norm51

Thanks! With the information you provided, I found a parameter that I had missed. The default parameter for "Frame Rate" is Fixed. I changed it to Manual and was able to tailor it for the maximum rate spread across all 9 cameras and went back and tweaked one camera that I wanted better frame rate for with the remaining FPSs. Checked it - No more pulsing! Great Help on this board!!! Norm

I've got (at least) one more question about recording settings. What am I not understanding when it comes to the difference between D1, HD1 and CIF? My DVR playback looks fine when the recordiing was created on the CIF setting but looks like stop-motion video when the settings have been switched to the others. I thought it could it be the limitations of the playback utilities that were supplied with the DVR until I played the same clip at the DVR and saw the same pulsing (once per second it seemed) video. There was a bird in the scene on the camera (600 TVL effio chipset) that I tested and its motion appeared normal. The blinking looks like a focus shift at the rate of once per second lasting about 1/5 of a second. Any thoughts or suggestions? Norm

Greetings All, Another "Newbie" here. I've upgraded all 9 of my cameras from the stock 420 TVL ones that came with my initial 4-ch unit. Best move I've made so far! My minimum is now 600 with a couple @ 700. But I'm stomped on one feature on the new DVR. I don't understand why playback of clips recorded in D1 or HD1 look like stop-action movies and CIF looks fine. What conditions have I not set correctly? Or, what am I not understanding? Norm

Thanks, I've also upgraded my cameras from the crummy 420TVL ones they advertize as High Res. My minimum is now 650TVL. I could only identify people I already knew with the old ones. Now to add more drives. After reading this thread I've been able to make a better assessment as to what I'll need in drive space in order to achieve my desired retention time. My unit will allow a maximun of 6TB across 2 drives and I've already installed my 1.5TB from the old unit and placed the original 500GB back into the old unit. As for selling the old unit - not quite ready to hand it off. A few of us old guys are about to use it in a sting operation to catch some young punks that like to spray-paint fences in the neighborhood. I don't know about the UK, but here in the States - especially in the cities - that's one of our worst property crimes, after theft. We've not yet decided whether to print off some WANTED posters before or after handing the video over to the police. Cheers, Norm San Antonio, Texas

I'm late, of course, to the discussion but found this thread quite useful in understanding what "pack duration" is all about. I've been a home user of a 4-channel Defender DVR for a bit more than a year (after several break-ins) and have gotten use to the ability to do time searches and 5 second downloads from my laptop - whether at home via WiFi, work or on the road. I've never had to deal with this pack size issue. I never touch that DVR for anything other than resetting the clock (slight drift of a few seconds over a month even with NTP enabled.) I've just purchased a 16-camera unit as an upgrade from an online cctv dealer and am learning the new (Pro) lingo. I found it disheartning to learn that I could not do time searches from my browser now Like most people that start with a small unit, it wasn't even a month before I wished I'd bought a unit capable of handling more cameras. Cheers, Norm