SEANHAWG

if you install yourself, you could get 4 really nice IP megapixel camera system for less than 8 grand. If we are talking analog, I dont see how/why anyone would spend 8 grand on a 4 cam analog system unless the coax has solid gold in it. Most people will not have a need for a PTZ on a 4 cam home install, let alone an IP PTZ. Yeah, I guess if you slapped up 4 IP PTZ's then you would be getting pretty high up there but if you are talking standard dome or IP cameras, you should easily be able to get under $8000. That Axis PTZ seems really overpriced anyways, thats not even considered megapixel and its still over $3000 retail. Thats some bull skip right there. But back to the OP's original question. here is another user who installed some VCM's. You can take a look at his cameras and compare them with yours: viewtopic.php?t=29296

You can get a high end IP system and spend alot less than 8 grand.

Hi Moe, A good rule of thumb to determine if this is your camera or DVR is to do this: - Plug the CNB camera directly into your monitor Ask yourself if it looks considerably better than what it looks like in your recorded snapshots. Dont get me wrong, the snapshots will never look as when you plug the camera directly into the monitor, but the degradation of the video quality should not be that significant. The CNB is one of the best Analog cams on the market and it doesnt get much better image quality wise. With that being said, the pics that you are showing do seem to look slightly over compressed and that has to do with the DVR. They dont look bad by any means, but they could probably be slightly better. You did a good job in replacing most of your systems components but the DVR is probably one of the more important things that would have needed to have been replaced. In a matter of fact, that may have been the first thing I would have replaced if I were in your shoes. Now with all this being said, you probably will see a slight improvement in picture quality when switching to a better DVR, but I dont want you to think that its going to be a drastic change by any means. So I am not sure if its justification for you to go out and get a better DVR for a slight bump in quality, thats up to you to decide. But what you can try is to optimize the equipment that you have right now to see if you can get an even better picture to help save you some money. Try these things: #1) Delve into the CNB's picture settings to optimize the quality of the picture. Play with the sharpness to see if that helps any. Some DVR's dont like too sharp of a picture, while others do. #2) Make sure that you have your DVR optimized for the least compressed picture. I know you already have your DVR setup for D1 judging by your images. But you can also, on most DVR's, rise or lower the quality. You will want to raise it to the highest quality. if the DVR lets you define the bit rate, that would be even better, go ahead and max out your bit rate #3) are you 100% sure that you have your cameras focused to the maximum. Did you do the old routine where you get on the cell phone and talk to your wife or kids where they tell you "no zoom out, no too far, go back!" I am guilty of that, but I have found out, that never gets it focused the best. Bring a monitor out with you to the camera where you can fine focus it to the optimal settings. Hope this info helps!

Are you following the backup guide to a "T"?

One thing you may need to do is to select "Show all files" whenever you are searching in a folder.

Hi Firefighter, The Video files are in .DAV format. Open the player, and then open up one of the .DAV files with the player. If you want to send one of the.DAV's to me, I can have a try. Once the player starts to play the.DAV file, you can have the option to convert it over to AVI. Also, the player should be on your flash drive whenever you backed up the original file as well.

Whats the Gateway do? Allow remote access?

Zeus's you can do this on.

My bad. I was wrong, its still 7FPS on all channels D1 for the Apollo's. Just verified and checked. Sorry for the confusion. If you want to do channels 1 and 9 at D1 30 FPS, then the rest of the channels have to be CIF or HD1. What you can do is set all the channels to CIF or HD1 and then select channels 1 and 9 at D1 30 FPS. The recommended way to record is still D1 on all channels even if you have lower frame rate.

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YAY!

Edit to original post. Rory is correct you have to have all other 14 channels at CIF or HD1 in order to get full D1 at 30 FPS on each channel

Alex is Canadian, you cant expect him to get it right the first time. I apologize in advance to all of my Canadian Friends and Customers.

You can set channel 1 and 9 to 30 FPS D1 if you like

I sent you the guide on how to do so via PM. Thanks!

You will never get more than one image on an email per motion event. If that is what Qsee's manual says, then they are wrong, or that it is meant for FTP.

You only get one snapshot per motion event, and you will get 3 emails. The first email is to show when the motion event started, then you will get a snapshot email, and the last email is when the motion event ended. I think the snapshot frequency is for FTP snapshot uploading if I am not mistaken.

The converter you are referring to is a 24 VAC transformer, and there is no plus or minus with 24 VAC power so that is why you dont see them labeled. You simply plug one wire into one input and one wire into another and you dont have to worry about getting your wires crossed. The left input is a ground and can be ignored, it sounds like you have it hooked up right, but you can check the camera guides on the USB drive for more detailed installation instructions.

Sweet firefighter! I would like to see some snapshots taken from your DVR of the camera so I can add it to our site (if you oblige) whenever you get your DVR networked, let me know and I will show you an easy way to take snapshots.

COOL

The best advice: Neither. If you are on a strict budget, there is better stuff out there.

I sent you a PM, please check it and let me know if that works. Thanks!

You should be able to have D1 snapshots on channel 1. Its within the encode section.

Yeah you can send actual recorded video files via FTP to an offsite FTP server if you wish. There are easier ways to record video to an off-site computer rather than using FTP, but the FTP option is there if you wish.

Thats funny. But I would vote for Canada over Obama.