shockwave199

Thanks for the thumbs up on the cameras!

Weird thing, this q-see dvr of mine. We had a power outage the other night. I have the dvr on a ups, of course. The estimated time for the electric to come back on is 1 1/2 hours- long past the ups range. So like a good moron, I decide I'll power the ups down for some reason- I thought maybe I'd save the battery from running out. Who knows what I was thinking. Anyway, this dvr has a soft shut down feature, meaning it has on power switch on the back, but also a power button on the front. Ideally, you should push the front button first to power down, which puts it into a standby mode and then you shut down from the back. Well moron me steps in and turns off the dvr from the ups- a 'hard' shut down. Well the dvr just goes off. And I mean off man- nothing for two days. I figured I fried the thing. But not giving up, I keep trying it- nothing doing. I leave it on before I went to work tonight and wouldn't you know, I get home and the thing is back on! Yay! But what the hell?! Anyone ever heard of this before? I'll have to ask the manufacturer if there's a built in shut down timmer- like if someone makes off with the dvr and they think it's dead? Who knows. I'm happy it's back! Q-see gets a bad rap mostly but this 408- it doesn't die....for good, anyway! " title="Applause" /> Dan

Fair enough. I'll keep it on the ups for sure though, espeically given this behavior. Dan

i think q-see will tell you that you have a problem with your dvr. if q-see says it is a feature then it is a stupid one that thay need to remove. just because of a power outtage the dvr stays off for a few days (good security) I think so too. But it's what I bought and I'll tell you, I'm happy it's still alive. I want to upgrade my dvr for sure, but I don't have a budget to do so at the moment. This would have been warranty work too, but it's alive, so I roll on.

So this scenario- interrupting writing to a hard drive and creating a bad sector, wouldn't cause further problems to hard drive? Especially in this instance, where you write over the drive again and again? NEVER? Or you just haven't run into it yet?

Well that's good. This dvr you power up and down with more than just plugging it in or pulling the plug. Better or worse? I don't know if it matters. Just the way it is. Dan

I plugged the dvr into another outlet and it still wouldn't come back on. It wasn't the ups- other stuff plugged into it worked fine. It wasn't the dvr power supply because that worked when checking it too. If I get an answer as to why there is a delay to the dvr powering back up, I'll let you know. There is definitely a delay. There are some other electronics that have a delay to power up when they overheat. I can't remember what they are, but I've seen this before. Just not with a dvr. I'm just glad it's back. As for a UPS, it has a surge protector as well, which I like. Probably not top of the line surge protection, but some is better than nothing. I'd like a power conditioner too. But beyond that, remember that the most useful benefit if UPS is not really to keep things up and running while the power is off. It's nice if it outlasts the power outage, yes. Great for the short term outages. But it's really to allow you to power down whatever is connected to it properly, so you don't lose critical work. Most often, computers are what you put on a ups for this very reason. Since a dvr is recording and storing info on a hard drive, I view it as a computer and feel it's absolutely necessary to have it on a UPS. It could be in the middle of writing to the hard drive when the power is cut and then you could lose the hard drive, which is what I was worried about as well. When we have a power outage, it allows me to turn the dvr off properly. Unless I'm an idiot like this time and do the very thing I shouldn't have. Luckily, the dvr was spared. Dan

Well then the place I found listing it....sucks.

Here's some pics from my install for an example. Putting aside picture quality, the fov between each camera is what to look at. Each camera is in the same spot, the older ones that I swapped out being the 1/4". 1/4" 3.6mm 1/3" 4mm 1/4" 3.6mm 1/3" 4mm Hope this helps to get a visual sense of things. Dan

Found that exact model earlier today. It was 495, a hundered bucks off of list. Type in the mintron with that exact model number to search and you'll find it.

Apples to oranges. You're comparing a 200 dollar camera to a 600 dollar camera. Sorry, but you got a 200 dollar lesson- don't buy this camera. Shame you couldn't return it, or can you still? That mintron looks excellent. If it wasn't so much money I'd surely get eight of them myself. You can try cheaper cameras and maybe find one comparable to that mintron in those lighting conditions, but it's a crap shoot. Buy with a return policy. Good luck. Dan

Only the driveway camera is D1. Not thrilled with that camera- gonna change it out. The other two shots are HD1.

Does it not have it's own software for remote viewing? Are your settings very high in the dvr- highest bit rate, fps, D1? Could be a slower internet is choking on the load? [yikes- bad] Other than that, not sure.

I have always thought cam 7 was a fantastic shot Rory.

I'm just curious because a smaller picture seems to help out the sharpness of a shot. I scale my shots down from something like 1120x..., which is what the default size is in my remote software, to 700x when I take a snapshot from video. If it's gonna look better at 400x, well heck- I'll post even smaller shots.

Can you not take a single snapshot of one camera channel?

What dimentions is that picture?

Every so often I do a little tweaking and check on how things are looking. Everything looks pretty good still. Might get a few new cameras next year, perhaps reposition a couple. Always a work in progress. Anyway, some pics cause pics are cool! But I really need to get a hot girl for the pics. Sick of me!

Actually some of it is because I haven't cleaned the glass in a bit. And now we're getting more rain, so I'm gonna wait for a couple days.

Actually the three of us that offered help mentioned what you said we haven't. Dan

That's a 3.6mm lens, 1/3" Exview WDS 650tvl. I like it so far- been up for about a month or so.

I have a combination of views in my setup. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27405 See how the wider, higher shots are only really good for an overview, not detail. With an overlap of tight and wide, my chances increase for detail a bit. But as much as I love the wide shots, they will probably be moved for a 'down to earth' view next spring. Always tweaking. Good luck.

Outside of the completely obvious, one single camera able to handle getting that plate number would have made all the difference in an otherwise clusterphuck of camera work. Instead, all you can do is wave bye bye to a white out plate.

See how long it lasts there and have some spares. It might surprise you. It has already!

Buy a lot of spares. That's not protected enough. Your best bet is to install it face down so all the holes are on the bottom. Then seal the back, which would be facing up now, better if it's not sealed well at the seams. I would even try to slant it a bit so water drips off the edge like a drip plate, keeping all water from getting in the holes in the front. That position will not hinder mic pickup either- you'll still hear perfectly. In fact you should think about installing the thing inside the shed. If you have the audio maxed out loud in the dvr, it'll probably pickup a ton even from the inside. But it's not direct water only that will kill it. Moist damp air will take a toll too. Have spares- smart move. Dan