Hectic

These things are a headache, but after some out of box thinking, I have come up with some conclusions and solutions to the problems. In order to get this thing working with a line input and working without crashing, I have to build two circuits. One is a voltage divider and switching circuit for the microphone, which I have already built as I mentioned in another post. The switching part comes into play because I also need the microphone's default line level output. The second circuit is a timer to prevent crashing, which will actually be wired in series with a primary timer, I still need to make the secondary timer, but I'm pretty sure it will solve the crash problem. Although if you were use the thing manually, pretty much only the divider circuit would be needed if using a line-in source. It doesn't have to be as complicated as my setup, which needs to be automated.

And I thought looking for cameras and quads was annoying. What is it with CCTV and the utter lack of information from sellers or owners? As much as I'd like to rant about it, I'll just get straight to the point. I couple of months ago, I settled on one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/NTSC-PAL-Mini-SD-Card-Motion-Detection-Digital-Video-Recorder-video-audio-/121129325401?pt=US_Surveillance_Digital_Video_Recorders_Cards&hash=item1c33ded359 The DVR arrived and seemed to be ok, although the sound quality is absolutely terrible and at times it will crash when powered on. Failing to enter recording mode and instead showing both LED's at about 1/10th their brightness. Removing the power does nothing, and the DVR sits there with the dim LEDs until the internal battery dies. Other than those gripes, it does what I want, which is automatic recording when powered on and file saving when power is removed. But those two gripes have me wanting to try another one, although there's absolutely no way I'm going to start ordering different units hoping they wont suffer from the same problems. If the sound quality was ok, I could deal with the occasional crash and battery drain. Does anyone have experience with any of the other comparable units on Ebay? You would think Youtube would be flooded with reviews and samples, but that's not true at all. The only videos are worthless sales pitches, or video samples without captured audio, instead there's usually some annoying song dubbed over the video track or no audio at all. For the record, the sole purpose of the mini DVR is for a backup system that powers on when a motion sensor is triggered. Please, don't suggest that I get a quality DVR, because I have a flat out amazing self configured PC based system including scripts to perform certain tasks with the push of a button. I just need something cheap for the motion triggered system. I assume any DVR with a "reset" button has the crash bug, so I'm mostly interested in the others around the $60-$80 range. But ONLY if they capture quality audio. If anyone has any experience with other comparable units, I would appreciate any info you can provide. A sample video with sound would be awesome. Thanks

Thanks for the replies. After making my post, I decided to attack the sound issue again. After some testing, it turns out the DVR has a mic level input, and the $3 CCTV mic I am using has a line level output, so the quality issue was due to very bad distortion. I built a circuit to lower the input voltage to the DVR and it did the trick. It actually sounds surprisingly good for an 8khz sample rate. Very happy about that. As far as the crash bug, it doesn't ever seem to happen when removing and reinserting the SD card a lot during testing. I think the crash might be related to a bad physical connection between the card and socket. It wouldn't be the first time. I'm going to try a different SD card, and after last night, the slot should be broken in nicely (TWSS). I removed and reinserted the card about 20 times, once after each capture test and the crash didn't occur once. Hell, maybe it was crashing because of the excessive voltage to the audio input. Doubtful, but anything's possible. For now I'm just glad I got the audio situation straightened out and can justify keeping it. I bought this DVR because I liked the appearance and the I/O layout. Plus I cut holes and routed wires specifically with this unit in mind, so using a different one now would ruin all of that.

That was step one. Unfortunately I haven't had much of any luck in getting responses, which is how I ended up here. The seller of the item I linked to hasn't responded to my questions, but did respond with a counter to my best offer. Not sure what it means, maybe just a language barrier. All I asked was if it had a remote and if it saved settings when power is removed. I'll just take a chance on it, if it's no good I just send it back to Cali, opposed to Hong Kong where most of them ship from.

I have a custom project I'm working on that consists of one recording device and 4 cameras, so I need a quad processor. Sounds simple, but is becoming far too confusing and frustrating for what it is. Long story short, I don't need anything aside from a device that displays 4 video signals at once. I don't need any additional features. No titles, no dates, no PIP, just four video quadrants. The problem is that every device has additional features that I don't want, and is creating all these unnecessary questions in my mind. So here are my questions for anyone with experience with the cheap $50 generic quads that are all over the place. Do these units retain custom settings so that when power is removed, it doesn't default to the factory settings? I will need to completely remove power between uses. And speaking of factory settings, what are they? Does it default to quad mode? Title and date overlays? Again, all I need is 4 raw quadrants when power is connected. Will this be possible with the generic Chinese quads or will settings reset when power is removed? If there is a simple multiplexer out there without any frills please point me in that direction. I have not seen one myself. Thanks

Thanks, that's ultimately what I'm after. I'm thinking about this one here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Color-Security-Video-Quad-Spliter-Processor-US-Version?item=130633529695&cmd=ViewItem&_trksid=p5197.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D5%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D7424700972228662241 It seems to be one of the least common models out there, not a lot of information on it but it ships from the US and returns are accepted, so I think i'll give it a try. I know it's a long shot, but if anyone has experience with this unit please share.

Classic