lowpro

Nice job on the review! I noticed that you have a few different models of the dome cameras. Which one do you like better?

During Black Friday a Target store was selling them for $123 (huge mistake). Pretty soon everybody and their momma was trying to get them price matched at different stores. A lot of people were successful. There are news articles on the web. Slickdeals has a huge thread about it with pictures. Enjoy!

Man that was awesome! " title="Applause" />

Hi Guys. Just wondering if anyone knows if you can run the Dahua Mac software off of a usb thumbdrive? My wife has a Mac Book Pro laptop. I'd install the mac software on that. But when she travels she'd like to be able to run the mac software off of a usb drive on her work laptop instead of lugging around 2 computers. FYI: I don't own a Dahua dvr, yet. Thanks!

Thanks Rory. You da man!

Hi Guys. First of all, let me say Thank You to all the regular members who contribute to this forum. You guys are awesome! I've learned a lot just by looking around. Thanks! I was hoping to get some feedback from you guys. I currently run a 4 camera Q-See DVR that I bought from Costco 2 years back. Since then I've updated the 4 cameras to CNB cameras. It has made a big difference but I'm sure there is still room for improvement. Front Door & Garage Cams are CNB 550TVL 24? IR LED (can't remember the model) Back Door is CNB WBL-20S 600TVL 12IR LED Monalisa Front Yard is CNB WCM-20VF 600TVL 18IR LED MonaLisa The Q-See dvr records at h.264 D1. It records 24/7 for around 11 days on it's 320gb harddrive. I access it on my iPhone and sometimes on my pc at work. My wife would love to access it at work but she uses a Mac and her cell phone doesn't get any reception inside while at work. So that's a little background on my setup. A few weeks ago we got word from a neighbor that some neighbors up the street had their gps stolen from their vehicle in the middle of the night. Sure enough, those guys had also walked through my block. I was happy to see that I had them on video but I was disappointed in the quality (big shocker, huh?). It just seems that as a result of the economy that we're in, some bad bad people just need to find a way to make a quick buck. Apparently they've been coming in to the nicer areas to see what they can get. Here are the videos. I quickly recorded these videos with my iphone off of the computer screen. I wanted to quickly email the links around to neighbors and never went back to do it export them again. I also gave the police a copy of the videos. Front Yard Cam Garage Cam And for giggles...stock q-see bullet before the change, 9 months ago. So now I think would be a good time for me to upgrade my dvr which I've been wanting to do for a while. The CFO (Wife) recently agreed for the upgrade. So i've been thinking of a 16 ch. Dahua Hybrid dvr (DVR1604HE-T-4H). I really want to try a megapixel camera! It also HAS TO BE mac compatible so that my wife would be able to log in from work. Must work on iphone also.I Camera wise - I would love to swap out the front yard camera for a megapixel camera. The night quality would have to be the same or better than what I already have. Vitek? Geovision? Bullet. I'd start with one and then purchase more. In short, when is the Dahua Hybrid DVR coming to the US? How much is it? How much longer do I have to wait? Thanks guys! I appreciate your help.

Here is the link to the attempted break-in!

Awesome, thanks guys! On a side note: I caught (on video) 4 freakin' raccoons messing around in my backyard. They really tore up my lawn. Soo pissed!

I finally got around to converting the h.264 from the dvr to an avi file. Here it is from the dvr.

I totally hear ya. Seeing that soon (nobody seems to know when) a Dahua hybrid will be available, I thought I'd spend a few extra hundred now instead of revisiting a new purchase in a year or two. $1,000 is a lot to spend each year for a new dvr.

Yay, I was waiting for Rory to reply! " title="Applause" /> I'm sure I'd be more than happy to get a Apollo Pro dvr but I can't help but think that there is something better out there. In this case, megapixel cameras. So I was really holding out to find something good! Camera location is two fold. They currently live where they are because..1) was limited to only 4 cameras 2) I'm renting this house, didn't want to make anything too permanent. I guess I didn't want anything to be too big or flashy. I guess I'll have to look at a computer option...hmmm...

Thanks for your help, Tom. I have some things to think about, eh?

I'm pretty sure that the one I currently use is 7fps @ what is supposed to be D1.

Well in any case, I'm happily looking to upgrade to something better!

Borders Bookstore sale? Saw those listings on Craigslist.

Q-See QSD9004V-320

Ahhh that's interesting. So I guess I could probably get away with ordering a 8ch hybrid dvr since I'll really have 12 channels with the ip ports added in..Cool. I'll have to see what the cortex cameras are all about. I've looked at the Apollo HD 16 channel but I've been wanting to hold out to see when the hybrid would come along. I really like the detail of the megapixel cameras. I just double checked the settings via remote on the dvr. D1 recording is checked off at best quality. In terms of days, yeah, I guess you are partially right. It is showing the last 10 days of footage with today being day 11. But it is always recording with it rebooting everyday at midnight.

Yeah I saw the trash can thing. I ended up ordering a locking recycle can from the city. So that remained locked all the time now. I leave rather early (6am) so pulling out the noisy trash cans at that time would not make my neighbors happy. But at least now the recycle bin is locked. Here is a 7am shot.

Thanks Dan. I really appreciate the feedback. Here are some pics from earlier today. This evening I went out to clean the lens on the front yard cam. Must have smeared some spider parts on it last night. 3:45pm 10:45pm I guess you could be right. From the times that I've played with the settings on the dvr for the cameras, it never really looked all that great to me. Either the day looked good and the night time image was crap or vice versa. So I just left them pretty much at default. I must say that that car that you see in the first video (with the 2 guys), is my neighbors car. I don't really care too much about that. If it looks great then great, if the camera doesn't pick it up, oh well. It's more for an overall shot. I can also kind of see who is coming up the street. Like I mentioned before, I currently only have 4 channels to play with, so I decided to go with the wider views. With 16 channels I plan on adding another camera at the oposite end of the house which would be facing north along the front yard. They'll form an X of sorts. I'll see about converting the vids.

Thanks for the reply, Birdman. Well I was thinking about the Dahua Hybrid because it would allow me to upgrade to current/future technology yet still use some of the cameras that I have. I would love to put into service some ip megapixel cameras. You get 4 IP channels with the Dahua. I don't think that I'd need more than that. Besides it'll start getting pretty expensive for home use. Since I currently have only 4 channels to play with, I felt that I needed to get a wider view with what I had to play with. That's another reason why I'm planning on a 16 channel. It'd be fun to have full coverage of the entire house since I'd have the channels available. I was thinking of using the megapixel cameras for the wider shots and the analog cameras for the zoomed in shots because the analog cameras would cheaper to acquire. The camera is set to 6mm on the driveway shot and 3.8 for the front yard shot. I'll post pics a little later of all 4 cameras together.

Hey Dennis, so when you say that you can view it via Firefox, does that mean that you no longer have to play with the ActiveX settings beforehand? Like me, I can access my q-see dvr via firefox also (i'm using a pluggin), but I still needed to mess around with my ActiveX settings in IE first.

Thanks for the replies. Yeahk, I forgot to mention that I'd like for it to be able to record @ D1. And you're right, the new Samsung dvr's seem to be pretty expensive. I haven't heard of Aposonic, I'll take a looksy to add to the confusion.

I use it to see who is at the front door without having to get out of bed on a sunday morning.

What kind of DVR? I have the same issue also and it's totally random when it does it. I have a Q-See dvr system that I would like to replace.

Wow, thanks for all that great info, I appreciate it! Any cameras pop into mind bullet wise from CNB that has what I need and won't break the bank? I'll take a look at their website also. Thanks again!