groovyman

shockwave, I enjoyed watching the video. Thanks for posting it and showing some features of the camera.

I agree about image quality - that isn't the issue. Better quality is always advantageous and I'm right there with ya. The point I'm trying to make is that no matter how good the image, people may still not be identified. This comes via experience. If nobody knows who they are and they don't leave anything behind it can be very difficult to get a positive ID. That's all.

After being involved with preparing video of many robberies and burglaries I've formed the opinion that if the police, store owners or employees can't identify the criminal most likely the person isn't going to get caught no matter how good the video is. There is the rare occasion where the video makes the local news and someone watching might be able to identify the criminal, but that's the exception. Too many crimes go unsolved even with great video. Of course, great video is always better than crappy video, but just because you have mega pixel video of an incident doesn't mean anyone will get caught. I don't care if you can zoom in on a nose hair. If nobody knows who the person is and it's not widely broadcast chances are the result will be that you'll have great video of whoever committed a crime, and that's about it. The Internet is starting to change this slightly. Police agencies have been putting videos on Youtube, local police websites and, on occasion, local newspaper and TV station websites. But it's not enough. Video needs to be broadcast to as many people as possible so identification can be made. But, then there's always the issue of people not coming forward because they don't want to get involved, don't want to be branded a snitch and for fear of retribution. In fact, I get this from employees working for client businesses. I've never had an employee come up to me and say they think another employee is stealing. Once someone is caught I always hear "I thought something was going on." It's always after, never before. I love the idea a couple of guys came up with, Crookstube.com. http://www.crookstube.com/index.php But, most videos have few views and it hasn't gained enormous popularity yet.

I can agree with that. I've stated in a few posts here on cctvforum that I've installed cheap DVRs to replace aging time lapse VCRs. However, when the VCRs were working well the video quality was excellent. Back in the mid 2000's when I first started to get involved in CCTV I would hear comments like "how come my VCR that cost hundreds has better video than this DVR that cost thousands?" The problem with the VCRs was that over time the tapes would get worn out and not replaced, tapes would get damaged and caught up in the VCR, sometimes people would forget to change tapes, heads weren't cleaned or aligned and most often the tapes weren't viewed until an incident happened, so you never really knew how quality might be degrading over time. Then, although tapes would be marked Mon, Tue, Wed, etc. people would use whatever tape on whatever day, like the Sat tape on Tues. Managing this was a pain and trying to find an incident could take hours, especially if they had 2-3 weeks worth of tapes....then some places only had 2 or 3 working tapes, so retention was very short.

You maybe right. But think about this. The more judges and jury's are exposed to higher quality video do you think they will be as likely to prosecute on poor quality video? Yes. In my opinon video in & of itself is not going to convict anyone. But, it can help when trying to identify someone and see events that took place. Video is not the only evidence used to solve a crime. I really don't think prosecutors are going to present a case to a jury where the only evidence is lousy video. That doesn't make sense.

Show them the user manual. Ho...ly...crap! You can download it from here: http://www.dnt-cctv.com/en/downLoads.aspx?classID=4 Yupp, it's a Word doc. One thing is going through my mind right now: All your base are belong to us Here are some choice excerpts: - The key function specification in the front panel and the interface specification in the real panel are in the specification. - Front panel diagram, please mainly in kind. - Gently break apart the cover and put the back-end - Installation of the superstructure, the first front-end alignment - The back-end, gently break apart, and under the pressure Gehao - Software Shutdown: Hold down the button and 3 seconds, with the progress demonstrated that the system into the software turned off, the power light eliminate. Software start: You must start before entering the software, clicking on this button that can be opened to the power lights. - Note: The rear panel of the USB interface, on the one after the mouse, the next one after storage devices. The mouse, such as access to the next USB port, the mouse control will lead to an exception. - The video signal must be accorded with the state standard, which has the high signal to noise ratio, low aberration and low interference. The image must be clear and has natural color in the appropriate brightness. - TV is not a credible replacement as a video output. It demands reducing the use time and control the power supply and the interference introduced by the nearby equipments strictly. The creep age of low quality TV can lead to the damage of other equipments. - Avoid the entrance of high voltage. Make the layout reasonably. Take precaution from the thunder. By the way, the system in the OP is nothing like the QSee. The one in the OP seems to have more features. Good luck to a novice trying to learn how to use the features with this manual.

I love it! I've actually been using that for years.

I got started for a couple of reasons. 1 - Back in 2005 a client had surveillance systems installed in 4 businesses he was opening. He hired a local company and each installation was worse than the next. The installers were terrible, support was terrible, they didn't finish the jobs and didn't deliver all the equipment contracted for. Me (the IT guy) and another guy (the maintenance guy) would go in afterward and fix what they did wrong. So, we decided to start doing this ourselves, which actually turned in to the maintenance guy doing it because I didn't have the time. I helped with networking and general camera placement. From 2006-2010 he did around 30 surveillance installations. 2 - In 2010 the maintenance guy left to pursue other interests. I was the guy in charge of maintaining the systems (also got into some loss prevention for some clients), but really didn't have an interest in installing. But, our mutual clients started turning to me for new or replacement equipment. I saw an opportunity and started educating myself on the different types of DVR and camera equipment available. I did alot of testing, signed up with distrubutors for the equipment I liked, found a couple of quality low voltage installers and I was good to go. So, for me, it was just an opportunity that came my way. I don't advertise this type of service, but the people who know me know they have someone trustworthy they can turn to. I've had 35 installations in the last 2 years, have 3 on the schedule and am meeting with someone next week who has 5 locations where he would like surveillance systems installed. This has become a decent side business for me.

This looks somewhat similar to some cheap $99 QSee DVRs I purchased a couple of years ago. The QSee systems I bought can record at D1 30fps and the recorded video isn't bad (pretty good actually) when used with decent cameras. But, it's very light on other features. If this DVR is similar, here are the issues I have with the $99 QSee: - Can only playback 1 channel at a time, unless the playback software is used. But, all video segments need to be downloaded to a PC - each channel, one by one, segment by segment. - PC Playback software is very clunky and somewhat difficult to use. - Playback on the DVR is also very clunky and can playback just 1 channel at a time. - DVR records in 15, 30, 45 or 60 minute intervals & can sometimes lose a few seconds of video as recording intervals change. - If recording at 15 minute intervals & you want to view an event that happened from 12:14 - 12:16 you'll need to start watching from 12:00 and save video from 12:00-12:30 for each camera you want to view. It gets worse when recording in 30, 45 or 60 minute intervals. - Cannot set individual quality or fps per channel - it's global. Quality settings are D1, HD1 and CIF. FPS settings are Best, Fine & Good which translate to 30, 15 and 7 fps. - Cannot set individual user accounts. Three accounts exist: admin, user and a mobile account. Can change admin & user passwords only via remote software or web browser. Mobile password can only be set on the DVR. - No email alert settings. - DVR gains roughly 2 minutes per month, cannot configure sync with time server and cannot change time remotely. - Manual can be difficult to follow - obvious chineese/english translation issues. For just plain recording, remote real-time viewing and occasional playback these DVRs might be OK, but expect occasional glitches like gaps/stops in recording (a few seconds to a few minutes), no indication of record or hard drive failure and the other issues I mentioned above. Bottom line for me: It records (most of the time) and can be accessed remotely. That's pretty much about it, and that may be all that some people care about.

Yupp. There are many people out there that just don't value the service, want the lowest cost equipment and expect perpetual support afterward. Additionally, I won't provide installation service for systems they've bought themselves or sell hardware for self install. I don't want to provide support for the cheap stuff they buy or for the inevitable self install screwup. In either case, it will be my fault when something doesn't work correctly. I'll have none of it. I do this to make a living, not to have headaches. I haven't had to pop an aspirin in years

Thanks for the offer, but I'm going to decline. I know what's happening and I have a simple solution - going to stick another router on the network. Cable Modem/Router ---> New Router ---> DVR & other network devices I just need to reconfigure port forwarding & device IP addressing. I typically don't like doing things this way, but this whole thing should take 10 minutes, solve everything and I'll be done with it. I could also configure the DVR for DHCP, then set the IP address statically in the DVR and reconfigure port forwarding, but if the Cable Modem should lose power I'll need to do it again. I'm in FL, we're entering the rainy season and extended power/cable/dsl outages are common.

I'm not necessarily looking for help here. Just reporting something that's been happening recently and wondering if it's happening to anyone else. Comcast is the cable company by me. Starting last week I've been having problems connecting to DVRs in 3 locations. The 3 locations form a 50 mile radius, so it's not localized to one specific area. The commonality between the 3 locations is that they are all recent Comcast installations with the same Business Class Modem/Router. Everything was working fine for months, but one day last week I couldn't remotely connect to the DVR at location 1. Couple days later location 2 experienced the same issue, then the next day location 3. The only thing that resolves the issue is rebooting the cable modem/router, but this is temporary. It's very weird and I've never seen anything like this before: - The cable modem/router does not lose Internet connectivity, but the ports for the DVR somehow disable. - When the DVR is "down" I'll perform a port scan on the WAN IP address. All ports for the DVR appear closed, but ports configured for other network devices remain open. - I'll call and ask someone to reboot the cable modem, then all the DVR ports appear open and I can remotely logon to the DVR. - If the DVR is idle for a period of time, the ports are disabled again, although remain configured and are set as active in the Comcast modem/router. - The DVR can be logged on to locally no matter what. Bottom line: Reboot cable modem, can access DVR remotely. DVR sits idle, remote connectivity is lost until cable modem is rebooted, but local connectivity works fine. In each location I have at least one PC on the network that I can communicate with - no problem. These PCs are setup with specific ports forwarding to them. The difference between the DVR and the PCs is that the PCs are always on and are used frequently throughout the day. The DVR sits there and doesn't send any information out until a request comes in from the WAN. I made the mistake of calling Comcast tech support (what a joke). They are no help at all. Waste of 1/2 hour trying to explain networking 101 to teir 1 support. And stupid me, I called twice thinking the next person would understand Where do they get these people? Anyway, I have a solution to the problem, but was just wondering if anyone else with Comcast Business Class Internet service was experiencing the same issue. I'll get the modem/router make, model & firmware version when I go on-site if anyone wants to compare notes. I personally think it was a pushed firware update that happened last week. Wouldn't be the first time Comcast did this and messed things up. I have 20+ other locations with Comcast Internet service and they're working fine, but they have a different modem/router than these 3 locations.

I don't know how I mssed this. Very nice. I'm sure it will help alot of people.

Is you cable modem plugged in? Can you tell me what lights are on the modem? They read from a script... No networking knowledge required. Oh... You want to know how to fix the problem... Let me create a trouble ticket and transfer you to tier 2 Oh, I can see you've worked there Either that or you've called the cable company once or twice yourself

The camera is connected directly to the TV, correct? Many times with these types of cameras the image is black & white with just the IR. Is there a setting in the TV for B&W? Try turning down the color saturation on the TV and see if that helps. I ran into this problem when viewing B&W time lapse VHS video on a VCR connected to a video capture card on my computer (I did this to digitize the VHS video). I turned down the color saturation to zero and it worked fine then.

A couple of years ago when I started doing some research on DVR systems 3XLogic/Vigil was at the top of my list. I thought the system was fantastic and still do. I never ended up purchasing because it's actually too advanced for my needs.

That's fantastic. With a bit of "out of the box" thinking you were able to solve the issue - good for you!

I don't know about the cameras, but you can configure the DVR to send an email when motion is detected. Start on page 59 of the manual: http://www.averusa.com/surveillance/download/manual/EH1000H-4_Nano_Manual_EN.pdf

I don't think it's necessarily different with Hybrid DVRs - it's just the way I am. I always look for bios & driver updates for my computer equipment too. One thing I don't like is when an update comes out and there aren't any release notes to go with it. Many years ago I was a product manager for a tech company that produced hardware & software products. I took bug fixes, updates and release notes very seriously. I always felt our customers deserved to be informed of known bugs, fixes and new features - many of which were customer requests.

Nicely done. You certainly put alot of time and effort in to that. Thanks so much for sharing.

That's so wrong. Why would you even admit to this? To each his own I guess.

I agree with that 100%.

I love doing updates. Manufacturer comes out with a firmware update and I'm there, especially if it adds new features. I have a few Aver Nano DVRs installed and I always put on the latest firmware updates. They just came out with one last week that added some new features. When QSee came out with updates for the models my clients have I'd install them too. Most other DVRs I maintain are a few years old and support stopped a while ago. The latest Aver Nano Firmware update (for 4 and 8 channel) included, but not limited to: - Support Remote import/export configuration file by remote setup software. This means that I can remotely export and save the DVRs configuration file. Previously I would need to be at the DVR with a flash drive to do this. I like saving configuration files whenever I make a change. - Support HDD Calculator. Although you have to be at the DVR to do this, it will calculate approximately how much video storage there is at the current settings. Doesn't make a difference on how the DVR performs, but I think it's neat. - Support Backup by time. Many other DVRs have this feature already, but the Nano didn't. You would need to back up video in 1 hour intervals and saving video that went past the hour would require 2 backups. Went quick, but now it lets you specify times. Again, this needs to be done at the DVR. - Support using “admin0000” to reset password. This is nice. If you forget the admin password you can call Aver and they can generate a PIN that will allow you to logon and change the password. Not that I've ever forgotten a password - Support firmware easy upgrade the firmware, import configuration file, and IP cam patch at the same time mechanism. This goes directly to what shockwave199 was just saying about having to get your settings back. It can all be done at the same time. The firmware update previous to this one added support for ONVIF, Dyndns and updated the Web Viewer software. The one before that added a different way to apply Daylight Savings Time. And all the previous firmware updates added new features and fixed bugs. Need to read the release notes and decide if the update is important to you. Me, I'll always put it on.

ACTi has a policy on purchasing product from unauthorized resellers. http://www.acti.com/news/Announce/Caution_to_Customers_Regarding_Unauthorized_Resellers

Correct. But, what I do advise is to take all that information and manually type it in on the DVR. What's important is that the IP address assigned to the DVR doesn't change. I would use an IP address such as 192.168.0.200 instead of .7 though - something out of the typical DHCP range of the router. You would set up the DYN account to look at the IP address assigned to the cable modem by the cable company. Go to a website such as ipchicken.com or whatismyip.com to see this IP address. Actually, when you setup the DYN account it will ask you if you want to use that current IP address, which is something you'll want to do. Then, in the router, you'll need to configure port forwarding to the address assigned to the DVR. Let's say it's 192.168.0.200. You'll want to forward the ports specified by the manufacturer so you can communicate with the DVR via the Internet. Most will use port 80, and for any other port you'll need to read the manual or look at the settings on the dvr. Now, the IP address assigned to the cable modem may change over time. Could be daily, weekly, monthly - whatever. So it's a good idea to setup the dynamic dns service in the dvr itself (if available) or download the dynamic dns client updater from dyn.com and install it on a computer that is on very often. Many routers also have the dynamic dns feature built in that can be configured.