JoeLansing

Ack! I'm not a camera god. Don't order because I told you to...LOL I ordered 2 of the domes about a week ago from China. Expecting them in soon. I also got an 8 port TrendNet? GB POE switch from NewEgg for $119 or so. It can do 4 ports 14 watts to each port. In other words I haven't even seen one yet. I did my research though. I have a Swann crappy 4 camera NTSC (not IP) system now and wanted to upgrade. First Wanscam, then Foscam, then I realized they were the same, and both were flakey and painful. If nothing else the Hikvision cameras don't have people yelling "it doesn't work" like the Foscam junk. I ordered my 2 with a 4MM lens on one, and 6MM on the other. No special reason for the lens choices except I'll be putting them in different areas and wanted to have options. They don't come with power, so get a POE switch or something if you don't have power. For the $250 a cam price you were looking at you can get 2 of these, a POE switch, and Blue Iris software. I may end up there. I bought WHS 2011 from Newegg for $35 and will try and just record to that with the built in camera software. If that isn't so good I'll buy Blue Iris. I'll be under $500 for 2 3MP cams, POE switch ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156419&Tpk=TRENDnet%20TPE-TG44G ) wire and Blue Iris. And adding 2 more cameras will be just the camera price. - Joe

For $250 you can get something way better than a Foscam. I looked at them, and then looked at their support forum. That scared me away very fast. Try something like this http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-Original-Gun-Hikvision-waterproof-IR-IP-Camera-DS-2CD2032-I-IR-20m/939322172.html Anything by Hikvision or Dahua would be a huge step up. Here's a review of the above linked Hikvision with samples of day/night stills/video. This site has good reviews of many other cameras also. http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=1791 - Joe

I just ordered a pair of DS-2CD3332-I. One 4MM and one 6MM. They just say NTSC/PAL in the description. Is there an internal setting to choose what mode it runs in? Crazy buying from China makes me worry sometimes. I couldn't pass up the $118 and free shipping though. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-HD-new-Day-Night-Dome-Network-IP-Camera-DS-2CD3332-I-support-power-supply/1242614997.html They told me they would have 5.0+ firmware on them at least. This is my first try at IP cameras. I also got an 8 port GB POE switch. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156419. I'll probably try the cameras out stand alone before I buy Blue Iris. I want to see how functional just having them stream to an NFS share on my network is. - Joe

Is this $120 Gadspot one http://www.gadspot.com/p-290-gs2105v.aspx a Dahua? The owners manual and remote control for it look a whole lot like my Swann. - Joe

I've got a crappy Swann 4 channel. It's not bad, but I want my new one to support at least the same features it has. I've swapped out the junky 420 TLV cameras that came with it, and am about ready to upgrade the DVR itself. Here is what my current Swann will do: Supports remote viewing. PC viewing is ok. Android would be a bonus. Records in .264 I want at least 7-8 FPS on each camera in D1 at the same time Record separate alarms/alerts for each channel so I can go back and view just the motion alarms on one camera at a time. I'd like email alarms to work and have it send me photos of the motion. - Joe

This fixes the remote not working. Hit the Zero "0" key, then hit Menu. If that don't work I guess try new batteries? Make sure the batteries are in the remote correctly? I found this out by calling their free support telephone number. You might call it. There are a few things that are either wrong in the manual, or they just don't mention. - Joe

I bought a cheap Swann Sams/Costco type 4 channel system and all it did was teach me what I need for a decent system. Almost all of these pre-configured systems will come with 420TVL cameras with 1/4" sensors. They are marketed to clueless people like I was, so they emphasize features instead of quality. I'm replacing most or all of the cameras that came with mine with 600TLV 1/3" CNB MonaLisa series cameras. After I'm done putting in decent cameras I'll probably buy an 8 channel DVR. So I pretty much bought a 4 channel system. Then learned about them, and will replace it all with something not geared towards clueless shoppers. I will end up paying $60-$100 per camera and $200-$250 for an 8 channel DVR. I just replaced my first 2 junk cameras with CNB DFL 20S ($60) cameras and it was a big improvment. The picture is much clearer, and since it has a 1/3" sensor instead of 1/4" the field of view is almost twice as wide. I can see my entire old system on Craigslist soon. I paid $250 for it, sell it for maybe $125, and chalk up the $125 loss as an excellent learning experience.. You are doing very well by coming here and asking questions before you make your first purchase. - Joe

The unit automatically locks itself, and they don't tell you this in the manual. Hit the Zero key on the remote and it will beep, then hit the menu button to get the menu to pop up. Also, the default user name isn't ADMIN like the manual says, it's admin (lower case).

I have/had? a friend that is electronics guru from the military. 20 years ago I remember him wanting to watch the kids (10 & 16 years old) better, and the wife (that he didn't trust). He re-did their living room with new track lights and refinished a wall. And he put a new light in the bedroom. He worked nights and started calling the kids up telling them "get to bed and turn off the porn channel", on and on. He had done something to the wall where it was loaded with little wires that vibrated and somehow transmitted sound a couple miles to where he worked. I don't even know if it needed a battery. He explained it to me once, but it was way over my head. He had cameras in the track lighting that nobody ever saw. The kids thought he read minds. The wife was really mad when he sent porn photos of her and her boyfriend to all of her friends and family's email. They aren't married anymore. As far as I know he didn't really specialize in covert stuff. He was just a Rainman of anything electronic. _ Joe

Guys.. I'm the OP and not racist. My wife isn't Caucasian.. But I do live with some black kids next door, and they are related to an entire house full of hoodlums across the street. My house got broken into once and guns and computer equipment were taken. About 2 weeks ago someone tried to kick in my back door again. There is a 90% chance it's the kids across the street hanging out at my next door neighbors house. They see no cars around and hop the fence. I'll admit there is a small chance it's someone else. But when they only take a couple armloads and I have a truck load of loot, then it's someone close. And when it's long guns like SKS you know they aren't running too far in the daytime. One time at about 1:30AM we were all home, cars in the drive, lights on, and some fool crawled through my back bathroom window. We heard him, he heard us, and he locked the bathroom door and bailed back out the window. These guys aren't Eisenstein. I really do need cameras, and better than I have now. I'll buy 2 MonaLisa 600 line ones this Friday when I get paid and see how clear those are. And I have a couple of stake yard signs from eBay on their way. I'd rather not shoot people I live next door to when I catch them in my house so I'm trying cameras and signs. Sorry for the long message. Anyone want to sell any decent cameras cheap? I can only do D1 15fps max on my crappy Swann DVR4-2550 that came with 4 PRO-550 420TVL cameras. It was only $250 so a decent starter toy. - Joe

I'm fighting with this at work. We are opening new bank branches and I keep wondering why IP. It seems like assigning a IP address to a mouse. Why? My TV talks to my blue ray player without an IP address. Why do I need an IP address to get a decent pic from a cctv camera? My cell phone can take nice photos without an IP address and it has a smaller sensor and is cheaper than a CCTV camera that uses IP. I can plug in a USB camera on my notebook. Even a crappy 640x480 one has the potential to take quite nice video. - Joe

Thank you for the help sir. I've noticed I can't crank everything up to D1 across all four channels at 30FPS. All 4 at 15FPS does work though. At the moment I'm wanting to get a camera that can actually do a decent job of recording the D1 that the DVR will do. The 600 TVL MonaLisa isn't that expensive ($79 or so with a non zoom? lens). So what does it take to break the D1 barrier or do I really need to for sharp video at 30-40 feet? Lets say I have 3 black dudes in my house and they are running around stealing my weapons and computers..(this has happened twice so far with no cameras, it's my neighbors) Can I get good pictures of them? I can keep my house dimly lit if that helps. The crap 420 TVL cameras that came with it don't really cut it unless they are like 10-15 feet away. I'd like to double the distance/clarity if possible with just new cameras. Will a 600 TVL MonaLisa do that? And maybe give me room to grow into a new 8 channel unit. - Joe

The green drives use an advanced power scheme. While that might be good for PC's and other devices that support it, they will try and sleep on other devices. The big ones also require an Advanced Format which may not be setup before you installed them? They also have a long timeout which really hurts them on most RAID (and DVR?) systems. It's called TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) and may be giving you fits. Google "disable WD TLER" and see what you find. This info might help, might not. I hope it does. - Joe

I'm running a cheap Swann DVR4-2550. Their NetView stuff and IE with the plugin both seem to work fine on XP. I got it to work on a PC in Philippines (Where my wife is on vacation) on a Win 7 64-bit system using the NetView software on the CD. IE 9.0 on hers would not install the plugin no matter what I tried so no IE. Adding to trusted zone, allow unsigned activex, on and on. And that was while logged on as an administrator. I put the netview software that worked for 64 bit Win 7 Home Premium I'm using on my web space at http://www.lotsoffun.org/share/netview.exe if that will help any. I was so happy when I got it to work for the wife on the other side of the world, until I realized she can see how dirty I am getting the house now..

I bought a Swann DVR4-2550 from Amazon for like $250. The cameras are 420 tvl junk. The DVR unit isn't half bad though for what I need, but only 4 channel. I'm going to probably buy a part here, a part there. CNB MonaLisa 600 TVL IR cameras for a start. I'm not rich so probably 2 at a time for starters. After I get 4 I'll look at the DVR itself. This one isn't bad. The only thing I don't like is it doesn't seem to do any index points at alarms. It's D1 at 240 fps. What should I look at for an 8 channel? And remember, I'm cheap! I've got dual core XP computers laying around but I've been a computer tech for 20 years and just don't need anymore computer headaches. And a small DVR is easier and quieter to hide. I don't need to go back more than 2 days on a replay. I'd love to find something that would record to the internet. I have lots of internet space and bandwidth. Internet recording is a dream though. CCTV cameras are so behind the times, and maybe the DVR's also so I won't hold my breath. Is an 8 channel Gadspot unit ok? I've got accounts on Monoprice, PiMfg and Bestlinknetware already for computer stuff. Do they have anything cheap yet semi worthy? - Joe