Kawboy12R

A DVR works with and records only analog cameras. It's called "digital" because it digitizes the analog footage and saves it to HD. An NVR works only with network (IP) cameras (or possibly analog cameras hooked to an IP encoder that makes them act like network cams to the NVR). You need a hybrid to use both analog and network cameras in the same system. Your QSee doesn't support megapixel cameras of any kind. When you see "network", "digital", h.264, etc mentioned with that DVR it refers to what it does with the digitized analog signal that it gets from the analog D1 resolution cameras. Megapixel network cameras capture much more detail than a D1 analog system.

IP can be more complicated to set up but I'm in your camp with analog. I'm moving my home system away from analog at the moment. The biggest problem with IP cams seems to be picking something to run them if you want to run different brands with the same NVR. Things are fairly straightforward if you pick your cam manufacturer based on budget and then find a standalone NVR or software+computer that'll work with the cameras you've chosen. Computer software is much more flexible when trying to mix and match camera brands and maintaining motion-based recording. If the software doesn't support the in-cam motion detection, it can do it by itself with the CPU. The Costco kits are an excellent deal at $700, especially if you can live with the 6mm lenses. You can swap them out but there seems to be some trouble getting lenses that work perfectly. Expect some fiddling. The few folks that got 8ch kits when they ordered 4ch were lucky. That didn't last long.

Features look very good for the price. ONVIF version is pretty old but that probably doesn't matter much. I'd worry more about the lack of IE 9 support but that wouldn't have to be a deal-breaker. Could you post some sample pics in the megapixel forum if you get one?

This'll be a small upgrade that's not really mobile-worthy or unidirectional (at least out of the box), but a quick and dirty upgrade for your DLink is an Asus RT-N66U. I've had a bunch of DLink and Linksys routers from single antenna to the better triple antenna models and this thing has very noticeably better range and speed than anything else I've tried. And, depending on your area, you can adjust the output power on the wifi to the max allowable in your location. There are no notes saying how high is the max in different areas, of course (the docs say it'll self-limit depending on the area), but even on the stock setting it's better than anything else I've used. It might help until you get something else set up anyway.

My first slapstick guess was that the camera construction robot at the factory mistakenly got fed a box of red LEDs instead of INFRAred ones, but you've got a Swann and a QSee that do the same thing. I've had some cams that do light up brighter than others though. Depending on how bright they really are, it might just be differences between the batches and makers of the LEDs rather than something wrong. I had a varifocal Aposonic that was really quite noticeable in the dark. I don't mind lots of red lights in the back of my house but I prefer the front to not have them. This thread has some interesting hints on IR passing and blocking filters. You might find something that'll work for you to tone down the visible red portion while still letting enough IR through to help the cameras.

Just had the 'net eat a big long post. Can't redo it but I wasn't recommending Dahua, ACTI, or Axis to the OP except for the recommended models on the list. (Three ACTi and two lo-res Axis (a D1 PTZ and an 800x600)) Wondered what the OP's budget was. This link was a highlight for a 1080P CNB box camera for $100- http://www.camtechsurveillance.com/igc2050f.html Out of stock of course. And nice hint on the 1.3mp Aver Tom. Good to see something specific from you.

Hitch is right. The NAS can be used merely as a NAS without their software if you want. You'd need something else for live viewing and checking footage though. Yours has enough beans to run a bunch of cameras though. 200fps worth of 720p video is quite a bit for home use. Sorry if there was any confusion there, but there are quite a few options for 3rd party NVR software after you pass the $100 mark for licensing cams for Synology's software. I'd have to be awfully pleased with it to give them $400 or more when lots of camera companies give away really good software for free if you use just their brand of camera. I agree with you on not wanting a Logitech by your front door either. I've had tiny bullets and domes at mine with no issues but the Logitech seems like it would stick out and just plain not fit in. If this makes any sense, it looks like it is actively spying on you rather than just BEING there, if you know what I mean.

You should just need a switch of some kind to plug the IP cameras into. Plug the switch into your router. Then you need a way to power the cameras. If the cameras are PoE, then a power over ethernet switch will do both data and power over the cat 5 cables. As far as which camera to use, I get the shivers whenever I look at the Aver IP compatibility list. You want a camera recommendation, but nothing I like, own, or have looked at seriously is on their IP list. Just look down the IP camera Motion compatibility column. It's mostly "no" or dashes. I was looking at Aver hybrids (mostly the Aver Nanos) myself not that long ago so that I could use some of my existing analog cams with some IP cameras to ease my transition. Their compatibility chart scared me off. Any newer cams by anybody I'd heard of weren't on the list. Every camera I seemed to like was either not on the list at all or didn't support motion. I'd recommend talking to your Aver card dealer and get details on what he recommends. You might be fine with lots of different cameras connecting under ONVIF and end up with the computer doing motion detection. You won't be running a huge number of cameras so the computer you bought should have enough CPU power to do the motion detection itself. For me, totally outside of the Aver IP compatibility issue, I'm happy enough with what I've seen of Dahua, ACTi, or Axis at different price points doing different jobs. All three are easy to find and are common enough that I can ask questions if needed and have a reasonable chance of someone on here being familiar enough with them to give me an answer as long as I don't ask which hybrid they all work well with.

Ahh Dr. Nuts, I figured that a Brit could appreciate dry self-deprecating humour combined with a very gentle empty ribbing. My mistake. I've also been known to wear safety gear myself with no effect on my manhood. Well, with the possible exception of chainsaw pants. Those're quite warm. You see? Humour.

Dexter, the problem with trees here is that they cast shadows. When I tune out the trees then the motion detection catches their moving shadows in my areas of interest. Partly cloudy days are also a problem. Every time the light changes significantly there's a really good chance of a motion alert. If it's a cloudy day (best case for real motion alerts), then sometimes wind tends to blow leaves or snow around. As for the Logitech brand "Alert" series of cameras, IIRC there was an engineer of theirs on here a while ago defending how good their motion detection intelligence was when someone called them a toy. This video shows how "fantastic" they are at night. It looks like a best-case scenario to catch a prowler's face at night. Not sure about you but all I can tell for sure is that it is a skinny, white male, most likely a teenager, wearing a ballcap and hoodie. The video is entitled "busted" but it could be just about anybody. It's a good wide angle shot but with not enough detail even at short range to catch a face, and not enough dynamic range to keep from whiting out what we need to see. I've got no idea how the camera is set up or if newer models are better, but I'm not in love with this sample video at least. What's the model number of your NAS? Each one is rated differently on how many cameras it'll run.

Bump cap? Wimp. Wear a baseball cap with the bill in the proper forward direction. That way all of the joists, tree branches, gutters, etc will be complete surprises.

How many cameras do you want to run? Which Synology do you have? Low end ones won't run much in the way of cameras. Also, you get one free license with Surveillance Station. After that they want a hair over $50/camera for a license. Not worth it (IMHO) for a bunch of cameras.

Nobody seems to be really excited about analog cams here anymore. Even with all of their flaws, the lower end Dahua network cams are so good for the money that it is hard to justify even moderately decent analog cams because the saved detail is just so much higher with the network cams. You've got a hybrid card so that's a good start. What's the budget? I'd start checking the Aver card's compatible IP camera list. For the indoor stuff I'd look at ACTi's new domes. About $200 a pop if you want to experiment with one and see how it works with your Aver. If you aren't adventurous then find something in the supported camera list that preferably has in-camera motion detection. Lots on the Aver list don't. Well, the Aver Nano list anyway. Not sure about their hybrid card. IIRC, Aver wants licensing fees for supporting non Aver network cameras. That might make buying Aver cameras more attractive unless your goal in the future is to migrate to, say, all ACTi (or Axis or whatever) cameras and then use their free software once all of the analogs have been eliminated. I've never looked into Aver cameras so I don't know their image quality, pricing, longevity, etc.

http://www.axis.com/products/cam_p1214/ It's not weatherproof but that might not matter that far up a hallway away from the weather. The 1214E isn't a pinhole but it's pretty small and is weatherproof. Excellent wife-friendly doorway cam. It looks like you mounted it way up high in the corner, right? The downward angle of the high mount was the main reason that lower was better. Pointing it higher will give you a better angle for a face shot when they're farther away but they may be too far away in difficult lighting to get a good ID at certain times of the day. I find that just above a doorframe gives me a good balance of angle and passivity for the camera-sensitive. Most visitors ignore mine and it's mounted on soffit a few feet to the left of my entrance and just above the top of the door.

UPDATE: I got it to mount the root directory, just no joy yet specifying a subdirectory. I just plugged in 192.168.1.1 for HOST and SHARE was "My_Book" with no slashes. No login information was required. Windows doesn't seem to want to share subdirectories on the drive with the right-click "Share with everyone" option and it looks like that's what the Axis software is looking for. The router seems to do this automagically with the root directory however. Woohoo! Now I've got 3TB of always-on computer independent networked camera storage for the grand price of $149.

I've been trying to mount an external USB drive that is attached to my router for use as network attached storage for Axis cameras in ACC without any luck. Has anybody had any success with this? HOST is the router address of 192.168.1.1. The router is an Asus RT-N66U (Dark Knight). The WD 3TB drive shows up as My_Book and I've mapped the My_Book\CCTV directory as the Y: network drive. CCTV doesn't seem to want to share when I right click on it but will share as a network drive. I've tried all kinds of combinations of naming conventions for SHARE in ACC with no luck. Anybody who has done it successfully out there willing to "share" how they've done it? Axis says that they don't officially support network attached USB drives but don't have a router with USB port there to test one with.

It works pretty much like a USB printer plugged into a router. It's not really a "NAS", just storage attached to and available through the network and therefore it's Network Attached Storage, if you know what I mean. The Asus router doesn't appear to assign an IP address to the drive, it just makes it available through its own IP. As far as I can tell so far, the network sees the USB drive just like a shared physical drive mounted in a desktop computer. The drive is viewable through my Android phone so it's not just a Windows thing.

Buying a separate switch is a good thing, not necessarily all negative.

It seems easy until you realize that you have no way of knowing the kilobits/sec the camera is putting out. It varies greatly on how much motion is in the scene and even whether or not the lighting is good. More motion and poorer lighting gives much higher bandwidth and therefore higher storage requirements. Pick a camera in the Axis design tool and check out what the chart says for bandwidth. Then change the scene and watch the bandwidth change. Then check the bandwidth for the same scene in low light. It's all an educated guess. You just have to use something like that and hope that you come close to what the cameras will actually be watching at the real site. Being off in your estimate can make the realworld usage wrong by terabytes per week. Just using that tool and the sample environments they use, the bandwidth has a possible difference of at least 9 times the amount betweeen the least active and most active scene when I plugged in the Axis camera I have. http://www.axis.com/products/video/design_tool/v2/

You've got it. Mixing and matching IP stuff is much more complicated than you'd think. Mix and match analog is a joke. Figuring out a budget first and then picking a one-manufacturer solution (preferably from one vendor) will save a lot of headaches. Hopefully the budget will allow at least a mid-range manufacturer. I hate spending money and time and having things not perform properly. That costs MORE time and money.

Another problem with inadequate illumination before motion lights kick in is a noisy grainy image. Video noise often causes constant motion recording rendering it useless at night.

An NVR does the same job for network IP cameras that a DVR does for analog cameras. It is a standalone box that records, displays, and otherwise manages network IP cameras. Nowadays, most of these are at least 720P hidefinition cameras unless you're looking at extremely low end IP stuff. Most cheapo systems are analog. They generally use coaxial cables with a BNC video connector and a barrel 12v power connector. To confuse things a hair though, they can use Cat5 network wiring to connect the camera to the DVR by using video baluns, which have circuitry in them to properly carry the analog signal over the twisted pair wiring in Cat5 or Cat5E wiring. Baluns are basically adapters to convert the BNC and barrel connectors to RJ45 connectors (the normal 8 prong connectors for network wiring) and back again at the other end. Any system that talks about recording in "Full D1" or CIF is PROBABLY analog, but D1 is also used as a low end IP recording format. IP usually talks about VGA or SVGA resolution for their lower end formats though. If you see a camera (not a DVR) that talks about their compression format, it's a network camera. DVRs for analog cameras use the same compression formats as network cameras but the compression happens in the DVR just before the video gets saved to HD. If a camera has just a BNC connector, it ISN'T a network camera. If a camera has just an RCA connector, it ISN'T a network camera If a cam has just an RJ45 connector then it IS a network camera. If it has an RJ45 and an RCA or BNC connector, it's most likely a network camera with analog out as well. Some few analog-only cameras have built-in baluns so you might find the occasional odd analog duck with both RJ45 and BNC/RCA but they're extremely rare. If you go on the Axis site, for example, you'll click on a link for Network Cameras to go see their selection. Funny thing is though, they don't have any analog cameras. Same goes for ACTi. You just click on the link for bullet, dome, box, cube, or whatever camera there but they are ALL digital IP network cameras. Most of them are at least 720P hidef and some are much higher. 2 megapixel cams are 1080P hidef. 3mp and 5mp cams are even higher resolution. You'll just have to get more experience before you get an instinctive feel for when a camera is analog or network. Megapixel video over BNC cables (HD-SDI) is another duck entirely. HD-SDI cams look like analog ducks but quack like hidef network cameras. I'd stick with network IP cameras because they're MUCH more common.

http://www.amazon.com/F-Female-to-BNC-Male-Adapter-25-7500/dp/B000V1LX72/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358945557&sr=8-1&keywords=bnc+coax+adapter http://www.amazon.com/RiteAV-Male-F-type-Female-Adapter/dp/B000V1JUKY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358945648&sr=8-2&keywords=coax+rca+adapter Those are probably what you need to hook it up to the composite video input of the TV. You might want to look at getting the right adapters and hooking up an RF modulator. That way you can watch your CCTV on channel 3 or 4 of your cable TV input.

DVR (digital video recorder) is kind of a misnomer these days. Back when analog cameras recorded to analog tape, the powers that be decided to call the new recorders that translated analog camera feeds to digital and saved it on hard drives as Digital Video Recorders. Which they did- record analog video digitally. The confusing part came when "real" digital IP cameras came out. Sounds logical that a digital IP camera could record to a Digital Video Recorder, right? Nope. That name was taken so they started calling them NVRs. It takes a hybrid (I think calling them a hybrid DVR or a hybrid NVR are both correct) to hook up both analog and IP (also called network or digital) cams to the same recorder. If someone says a CCTV camera is high def (HD cam), they're PROBABLY talking about a megapixel IP camera, but there are high definition analog cameras out there, too. They don't seem to be nearly as common as their IP cousins though.

I prefer snaking bare cables too, but if I make one I try and put antisnag covers on. My local electronics supplier sells these as well as the connectors. If not, black electrical tape helps with fishing them through, and ESPECIALLY with pulling them back out.