Kablooie

I like D1 @ 7fps (or even 5fps). I like to play around with the DVR systems and ran some tests for my own benefit not too long ago. I set many different record qualities and compared them during playback both via Internet, local download and converting to AVI format. I also took still images of the different record qualities and compared them. D1 / 7fps seemed to be the sweet spot for me. I'll certainly sacrifice some disc space and frame rate for better quality images. Here's a true story that just recently happened. A person's cell phone was stolen in a store (fast food type restaurant). I was given the timeframe and saved video of the crime. A few days later the theif came back to the store. The employees recognized him and called the police. When the police arrived they didn't want to arrest the guy unless there was solid proof he stole the phone. The employees showed video to the police and they arrested him. That's the difference good quality video can make. I've been involved in other situations where the video was not good quality and it couldn't be used to positively identify anyone.....and that's when you hear comments like "What good is this system? The video is crap. What did I spend all this money for?" Well, you get to retain 4 months of crappy video though

Call or email the manufacturer. Ask them for local and national authorized dealers of the product you're looking for.

Hmmm, that looks very interesting. I can see this working out for some of the folks I do work for. It's certainly soemthing I'll suggest to some people. I know a few who could use it right now. Thanks tomcctv.

shropna, thank you very much! I do believe this may work and would be a very simple solution. The screen resolution on the PC is 800x600. Now, why didn't I think of that? DOH I just did a little searching and have a local electronics retailer that carries PC to TV converters. I'm going to buy one in the next couple of days and will report back how it worked out. Thankfully I have RCA to BNC adapters

Specs state: Max 1 internal HDD (up to 2TB, 2TB x 1) So, I don't understand how it can be sold with dual 500GB hard drives. In any case, it does seem like you can install a hard drive larger than 500GB. Whether or not you can buy it without an internal hard drive depends on who is selling it. As far as capacity, that depends on a number of factors. Recording at lower quality can greatly increase retention time. Increasing quality can decrease retention time. Motion detection, constant recording, scheduled recording, environment and bit rate (CBR, VBR) can change retention drastically. So, there is no straight answer, like a 1TB hard drive will give you xx weeks or months. I have various systems installed with 1TB hard drives, H.264 compression, VBR, recording 24/7 @ D1 7fps. Typically, with 1 camera I'm seeing 6+ months retention. 2 cameras 3+ months, 4 cameras 5-7 weeks and 8 cameras 2-3 weeks. The lowest retention I have is 10 days with 8 cameras recording 24/7, audio on two channels, POS text from 2 registers and a 1TB worth of hard drive space. Please remember that your retention time may be higher or lower. The times I mentioned are just typical with the way I have systems configured.

Too bad sant12345 never responded with more information on how (or if) the issue was resolved. Could have learned alot more.

Just a quick background on myself: I am not a security or surveillance system professional. I run a computer services company and install/maintain many point-of-sale systems for my clients. I typically outsource surveillance system requests I receive from my clients (that's may change soon). However, I am involved in the selection of the surveillance system and layout of the cameras (mostly relying on the advice of professionals like yourselves though). My main involvement has been integration with the pos system and networking the DVR to the LAN and Internet for remote viewing and administration. I also provide some loss prevention services to a few clients. Lately I've been wanting to learn more about the different technologies available in video surveillance systems. Many of my client's systems are getting old (or poor choices were made from the beginning) and will start needing replacement soon. I came across cctvforum.com in my quest for knowledge.....and here I am. I must give a big thank you to all of the regular contributors here. I've read hundreds of posts over the last few weeks and have learned a great deal from youse guys . I hope to be able to contribute when questions arise within my areas of expertise.

One more - I like Subway, what can I say I didn't capture this either. Subway Employee of the Month

I didn't capture this. Black bear breaks into a subway restaurant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBiboVzi2VI

A couple of times I had to retrieve video of someone in a store not making it to the restroom on time. Not as blatant as that, they couldn't help it. Managers wanted to video to explain why the store may have been closed for a couple of hours afterward (cleanup).

These aren't funny to the person(s) these things happened to, but sometimes funny to watch. - Police arresting employees caught stealing - that's always fun entertainment. - People changing into or out of uniforms in the back room (go to the friggin bathroom). - In places that sell food, people dropping their just purchased items. - Employees slipping on floors they just mopped themselves.

I've seen my share of people doing really stupid things in full camera view. I can understand the public not realizing there are cameras, but all employees know there's 24/7 recording (nothing is hidden), but I think some of them forget. Here are a few examples: 1 - Employee #1 stealing cash from the purse of employee #2. Got full frontal video of employee #1 opening the purse, going through it & taking out the cash. The employee even looks up at the camera a couple of times. 2 - Customer leaves a credit card behind. Employee puts it on the side, then an hour or so later gives it to a friend who came into the store. If I remember correctly, the friend ended up being arrested later that night when trying to use it after being reported lost/stolen. 3 - Employee #1 using a credit card belonging to employee #2. We didn't get employee actually taking the card, but we got the employee using the card on the register in the store where they both worked. Of course we have great coverage on the register. We found it when employee #2 contacted the credit card company to report the card lost/stolen and got a list of charges that were made. One of the charges was in the store where the employee worked. The credit card company provided us with the date & timestamp of the transaction. Easiest "gotcha" I was ever involved with. 4 - Employee stealing a cell phone from a customer. Customer leaves it behind on the counter. Employee finds it, starts playing with it and puts in pocket. Customer comes back an hour later and employee lifts hands, shrugs shoulders & shakes head no. The next day I'm shaking my head no also, with a sigh. Customer got the phone back & employee got fired. In all cases, except for where the person tried to use the card after it was reported lost/stolen, nobody pressed charges. I think this is one reason people who steal keep on stealing.....they get away with it and if they're caught they get away without punishment.

Yupp, that's the best thing to do. Whenever I'm interested in a product and am unsure of where to purchase I always contact the manufacturer. I can't remember a time where I haven't received an email or phone call with the info I'm looking for. I'm usually referred to authorized resellers/distributors that offer competitive pricing, great service and great support. So, when anyone asks "where can I buy xyz product" I always suggest to contact the manufacturer.

Here's a screenshot of a rear entrance with a car passing by. You can see what I mean about the date & time getting in the way sometimes. I can edit and change the position of the channel number, but the date & time is fixed where it is.

I have a client who purchased one of the Q-See QR-414 models for $99 (no hard drive) and asked me to install it. This was 3 months ago and since then he purchased 3 more, which I also installed. So, he's had 4 of them running over the last 2-3 months. I've been using them and thought I would share my impression of this particular model. Pros: 1 - Very easy to setup. The DVR has 2 USB ports, one for external backup and one for a mouse. With the mouse it's very easy to navigate the setup menu and configure the DVR. Using the buttons or remote can be cumbersome, but I have that same opinion with other systems. 2 - Very easy to use. The DVR can be accessed remotely via Internet Explorer or the D9 Viewer, included on a CD or available for download from the Q-See website. Video can also be played back from the DVR itself. 3 - USB port for external backup. I had to download several hours of video one day. I used a flash drive and backed up the files in minutes. 4 - Record Quality. Has Resolution settings of D1, HD1 and CIF. Quality Settings of Best, Fine and Normal. With settings at D1/Normal it produces decent recorded video at 704x480 7fps. 15 minutes of recorded video (1 channel) is approx. 50MB in size (more or less depending on environmental conditions). 5 - Smartphone access. Works for both live and playback. 6 - Supports up to 1TB SATA hard drive. On average, with 4 color cameras recording 24/7 at D1/Normal and a 1TB hard drive the DVR retains from 6-8 weeks of video. 7 - The playback software allows you to view multiple channels simultaneously (local content). I think this software feature is great. Too bad it doesn't work with remote viewing though. 8 - There's a separate AVI Generator program that works very fast. The D9 and Web viewers also have built-in 264-to-AVI conversion functions. 9 - Ability to password protect remote viewing access. 10 - Has an Internet Bandwidth setting, so you can set a limit on how much bandwidth is used when viewing live. It goes from 128K to 1024K. I have them set on 256K and remote live viewing is fine. Cons: 1 - Although very easy to setup, there aren't many options and not everything can be configured remotely. Date, time, smartphone username/password, recording interval cannot be configured remotely. To set these you need physical access to the DVR. 2 - Although very easy to use, it's functionality is very limited. Cannot view more than one location at a time from the same window. Cannot remotely playback more than one channel at a time (although all channels can be viewed simultaneously via live viewing). 3 - The unit can be set to record in 15min, 30min, 45min or 60min intervals. I set it for 15min intervals to get smaller files sizes (for downloading via Internet). If I want to view something that happened at 12:12:25PM I need to start watching (or downloading) from 12:00PM and wait. If more than one channel is desired I basically need to download each channel individually, then play back locally. If the location has fast upload speed the files can be downloaded (or FF) quickly, however if you have slow upload speed, downloading one 15min video segment (1 channel) can take from 10min-15min. You want 2 channels - try 20-30 minutes. Can be frustrating and a huge waste of time when just a couple of minutes need to be played back remotely. I'd rather go on-site and view the video via the local network. 4 - The time runs fast. All units have gained 6-8 minutes within 3 months and (as already mentioned) the time cannot be changed remotely. 5 - Recording is VBR. No way to change this. Great if that's what you want, not so great if you prefer CBR. I like to play around with these settings to see which is better for the environment. With this unit there is no choice. 6 - Cannot change location, size or color of date & timestamp. I feel the date & timestamp are in a bad location and a couple of font sizes too large. Also, the location changes slightly when viewing live via Internet vs. recorded video vs. live on a monitor connected to the DVR. It can be very frustrating when you think you've got the perfect camera angle, but then the date & time cover someone's face. 7 - The case does not have an internal fan and there isn't room to install one. A small hard drive cooling fan fits though. I made sure the units are in well ventilated areas, but only time will tell how long before heat takes it's toll. 8 - Cannot set Resolution & Quality on a per channel basis. It's global, so you can't have D1/Normal on CH1 and CIF/Normal on CH2. Choose a setting and it's for all channels. 9 - There are just two user accounts for remote viewing: User and Admin. You cannot create different usernames with different access rights, although the User account can just view live and playback, it cannot configure. The User and Admin passwords can be changed remotely, but smartphone username/password has to be changed by having physical access to the unit. Oh, and there's just one username/password for smartphone viewing. There are other features that I can't comment on because they're not used. The features include: - Audio: 1 channel - Record Mode: can be set to a schedule or always. I have it on always - don't know how well scheduled recording works. - PTZ - Motion Detection - DDNS service There may be some other features I'm leaving out. Bottom line: for $99-$129 (plus cost of hard drive) I didn't expect bells and whistles. I think it's good for what it is though. The main thing I'm very satisfied with is the quality of recorded video. This certainly isn't a professional system, but I don't think it's a kids toy either. Functionality leaves alot to be desired though. However, if you're looking for something very basic & inexpensive to just record and playback video this may be a solution. Just be aware of it's shortcomings.

I'll see if I can get client's permission.

Which is on sale? I'm serious. I typically go with Seagate or Western Digital though. Widely available at decent prices.

You need to look at the specs of the DVR. For instance, don't buy a TB hard drive if the DVR doesn't support it. The main differences between the hard drives you'll be looking at are capacity, rpm & cache. Like Bean00 said, contact the manufacturer or look through the manual to determine what the DVR supports.

- Is that when viewing live or recorded video? - What record settings are being used? CID, HD1, D1, etc. - How many cameras are being viewed simultaneously? - Is remote viewing being utilized at more than one computer at the same time? - You stated "internet speed 3 Mbps". Is that upload or download? What are the bandwidth specifications from both sites (upload and download)? - Is there a setting on the DVR that controls Internet upload speed? - Can you post a sample video?

Video saved the day for a client of mine from having to pay unemployment benefits to an ex-employee who was caught stealing. About 2 months ago I helped a client identify an employee who was stealing in his store. The employee was not ringing up sales and pocketing the money. The employee was fired and the video evidence saved to disc. A couple of weeks ago the employee filed for unemployment benefits. She said in her claim that is was a problem with the register and, essentially, that she was fired due to no cause of her own. A phone hearing was scheduled for today. During the first couple of minutes my client asked the unemployment representative "Did you receive the evidence DVD I sent you?" The reply was yes. Then the rep started to address Ms. Smith (not her real name). Ms. Smith did not respond. "Ms. Smith, are you there? Ms. Smith?" Well, when Ms. Smith heard there was video evidence she disconnected from the call. Attempts by the unemployment rep to call her back were unsuccessful, so the rep had no choice but to dismiss the claim. Justice was served.

Maybe remove the hard drive, connect it to a computer and delete the video files (leaving all other files alone)? Seems like this should be simple, quick & easy. I would make an image of the drive first, just in case a mistake was made.

How does the quality look during playback? Also, how does it look if converting to a different format? Can you see all the information you require? How does it look when you zoom in? How do still shots look? I've used grainy and somewhat distored B&W video tape from time lapse VCR as evidence of employee theft, burglaries and robberies.

Hmmm, is this a thinly disguised advertisement for your company?

Sometimes. It all depends what is caught on video. Sometimes the theif can leave something behind like fingerprints & shoeprints. The police I've worked with watch the video very closely to see if they can gather any type of evidence at all. They're also looking for height, weight, body type, mannerisms, etc. So, even if a direct shot of the persons face isn't available the video can still be useful. One thing I find is that a good monitored alarm system is great. It should also be a sounded alarm. Usually the burglar is in & out within a minute (or two) which limits what they can steal and the amount of damage done.

Maybe record the video off the monitor with a camcorder. Also, I wonder if you can record the video output if you connect a different DVR (or VCR) in between the current DVR and monitor. Might be worth a shot.