georgeh

Hi Phil, As mentioned I have the Maplins version of this unit badged under the name of Sentient, so it would seem the CnM units sold on Amazon are from the same manufacturer. More to the point, the box that my unit was supplied in has a CE approval mark and it is also RoHS compliant as well (no lead solder etc), 2002/95/EC. Regards George.

Hi Phil H, I too send an e-mail to Maplin to ask about software/firmware updates for these sentient DVR's and got a single line response. "There are no updates for this unit", pretty poor show if you ask me, talk about unhelpful. Just as a matter of interest the documentation provided with the setup indicates that you should use IE6 or IE7 for stable operation. I have been using both IE7 and IE8 and it seems to work fine. I would love it if there was support for Firefox, as I prefer this browser over IE. I do not know if this is of interest to you or the group, but the firmware on my box is; T103025, do not know if it is the same on all you other guys boxes, but it might give us users an indication if there is any updates out there that we are not being informed of. Regards George.

Hi Dave, I initially had a simular issue just trying to get the LAN setup side working, it would seem that my router firewall was blocking the ability to download some specific DVR active X drivers from a far Eastern company (you may have encountered this when you initially set the system up). Although I have not yet been in a position to connect remotely via dynDNS or any other provider, it could well be that the Active X driver has not been successful in downloading onto the PC that you are trying to login with remotely. If you have a laptop it might be worth loading the active X control on to this when connected to you home network (login using LAN IP)once you know this works, then try login in via the unique IP address that is provided by dynDNS to see if it now works. Regards George.

Hi Sparkz, Thanks for the details so far. The password thing still did not seem to work, so I looked at this port forwarding that you mentioned, unfortunatly still no joy. I took the DVR to my works place and connected to to our network to see if it would at least allow me to get past the start gate. Allowed the box to be allocated it's own IP address, entered the DNS settings and then pinged the given IP address and bingo, no data loss. So, I opened IE8.0 and typed in the given IP address of the DVR, after installing the requested activeX control I was able to view the remote GUI. So I conclude that the error seems to be some 'blockage' on my BTHome hub2. I have not tried the remote Dyndns setup yet, but this is a mighty step forward just knowing that the box is functioning as expected. Thanks for your pointers so far they have been very informative. It is good to know that someone has got the majority of options working, and as you say; seems good value for the money. Regards George.

Hi Sparkz, Thanks for responding so soon it is appriciated. I followed your instructions but still had no success, I must be doing something seriously wrong. After adding the passwords as mentioned in your mail, I rebooted the box and opened my web browser once again (IE8.0), once again the password box of the 'user login' window is greyed out and prevents you from typing in the box (The password function is requested locally if i try to enter the setup menu, so i know this is working). If I ping the IP address of the box I get 0% packet loss implying that I'm able to see the box. If I log onto my BT homehub2 I can see that the DVR is present and connected. Both Active X and Direct X are loaded on the remote (Lan connection) PC. but as you can read I can't even login to the DVR via the LAN connection, let along start to think about a remote WAN connection using Dyndns. regards George.

Hi Sparkz, I have one of these setup's only it goes under the name of Sentient CCTV kit and I purchased it only the other day from Maplins. I'm glad to hear that your installation has been mostly sucessful unlike mine, I having nightmares even logging in via my web browser on a LAN setup, so unfortunatly I can not currently answer you question. But maybe you would be so kind as to assist me as I had almost lost faith with this unit from 2nd day of purchase. I have not setup any passwords at the moment as I did not want to make thing to complexed whilst trying to sort out the basics, so after setting up a static IP on the DVR, I type the IP of the box into the browser of a seperate PC connected on my LAN. I'm meet with the logging screen and as I have not currently set a password the box is greyed out. Either selecting LAN or INTERNET from the NETWORK window results in a reply of 'login failed' on selection of the LOGIN button. Any help would be much appriciated. George.