant quality standard format? Nope, not one of these 7 different cards that I tried at that time did that. Every single proprietary video formats that I have dealt with were simply not playable by changing its file extension. For example, on the first DVR card (Deception #1) that I was dealing with, I had a video file called 02-30-2006_15-45_CH5.dvr so its was a video file that ended with *.dvr I changed the file extension to .avi and nope didn't worked, then changed it to .mpg same results, tried a whole bunch of other video extensions and nope didn't worked. The ONLY way it would work is if you played it back with a "player.exe" program file that was included with the card. When it was time to create a playable DVD Video Disc this didn't help me at all. So, you may be saying "Why not connect the DVR to a VCR/DVD Recorder via an S-Video cable TV out?" Well you couldn't not even do that, well technically speaking YES, you could do that, but their proprietary player.exe program didn't even support MAXIMIZING THE DAMN VIDEO so you could do that, it seems that the software developer of who ever wrote that retarded program took it upon themselves to make sure that users weren't capable of creating a playable DVD video disc one way, or the other by creating all these crippling limitations. So, these .dvr video files took like 3/4 of the screen and showed some controls in the left panel, I would, no one, would want to record a video like that to a VCR via external S-Video connection because it would look so unprofessional without being able to maximize the video. And keep in mind that their software (player.exe) was the ONLY capable software of opening their video files and their software had NO MAXIMIZE CAPABILITIES. All the other 7 DVR cards were exactly like this when it came to playing back their videos files. Then to make things worse, the true D1 DVR card can *ONLY* work with 1 software (the enclosed software), meaning that if you are not happy with the software, you are screwed and stuck with it because you can't simply browse the internet and install another DVR software, NOPE dont even try it, I had spent countless hours searching for compatible drivers and software to make these D1 cards work with a better software, but it seems that manufacturers seals up their DVR cards to ONLY work with their particular combination of Driver and Software. For me, this looks dishonest in the software developers parts, they CANT just assume that EVERY ONE will be happy with their *.dvr/*.BIM/*.DAT exclusive-formats-to-them model of doing things! I am one of those persons you will find that dislikes being LIMITED BY SOFTWARE. Getting a great HARDWARE but being LIMITED by SOFTWARE is simply something that I dont tolerate. The software that I am currently dealing with have so many features that basically allows me to configure the software in almost every area, and configuration tweaks that are no available in the GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE part of the software, they are available in a configuration file that I can edit manually to perform virtually any type of change I want (such as compression bit rate, frames per second 1 through 30 individually per channel and alot more) NeroVision can parse video files that the system can understand, so if a particular video can be opened successfully with Windows Media Player, it so can be parsed successfully under NeroVision. So, My Requirements is that this Future full D1 DVR software that *HOPEFULLY* I will get the chance to use (if I ever find it) records its video directly to a file ending with the .AVI file extension AND if it uses some weird codec that not even K-Lite Codec Packs can help to make it playable, to include a special codec for the system to understand and register as a valid windows codec for the particular DVR server in such as way that when you doubleclick on the .AVI file under Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player pops up, that it plays the video, because if Windows Media Player can play the video, I am 100% sure that NeroVideo will understand it too, and other software on current system. So, I need a LIST of DVR cards that I can purchase that meets this requirements, I do not want to purchase any further DVR cards just to have them collect dust any more, I dont want to waste any more money, so I need help and good pointers in looking for that right D1 DVR card that is affordable. If there a distributor/manufacturer here that carries what I am looking for? Thanks.

that is a good price for a 16ch....... how many ch are you looking for. Ok, I am glad that $2,000 is a good price for you, because for me it isn't. I know we all got different budget and expectations, but I am in the business of installing cameras and I like to save the RETAIL part and I only pay wholesale/agent/Dealer prices. I have 8 cameras at my place, and might go up to 16, most of my customers have anywhere between 4 to 8 CH with a few exceptions of a few of them that got 16 channels and like 3 of them with 32 channels. Let me give you an idea what are my expectations in terms of price range of what I am looking for in these D1 cards that matches my specifications software wise; the cards that I am working with now I get them for $60 each, they are real time per channel for 8 CH. So 8 CH DVR real time I pay $60.00 It DISPLAYS at 640x480 per channel, but the recording resolution supports 352x288 max (CIF). So, when you are looking at the monitor screens, the images will look as clear as a D1 card, JUST when you playback the recordings that's where you enter the CIF world. Now, to make things clear, these cards aren't worth $60.00 RETAIL WISE. If I were to pay retail I would be getting them close to $120.00 per card, but I am paying wholesale because I am purchasing them directly through a major distributor. Maybe these Avermedia cards that you are referring me are worth like $800.00 to $1,000 for the 16CH in Wholesale Terms, I dont know, but I will need to check with the manufacturer and look for major distributors that carry these cards to validate this assumption of mines. Currently, if I wanted 16Channels in my system I would put two of these cards I have here, that would give me 16CH for just $120.00 Compare that with $2,000.00 averages I have seen so far on the retail web stores. There's no way I am going to go from $120.00 to $2,000 for as important as D1 recording resolutions can be, there is no way I am going to make a splurge like that. I need to compete with my competitors around my area (most of them still does CIF like I am doing, but with the exception that I am trying to leave the CIF world, but most of them still plan to stay in the CIF world because they dont care about quality) and those prices aren't going to allow me to do so. If the difference between CIF and D1 cards are by the thousands of dollars, then I guess I will have to stay a little longer in the CIF world until prices start dropping for the D1 cards. Its ridiculous how expensive these D1 cards are, its not like that is the top of the quality, there are megapixels NVR's out there, D1 DVR cards shouldn't be that expensive in year 2010, where we have megapixel resolutions already that is beginning to outdate the D1 cards itself. So the bottom line is that I CAN'T compete with prices like these, at least NOT in my area, its useless, there have to be other manufacturers out there with much better prices with cards and software that matches my requirements. I am not going to put my business on standby, I will continue doing CIF installations and selling CIF based DVR systems UNTIL the day that I made aware of the D1 cards I am looking for at good prices, THEN I will immediately dump my CIF cards in favor of the D1 cards.

Thanks for the suggestion. However, trying to figure out how much this specific model you recommended me costs, I did a google search for "AVerDiGi NV9000E". And even though it was hard for me to find a website that shows the price, most of them either had a "Call Us for Price" sign, or nothing at all, but the same descriptions, and here's why --> on the following webiste: www._pcuniverse._com/AVerMedia-AVerDiGi ... d/p4686903 (note: I added underscore on the URL which you will need to manually remove when copying this URL string) The price shown at the above site is a whopping $2,118.93 THAT was a mind blowing price, so I seeked a second opinion (another website that had a price stated for this same, exact model), and here is what I found: www._dvrmart._com/mrt-asp-dvr_AverMedia ... detail.htm On the second site, the price is SLIGHTLY cheaper, there you can have it for a "measly" $1,945.00 I am sorry, but that's still too expensive to me, VERY expensive, prohibitively. Oh yeah, thanks for admitting it in advance, not "ONLY" did I found the price too be alot more than the prices I am used to see on Ebay, I found it MIND BLOWING ALOT more, I think I haven't seen a DVR card being that more expensive that what I just saw. I am sorry, but I dont have Bill Gate's mansion here to monitor. Either that card got something that I really dont need, or the software developers are wayyy over pricing their software, because a PCI-E device can't possibly costs that much, even if its hardware encoding. Based on my understanding, most of the price percentage of the DVR is priced based on the software, not on the piece of hardware, but on this case, I find it to be way over kill. I can at least guarantee you that if I am going to purchase a D1 DVR card at least its not going to be this one. As of price is concerned, I am going to be very flexible on pricing. By that, I mean that I am not going to aim at the cheapest link I can find, but at the DVR card that will give me what I want, the quality that I want, that meets my Requirements. Price is not that much of a concern EXCEPT if its another overkill like this one. Thanks

Just an observation, What's Geovision trying to accomplish here by preventing their "Authorized Dealers" from selling their cards on Ebay. Come on, Ebay is the world's #1 Online Giant Auction Site. By preventing authorized dealers from reselling on Ebay Geovision will only accomplish one thing: Keep the prices for the GeoVision cards prohibitively high. If GeoVision cards can be purchased on Ebay then that would cause a massive competition which would be good for us, customers and CCTV installers because the more competition there is, prices would start going down dirt cheap and still remain 100% genuine with full GeoVision support. Because prices for Geovision is still high enough that's why I haven't adopted them yet. I am into the CCTV installation business and I am using another software and card not produced by GeoVision because on the area that I operate I have my competitors announcing that they can install a 4CH DVR system for $1,200 and even though I still dont charge anything less than $1,500 for a 4CH system because I only use quality hardware, if I purchased GeoVision that would seriously cut too much into my profit or leave me into a loss if I wanted to properly compete with my competitors here with GeoVIsion. So that's why I dont use them. If that is true that you were able to find a Genuine 16CH GeoVision card on Ebay for that price, and its 100% Genuine, then that might be a good entry point for me to start using/experimenting with GeoVision. As far as "support" is concerned based on my years of experience on this business, I have yet to call for "support" with any of the manufacturers of CCTV cards I have dealt and deal with and I am the one to provide "support" for the customers I perform the CCTV installations, so chances are that I wont need GeoVision support, the only thing that I wound need in this case is for their software to come initially stable enough to perform the basic functions for which a CCTV software is designed for (Record and Output videos on Screen(s)). If the software that comes on that CD is stable enough, then I will never have a problem with that particular card, and I may even never need to search for an Update for the software because if it works good on the first day, then it should continue working good perpetually until a serious HARDWARE problem is encountered (Hard Drive Crashed, Bad Capacitors on Mainboard/DVR card, Faulty RAM, etc, etc). Right now, I am mostly dealing with a software called "Digivue" which is genuine, I purchase it locally and for 16 CH that card costs me $350.00 which for me its still good enough for leave me in a good (+) profitably speaking in doing a 16CH installation and a 4 CH DigiVue runs for $85. But right now, based on what I can read online, if I were to purchase a 16CH GeoVision from an authorized dealer that would, according to what I read on this post, would grant me "support rights", that card would cost me a whopping $849 on a card that records on the same FPS as the "Digivue" I am currently doing for $350. And this price quote came from an authorized website claiming a 110% price match guarantee for these GeoVision cards. Their most expensive geovision card that they got is an 8CH PCI Displaying and Recording at 240 FPS, that card costs $1,074 and the card model is a GV-2008 and if you wanted to do 16CH on a system with that card, then it would cost you $2,148. Even though I understand that the GV-2008 is real time per channel and my 16CH Digivue is half Real time per channel at 15FPS/CH it still wouldn't justify spending that much money on the GV-2008 because if real time is important for the customer all what I would have to do is purchase two DigiVue 16CH cards at $350 each for $700 in total and I would then have 16CH in Real time (using 8CH per card). So, as you can see, price is the problem when it comes down to the GeoVision cards and based on my research, many DVR card manufacturer places a greater value on their SOFTWARE rather than the card it self, I think that the price factor for Software to Card is like 90% to Software/10% to the actual physical DVR hardware card. So people are actually paying too much for SOFTARE. I find this to be an abuse on the software developers parts, placing so much value on their software. GeoVision will have to compete with the other Genuine high quality software developers out there if they want to get my business. I guess I am too smart not to overpay for software/products and to smartly compare/contrast. Question: What's GeoVision's basis in prohibiting authorized dealers from selling their cards on Ebay? Is not like they are going to prevent piracy doing that. They can control their cards with serial numbers, chipset ID, and a truck load of other method in ensuring Genuinity. If I were a dealer for any products, I would HATE to be limited as to where I can sell my inventory and being limited to NOT sell on Ebay I would find that to be a sufficient bottleneck.

With Solid State Disk Drives increasing in capacity and decreasing in price. I was just seeing a SATA 256GB SSD drive being sold on Ebay for $299 with specs of 200Mbs for Read speed and 200 Mbs for Write speeds. I know the limitations of SSD such as the limited 1000 write cycles per cell (I read that about 2 years ago, but I assume that number is much higher now, like in the 10,000 or something like that). But anyways, can I use a drive like this for a 4 to 8 CH CIF quality (288x252) DVR PC system recording at like 4 true Frames Per Seconds per CH (that should give me like 60 days before over write is required, and if the limit is 1,000 per cell in my example, then to overwrite each sector 1,000 at that rate should take for ever that the mere limitations of cell over writes should not be paid attention to this case as it will take decades of years before a bad cell gets developed at like 60 days per overwrite per cell. Is there anything I should be concerned first before I start doing installation based on Solid Disk Drives? I wouldn't mind paying up to 5x the normal drive price if that would mean that I can guarantee my customers that the hard drive will never crash as the conventional mechanical drives have been a real problem for me, out of 10 installations I do, 2 of them have defective hard drives that I have to replace and reload windows plus everything on the new drive.

On my DVR's that I build, I put extra fans inside, also I use an ATX case that has a big fan in the side for extra internal ventilation. The hard drive is installed with no plastic mounters directly into the drive bay so the drive case can also help acting as a heat sink for the hard drive. I stay away from Western Digital hard drives ever since of the massive failure rates that were being experienced by many users in their normal house computers (not DVR). Therefore I only purchase Seagate hard drives. I have heard of "server grade" hard drives, but I have never purchased them because for me, it seemed like some marketing ploy, or the hard drive had extra features that wasn't really needed for a typical DVR installation thus making that hard drive very expensive. After all, all mechanical hard drives have multiple read/write heads with spinning platter discs in high speed whether they are "sever grade" or standard SATA/IDE hard drives. Even Server grade hard drives have failed very quickly (I have seen many server grade hard drive crash in a web server in like 6 months or less after installation). Also, I know its crucial in the type of motherboard used to build a DVR server, I only use top grade models, such as ASUS. As for the Power Supply Unit I only use the ULTRA brand ones rated at 800 watt to make sure that the PSU will never be an issue. In every case of my DVR installations, when a failure occurs it is always 100% the hard drive. none of my cameras, fuse box, mainboard, PSU, LCD screents, etc has failed, not a single one of them, it is always just the hard drive. Out of 10 installations, 2 of them got eventual faulty hard drives. As rory said, heat is the number 1 cause of hard drive failures. I will start mounting heat sinks designed for hard drives in top of the hard drives from now on and see if that decreases the failure rates. I know that a 20% failure rate may not be a big deal, but each time that I have to return to my customer's place to perform warranty service, that time that I am not getting paid extra, its the same time that I could be dong something productive elsewhere that generates me more income. What I am aiming here is at 100% perfection and that's why I asked about SSD because SSD has a lesser failure rate 100 times than regular conventional hard drives. As per the other poster here suggesting RAID, if there is a hard drive failure that would still require me to physically show up to the place to change the drive and let it rebuilt. ***as long as MECHANICAL hard drives are being used, it will never be reliable, there will always be faulty ones due to manufacturer's defects or other causes (maybe the distributor dropped them, etc). I do see SSD dropping in price very fast and increasing in capacity. I was searching online and I saw a PQI SSD SATA hard drive for around $299 with 130 mbs read and 100mbs write, it seems a good pick for a 4CH DVR system, after all 128GB is acceptably fine for 4 CH. Since I am HIGHLY tempted to use SSD in my future customers installations, I plan to purchase a few of them to test and benchmark them locally at my office so I can witness how they operate since no where in the internet have I found any one that have posted about their experiences over using SSD's for a DVR application I guess I shall find out on my own.

What I have been doing so far is using a 500GB Seagate SATA Hard Drive, breaking it into two partitions, Partition0 set at 10GB for the Windows XP Operating System and the Secondary Partition1 set at 489.99GB for the Video Files. So two partition using the same hard drive. I haven't used two hard drives because of the costs, but before considering the SSD solution I was thinking of the posibility of using a 20GB hard drive for the Operating System and the DVR software and a secondary, perhaps 500GB hard drive for the Videos. However, this may no longer be required if it is safe to just use, perhaps a highly reliable 256GB Solid State Disk Drive for everything. Now the thing that I am not completely sure is how the SSD technology handles the writes procedures when the SSD will be written with 4 to 8 video FILES simultaneously and with over time, will that cause some type of instability, should I go for a MLC (Multi Layer Cell) or a SLC (Single Layer Cell), etc. Its all questions I got before I attempt to go SSD in a surveillance system install. About the RAID Array suggestion, yes that's a possibility and yes its cheaper than SSD, but if I end up concluding that SSD is relatively safe, after examining the reviews and suggestions that I may get at this forum with then my tests done at my office I would still prefer SSD over anything else. I know that SSD may be more expensive, but there is nothing better than being able to guarantee a customer 100% that there wont be a hard drive failure, that the integrity of all recordings is completely safe. Oh, what about raising my warranties from 1 year (current) to maybe like 3 years or more (projected if SSD is a GO) customers would love that given the fact that nobody else within my area that provides the same service that I do dares offers warranties in excess of 1 year and the reason is because of the impending mechanical hard drive eventual failures (I dont think any one can guarantee a mechanical hard drive will be in PERFECT condition after being written 24/7 for like 2+ years unless their advertisements is over hyped)

Hi, I am searching for a new DVR Card for my PC DVR Server, it can be either PCI or PCI-Express as long as it meets my requirements. Here are my requirements: 1. MUST RECORD at full D1 resolution, or 640x480 VGA as minimum. 2. Must NOT record using a proprietary video formats, such as the ones that popularily ends with *.dvr or the self playing *.exe or the *.umv , etc formats I want a DVR software that can DIRECTLY record to an industry standard AVI format or MPEG, it can use the H.264 codec for better compression and space savings. (with K-Lite codec packs I can then play back these H.264 recorded videos on any computer or even create DVD's using Nero Vision our of my footages) 3. Must have remote access capabilities. 4. Must have a Playback speed greater than 8x (I have seen players with speeds of 4x as its max -- good luck searching for 1 hour+ worth of footages at 4x!) 5. The DVR Card must be cost effective. I must reiterate, I do not want the software to record using proprietary video formats, I do not want to have to DEAL with proprietary formats. I will only go as far as H.264 that NERO Vision seems to understand fine. I do not want to spend 2 hours converting 15 minutes of footage from proprietary source to AVI, for me that is plain stup*d, why not record into an "understandable" format in the first place rather than giving all that pile of head aches to the user?? My current "old" card that I have here, runs using the QX2006.exe software that records directly in an AVI format that even Windows Media Player directly understands (after running mpeg4codec.exe or K-lite Codec Pack on the target PC, then NERO Vision recognizes it fine). The only problem is that it records at 352x288 QVGA and its now time for me to move to 640x480 or D1 recording res, given that fact that all of my cameras are 540TVL and would like to take full advantage of all that resolution. But I want to do it the same way, using open standard video formats, just as QX2006.exe has been doing it perfectly fine all this time, when a police officer comes to me, the officer doesn't even need to wait more than 7 minutes after making the request (regardless the requested duration), I always have the DVD done and burnt into a format that can be played back in a standalone DVD player. If I would had to convert from a proprietary video format first, It would have take hours, the officer would not probably wait for all that time for me to be done, it would have been a hassle, and that's what I dont want. I am moving to a newer technology, newer resolution, and of course, better speeds, I am not about to fall 8 years behind during the process by adopting a proprietary crap that is only meant to take away my speeds and time of doing work. -- I do lots of evidence extractions, and proprietary would be a nightmare for me. My budget for this card is $200.00 max If there is multiple offers, I will go for the lowest qualifying one, in terms of price. ***Your price must be competitive

I know that capturing can only be done through a DVR, Capture Card, an RCA to VGA adapter, or any other video capturing device as with a camera alone you got not image, BUT what I meant to say is that you need a camera that can technologically handle 720x480 resolutions if you would like to be able to capture at true 720x480 resolutions at your DVR or other video capturing device(s). I know that you can use a 320TVL cheapo camera and use a D1 DVR to capture the image, sure you would be capturing and SAVING videos at 720x480 within your hard drive, BUT if you are using a 320TVL camera the quality, even if VLC recognizes that video file as 720x480 from that 320TVL camera you used to capture it, the quality will look just the same as if you would have used 320x240 as the recording quality instead of 720x480. SO... using a 320TVL camera to record images using a DVR set to 720x480 as its recording quality will only UPSCALE the image, but you will still be stuck with blurry faces and crappy video quality. You need a true 720x480 quality camera if you want your videos to look very sharply when recording at 720x480 on your DVR.

Ok, I will simplify things for people to be able to determine what they are purchasing is what they are really getting without having to purchase a very expensive oscilloscope. If you purchase, lets say a camera that was advertise as being able to capture at resolutions of 720x480 then do the following to determine that you got what you paid for: You are basically going to create a TEST PATTERN for 720x480 using microsoft word, are going to print the paper, position the samera aiming perfectly at the test pattern and then check what image you get at your screen. The easiest way for you do create your test pattern is to print two pages, one with 720 lines and the other with 480 lines, unless you want to bother with perfect aspect ratio, then you can have all 720 lines and 480 lines merged together vertically and horizontally on the same page provided that you get the measurement good. (maybe on another program you are able to accomplish this more automated and faster, but on Microsoft Word it can be done, just manually): To do this, open up Microsoft Word and set page format to Landscape. Then create 720 vertical lines, filling the page perfectly spaced between each line, then type (or word art set as text background) "720 lines test pattern" in the middle of the page. when done save and print the page. The create a new document, set page format to landscape, then create 480 horizontal lines perfectly spaced between each other, then type (or word art) 480 Horizontal Lines Test Patter in the middle of the page and save and print that page out. To begin the test, you will need a RCA to VGA converter box capable of supporting high resolution images and relaying high resolution images to the computer monitor. For example, I have one and I set it to 1024x768 output resolution and it can receive high resolution images from my inputs. Connect the camera you would like to validate to your RCA to VGA converter box (you will need a BNC to RCA converter plug). With well illumination in your room take the 720 lines test pattern page you printed and tape it on the wall, position the camera perfectly making sure that vertically the first line matches immediately to the first edge of the screen and the last line is the very end of the screen, then analyze what you are seeing in the screen, if you are able to perfectly tell the lines and the white small spacings in between each lines without any major substancial blurs then it means that your camera is capturing at true 720 lines horizontally of resolution. next, take the 480 test patter sheet that you also printed, paste it on the wall, position the camera perfectly as to making sure the first line is the one starting from the very top of the screen and the last line is the one ending at the very end of the screen. Analyze what you get. If you are able to note all lines without any blurs between them, then your camera is genuinely capturing at 480 vertical resolutions. If the overall result of this test is a FAILURE, then that alone shall be enough proof that the seller lied when he sold you this camera, therefore return it and go else where to a reputable source to purchase your cameras. Please note that inferior converter boxes can lead to false negatives, if your converter box captures images at 320x240 res max, then you will need a new converter box capturing at 720x480. Also, if you have another camera around labeled at "320 TVL" you might want to repeat the test pattern on that camera as well just so you *CAN* see the difference between the blurriness you are seeing in that 320TVL camera and your supposed 720x480 res. camera(s). Note: You can also play around with many test patterns found all over the internet, including the color ones to see what's the finest details in many shades of colors your camera is able to capture sharply. Just that what ever test pattern you decide to download, make sure that it was done for 720x480 resolutions. ALSO YOU CAN SKIP THE CONVERTER BOX IF YOU HAVE A DVR CARD WITH CAPABILITIES OF 720X480 AS ITS "DISPLAY RESOLUTION"/OVERLAY. --- And like always, purchase only CCD cameras, and stay away from CMOS sensors.

That's why I suggested a SDD (Solid State Drive), they wont fail becaues of vibrations. You can check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive to learn more about Solid State Drives. You can also check out this video where SSD drives were a series of tests where conducted to measure the reliability of SSD against the old conventional mechanical hard drives. Especially you can check out the vibration test (this emulates the vibration that the laptop might suffer in that car) http://yafilm.com/view/94/solid-state-drives-vs-regular-hard-drives/

Ok, I know what's happening to you because I have personally seen this. (I am assuming that you have your DVR server installed AT YOUR HOME, if this is not the case, then you can skip to my section titled PLAN B) Where I am located in New York City, we have two major Internet Service Providers, one is Cable and the other is Verizon DSL. When we do CCTV installations and the customer wants to view the videos remotely from their laptops, etc and they are using Cable ISP, then they will be able to not only view their videos from any computers around the world, but they will also be able to view their videos at their house too where the DVR sever is installed using their public IP address. NOW, if the customer is under Verizon DSL, things are pretty much different. Lets say that this verizon DSL customer's public IP address is 4.2.2.55 (example only) and in their laptop I set within our Remote Software Application to connect to 4.2.2.55 for remote access, that customer will be able to see the videos from anywhere else EXCEPT using the SAME Verizon DSL connection where the DVR is installed (I guess that Verizon does not allow accessing user public services within the same user's DSL router), in that case, what we do is assign TWO different entries on our Remote CCTV software, ONE configured with that public IP address and then labeled as "External Remote Access" and THEN another entry with the PRIVATE (Router Assigned or Static Assigned) of the DVR server's IP address and labeled "Local Remote Access", that way, then the customer brings their laptop to the location where he has the DVR server installed, he can just double click at "Local Remote Access" to view his cameras on this laptop, and when he is on a different location/different internet connection then he can double click on "External Remote Access" to view his cameras on his laptop anywhere in the world. PLAN B: ===== If the location where you are trying to view your DVR's cameras is not the same as the location where you have installed the DVR server, then we are either dealing with your firewall in your laptop/computer blocking your remote software access, OR we are dealing with the Internet Service Provider blocking the port numbers that your DVR server is trying to use to broadcast the videos. I would first suggest that you TEMPORARILY disable the firewall software on your laptop/computer and retry to connect, if that fail then you can some what rule out that your firewall is not blocking your remote viewing software (keep in mind that SOME firewalls are very difficult to genuinely disable and will keep any program access rule in memory and in effect even if disabled, specially if the firewall software has a SERVICE entry in your operating system (I know that COMODO INTERNET SECURITY does this). You can also try installing the remote viewing software on ANOTHER computer and see if you have access, if not, then I guess that you can pretty much conclude that there is a transmission problem at the DVR server location. If there is a transmission problem at the DVR server, then you will need to define a new port for your DVR to transmit the videos. After you do this, be sure to port forward the new ports that you will be using at the router where the DVR is connected to. Also, be sure that you have manually assigned a STATIC IP Address to your DVR server AND that you are port forwarding the correct (new) ports to the IP address belonging to the DVR server. After you do this, you can retry the remote access and it might work (you have to find a port that your ISP is NOT blocking, especially if you are a residential customer, you have ports that are being blocked, if you are a BUSINESS customer where the DVR is installed, then ports are rarely blocked, but its not a guarantee). You can try port 8080 for HTTP and port 6600 for Cameras+ ports if that works for you, if not, keep on trying different ports. Hope this helps!

OK, LOGMEIN is a remote administration software similar to RealVNC that allows you to see your desktop remotely. Unfortunately, on some cards software that uses the OverLay format for the video display you are not going to see the images via your remote admin software. To be able to see the images the software needs to render the images via Direct X, DirectDraw, or Software Rendering. (I know that my software displays a Pink background color in place where the camers's image suppose to appear each time that I use my remote administration software to administer my DVR's but my customer do see all images normally and they also see their images normally remotely with my software-specific remote CLIENT application) If you were able to see the images, dont expect to see every frames per second of all cameras via any remote administration software. And LogMeIn is one of the worst ones for this purpose as you are using a 3rd party server to establish a connection between your PC and the DVR Server (DVR Server <-> LogMeIn Central Server <-> Your Computer) As you have a middle man server connection that will slow down bandwidths. I would prefer to use Real VNC as you will be dealing directly with the DVR server it self and if the DVR happens to be under Verizon FIOS fast ISP and your PC happens to be on Fiber Optic ISP as well you will then take full advantage of all the Frames Per Seconds you can get (like 2 to 4 which is really good for a remote admin software) Finally, there is nothing better than using your DVR's software's Remote Client viewing application as that will compress the images appropriately for remote viewing and you will be able to get most or all of all cam's Frames Per Second. RealVNC will give you the fastest connection possible to your DVR server when ever you need to perform administrative duties, but it requires that you port forwards the appropriate ports that you designate on the router attached to the DVR beforehand you are able to use RealVNC. It would be a good idea for one to install RealVNC and configure the program and customer's router each time that one does a DVR installation, what way the installer gets to save a lot of trips when the customer needs some kinds of favor, such as assistance with evidence DVD burnings, etc... for which you can manage all that remotely and fast.

Oh wow, I havent seen anything so problematic than the card's details you provided, I cant find any information on google for it, not even a hint that it is even a DVR card, NOTHING. Are you sure that is the information that the main microchip says (the biggest square shaped chip, or any (of the many) squared shaped microchip in your card? (If you plan to include a clear image of your DVR card, make sure that you dont do it by scanning it as that will cause photo (electric) static to your card damaging it, just use a digital camera if you plan to take a picture of your card to post it here) Have you tried contacting the 'seller' that sold you that DVR card and complained to him that your DVR card came with NO SOFTWARE? I know that you said that it costed you 5 pounds which is the equivalent to 10 US dollars, but that's no excuse for a seller not wanting to include a software with the DVR card, how are you going to use it then? You should complain, even cards being sold at Ebay for 9 US dollars do come with a software, even though it may be the old pirated PICO2000 software, but it still comes with SOMETHING that allows the user to at least functionally use it (until they make up their minds and decide to switch over to DICO800). Talking about DICO 800 that is mostly compatible with BTTV based cards, maybe you can give DICO800 (a legally freeware software for DVR cards) a try for your card, who knows if DICO 800's drivers might start the device up successfully. So google up for DICO 800 to download it. Cant give you a download link right now as the website that I used to know that they hosted it went offline after a domain name expiration. BUT I do have the software with me and if you can't download it I can give you access to my FTP server to get that software.

I still think it can be done cheaply. If vibration and beatings are of a concern, a very small pinhole/miniature camera can sustain beatings, you can even buy a steel enclosure to further protect the camera if you suspect it can be hit directly where ever you decide to mount the camera a laptop can be used, just make sure you use Solid State Disk (SSD) Drives, get the largest capacity you can, and dont worry, it wont get over written too many times quickly as the compression method and just one or cameras that you will be using wont fill up the hard drive too quickly, will probably take months for you to fill ONE cycle of the hard drive before overwriting takes places, with today's SSD hard drives, its data can be over written 1000's of times before requiring replacement. The good thing about SSD drives is that it can handle shock, vibration and beatings. You can even get the miniature laptop for that purpose followed by the PCMCIA / Card Bus DVR card. You can safely strap the laptop on one of the car seat as to if the car crashes the laptop wont suffer anything. Depending how you do it, the setup may end up looking a little "ghetto" (pass the cable where ever you can or drill a small hole, use the car's 12vdc car battery or cigarette adapter as the camera's 12v power, strap the laptop to an unused chair very securely, etc, etc) but its still a very cheap way of doing it.

I think that the poster's objective can be done without removing the word "cheap" from his requirements: A cheap 480 TVL CCD Pinhole/miniature camera with ultra thin wires and a PCMCIA DVR card for your laptop shall do the trick.

Based on my observations, most CCTV installers prefers to do outside-the-wall installations rather than putting all cables inside the walls due to many reasons, one of them is too problematic and without the proper instruments, you cannot easily determine if there is a blockage in any given pathways inside the walls leading to your desired target, and the other reason, it just takes way to much time doing it that way than doing an "all cables outside" installations. (I have spoken with CCTV installers that have done hundreds of jobs and they say that none of them dealt with passing cables inside the walls). If you would like to make your cables not visible as possible, you can purchase a very thin white CCTV cable being sold on Ebay, it will give you a perfect neat image quality up to a maximum of 300 feets. If your walls are white and the small, thin, cables are white and routing them carefully in the top edge of the ceiling will make them almost invisible to the normal eye and almost less noticeable. If you need more than 300 feets of distance and would like to keep the thickness of the cables as small as possible so they wont notice that much, you can also go the RJ-45 ethernet cable way, it will give you longer distances (I believe up to 1,000 feet if I am not mistaken). If there is not a problem seeing the standard "bulky" cables up in the walls, then you can always go with the industry grade RJ-59 to RG-6 Coax cables, if you pick them white and the color of your walls are white, then it will match better than using black cables. If you rout them neatly, then it should NOT be much of a problem and even better if you rout the cables inside a pipe.

two years ago I have my first and LAST dealings with wireless setup. I did a wireless setup to one of my friends after he said that he didn't wanted to rout wires because his walls were based on some materials that looked like marbles, so I manufactured him a 4CH DVR with a 2,400MHz wireless receiver (the only frequency that we are legally able to operate wireless cameras in NYC as of the date I did the install). I hooked up 4 wireless cameras, the images were looking fine, then later on it will get distorted in random basis (as if you were seeing a poor UHF TV picture off an antenna), no matter how I adjusted the receiving antenna, I would only improve the reception, but never perfectionize it. Result: Out of 4 cameras, two of them remained wireless, but the other two of them (most problematic ones) were converted to wired. Now I have started to see stores like BJ's sell wireless cameras that operates on the 900MHz band (I guess that 900MHz is now also legal to use as these stores around NYC is selling them, I havent check the legality of that frequency yet), but I haven't check them out, I fear that I might get the same distortionized results, even though 900MHz suppose to be better than using the highly 2,400MHz one (the higher, the more distortion prone it will be) But for now, it is much easier, and much head ache free to just tell my customer that I dont recommend wireless setups. Of course there will always be exceptions, such as when a mother needs to monitor her nanny for suspicious behavior. Its not the same to have just ONE wireless camera, than to have many of them. If for any reason you decide to go Wireless, make sure to pick a CCD based camera, even if you go WIRED you still should pick CCD cameras because they deliver the best picture quality. The cheapo CMOS cameras will do a horrible job at lower light conditions. Even in a room with a 40watt light bulb CMOS cameras will deliver crappy images with reddish moving background distortions.

Ok, I have personally seen and reproduced your problem when I connected my laptop to my TV via S-Video out to playback a video presentation. I could see my desktop and everything, but the video didn't show up, instead, it showed up blank. I was able to resolve the issue by opening up a "dummy" video first using a different media player, for example, I would open up Video1.mpg utilizing Windows Media Player and then press pause (that video will show up on your computer, but not on any external monitors) then I will Minimize Windows Media Player but NOT close it (Very Important -- first video needs to stay active in memory, but PAUSED, minimized). THEN I would open up Video2.mpg (of the video that I was intending to open up) utilizing a different media software such as PowerDVD, Windows Media CLASSIC (from K Lite Codec Packs) or even VLC Media Player, and THEN that video will show up on both monitors. In your situation, the fix may be completely the same as mines. First, you need to close your Viewgate software, THEN open up ANY video files that is laying around your computer and if you dont have one, then go and download any from the many freeware videos out there from the internet. Then open up that video using Windows Media Player, and pause it, then minimize it. Then go ahead, with both monitors active, open up your Viewgate software and the images shall appear on both monitors. Some video adapters comes with a feature on its drivers called "Clone Display" that by simply checking that box under Display Proterties > Advanced MAY get you the desired results. If your display adapter is an ATI or nVidia and you dont have the "Clone Display" features, you may want to check for a drivers update to see if the update do implement if, but if not of if you cant, the original solution shall be enough. There is another solution you can implement, but that other one is not going to be free, it will require you to purchase a VGA to S-Video/AV converter. Its a device that will convert what ever is "seeing" from your VGA port to a signal your TV will understand. So, using this solution there will be no need to open up the initial "dummy" video file first, you TV will see 100% what you see in your PC's monitor.

NVR = Network Video Recorder (Usually captures images through RJ-45 Ethernet based cameras) DVR = Digital Video Recorder (Captures images through BNC connections routed through popularly RG59/6 coaxial cables) If you plan to use Megapixel cameras, then you may need a Network Video Recorders because as far as I am concerned, DVR's highest resolution is of D1 at 720x480 DVD quality. If you plan on using standard cameras up to 600TVL of resolution then you can go the DVR way as long as the DVR that you pick can record at D1 resolutions. Going the Network Video Recorder way can present various problems, all depends on the quality of your router and switch hubs and even type of firewall(s) configurations in use at your home/enterprise. Some, if not all IP cameras (required for NVR's) optimizes their videos for internet transmissions, that way you can have images being recorded locally at your NVR and as well have another NVR at another remote location recording that same images, even have tertiary, etc backup NVR servers at other locations for redundancy and consistency in the event a thief steals your primary NVR you can still go to your secondary NVR to retrieve footage. The problem consists that since most IP cameras optimizes the images for internet transmissions, quality is lost, and compression has to be huge specially if its like a 3MP camera and is expected the upload to be less than, lets say 800kbps for compatibility of your cable ISP provider or DSL. If you plan to record locally, you may increase the bitrate of your IP cameras as locally your network speed runs at 100mpbs or 1024mpbs (if you have a gigabit network) for maximum offline quality storage, even though you will still be able to access real time remote images, but the remote images will be at reduced frames per second because of your possible ISP's upstream caps/limits. If you are under Verizon Fiber Optic ISP you wont have trouble receiving high quality mega pixel remote images as you will be under a 5mbps to 10mbps for upstream, so quality extremely fast ISP is critical if you plan to receive nigh quality NVR REMOTE images. Now, as of the DVR, there is no limit on the bitrate you can choose to have your images recorded, you can be recording D1 resolutions at lets say 7 Frames Per Second at the highest bitrate and quality possible and stuff a chain of 4 TB of hard drives in your DVR and that should give you plenty of days of recordings. With some DVR's you also have the option of doing remote recording, all boils down to that DVR's software specific features and capabilities, but at least what get's recorded locally in the DVR is not images that were optimized for transmission over the internet insuring the highest quality of images locally on the DVR (as well as your optimized backup images at your remote location) If you are on budget and still needs quality then go with the DVR at D1 and get 540 TVL Infrared CCD color cameras (or 600TVL CCD Black and White cameras/dual high intensity day/night vision) But, if you are on EXTREME budget, you can compromise a little of your VGA quality and go for a QVGA (320x240) or CIF (252x288) DVR specially if your place is small QVGA or CIF recording qualities will suffice your needs and maximize the amount of days you can store videos. So... NVR = Extremely Expensive to Implement. On some software can go as far as charging you a premium per EACH camera you decide to add to NVR (not counting remote NVR's you might plan to use for redundancies can multiply that fee), not counting the high fees per hour you will need to pay your highly qualified technician to address and map your IP Addresses and ports and configure your firewalls accordingly for proper video accesses, etc, etc... DVR at D1 = Expensive to Implement (you buy a 16CH DVR card, you get 16Channels of cameras you can enjoy at no additional costs. No need to hire a highly qualified technician, you can probably do it yourself) DVR at QVGA or CIF = Cheapest to implement.

Hi, Well, I am the manufacturer of the system that I specified and as the manufacturer I think I get to set MSRP for the products that I manufacture. I was only trying to design a product that completely matches the budjet of the original poster. I know its a 352x288 resolution per channel, but with properly placed cameras you can get positive identifications under that kind of configuration. Such as to begin with, placing one camera in the center of the entrance door in a manner than when a person walks in you get to capture a great deal of his face in around 70% of the viewable area of that channel and at 352 lines you will know and see that face clearly. Now as the other cameras, EVEN if that same person does something wrong, and even if you got to see that person doing something wrong at 7 pixels because that person was so far away from that other cameras, at least you will get to know what's the color of the person, the color of the shirt and jeans/pants and then you get to compare that visual information with camera#1 (the main entrance camera) to ID him/her. That way I was able to solve many cases locally within my neighborhood, even cases that got recorded on a DVR that we didn't install and that recorded on a slightly lower resolution (320x240 QVGA) than the DVR that I proposed here that records at 352x288 CIF for 20~50 extra pixels at least. Its all about strategic camera placements, dont expect to get positive identifications on ALL cameras, this wont even happen on D1 systems. To solve a case, you need cooperation from most, if not all of your cameras recordings, thats my stragegy, specially if $1,200 is the most you can afford to spend for a surveillance system. If for some reasons it must be at D1 720x480, I can also design D1 systems, but not at the $1,200 max budget, that system falls on a totally different pricing bracket.