milkisbad

Try to turn on Digital noise reduction to 100 when you login to the camera. Also if your gain is set to 100 it will be a bright picture but noisy as well. Once you get the IR it should help a bit just lower the gain once u have it.

Probably IP cameras/NVR from Hikvision, its currently the best value for its price right now. 3 MP cameras each are about $170-190 for US version. 3 x cameras + 1 x 4 ch NVR (for similpicity sake's) + 1 TB at least for $750 might be a stretch, you still need POE switch or get NVR with built-in POE which will be more expensive...you can save money if you have hard drives laying around. SMS with motion detection will fill up your email box super fast. Better off doing actual PIR (passive infrare) motion detection and connecting that to the alarm input of the NVR. But its up to you, i myself tried to use the motion detection but just got too many false alarms.

Looks like your IR filter is stuck, just force it to go into night mode and day mode again and it might come loose and work again. Cover it up with your hand to force it into night mode...if your camera has OSD you can also turn on Night mode under Day/night option. If it happens alot i would return it for replacement

You can get box cameras with 5-100mm lens...if you don't have light at that location, you can try external long range IR illuminators. Just make sure your box camera has ICR to see the IR. But if your entrance is lit it should be fine. Is your camera outside? then you need housing too...

I would use DHCP or Obtain IP address automatically on the DVR first, then once you get the network info from DHCP, copy down the info and turn off DHCP and ping it...this way the router does the job and without error.

Just wondering, what makes you buy from a certain company if they are just selling the same thing everyone else is selling? 1. Price 2. Service (which service is most important to you?) -Warranty -Return Policy -ease of payment -Tech support -Pre-sales consulting -Shipping time -Company is within driving range (Local vendor) -willingness to fix problem if something comes up 3. Product quality 4. Pretty women sales rep...? 5. Others? Thank you for your opinion!

Thanks for the input! Out of all those things, personal support is the only thing i have control of...

The number of companies selling the same stuff is overwhelming...probably 7 out 10 distributors in US now is selling either Dahua, Hikvision, or TVT.

Once you download the software they have a quick guide and user manual that will teach you how to use it, it will appear in the same folder.

Max resolution it can record should be 5 MP, 3 MP should be no problem. In the spec sheet it says Playback resolution 5mp/3mp..... How would it play back 5MP if it cannot record at 5 MP? You should be fine lol

You have to set your computer's IP to be in the same subnet as the built-in POE switch's IP like Buellwinkle said. For example: If your built-in POE switch has an IP of 192.168.188.1, then each camera connected to it will be 192.168.188.x. so you plug computer into it, set your computer's LAN address to 192.168.188.x, then just punch up each IP of the camera and it'll come up. If you frequently have to do this and don't want to keep changing your computer's LAN back and forth, there's an option called "alternate configuration' in your computer's network setting where you added the configuration of the POE switch and keep the main configuration as 'obtain ip address automatically'.

Don't worry OP is in good hands now !

I could have swore I saw some Dahua mini bullets on digimerge's website before the they got bought.. "also the flir offers: FLIR DDNS service included & Auto Port Forwarding wizard for easy remote connectionv" Neither are worth much. Heck you can use our company DDNS haha for free. Auto port forwarding wizard...I hope they don't mean UPNP...but this also takes only 3-5 mins if the installer knows what they are doing and you got your router's password. I guess its a good value if they have to install it too for 12 cameras and like you said its a large site. If you must use analog, check out the HD-CVI stuff from Dahua. They are coming out with HD-TVI soon, which is, according to their marketing, is like HD CVI but better since it can go up to 2 MP per camera and long distance run with Coax and can use cat5e with baluns. But since its so new, i'm going to let other people sell them first before i recommend it haha.

I think ever since Flir acquired digimerge (who was OEM for Dahua), FLIR is just selling Dahua stuff for many of their NVR and DVR... Not that Dahua is bad, just not the kind of stuff I think about when I hear FLIR (i think of thermal, military, coast guard cameras, marine applications)

the Hikvision DS-96xx series had two nic cards. http://www.hikvision.com/en/us/products.asp?cid=50271 and many of the Dahua professional series has two NIC as well, starting at the 58xx series. http://www.dahuasecurity.com/products/nvr580858165832-301.html Well the spec sheet is two gigabit interface, and the actually machine says 'lan 1 ' and 'lan 2'. "I'm not a big Dahua or Hik NVR user so maybe someone else on the forum can confirm this - I think, if you buy an NVR with a built in PoE switch that the PoE switch and LAN port on the NVR will act as two different network cards" Yes that is true at least for Hikvision NVR, the internal POE switch has a NIC address then whatever hikvision cameras you plug it in will be assigned under that setup, they market this as plug and play...which is a blessing and a curse because any normal computer cannot log in to the camera itself and upgrade firmware or change WDR settings without plugging into the Built-in POE switch of the NVR along with the cameras.

Having the trained dog wouldn't be legally passive aggressive though haha But parking the car on public sidewalk which just happened to be in front of their house is! Pointing the cameras at their house (or just give the illusion its pointing at their house) is kind of in a grey area...

Just install some cameras at your friend's house and point it all at the neighbor, when that neighbor complains he can say "I'll take down mine if you take down yours" If a guy always park his car on the sidewalk in front of your house EVEN if he has space already, find a junker and park it on his side when the space opens up (or use it to hog your space).

If you run cables through vents, I believe you must use Plenum grade UTP cables, something about regular cat5e being toxic when it burns

So far my experience is if the analog has signal the cvi will have no problem but none of those are DIY. Guess you will need to buy from those shops that allows return. For testing purpose I will test it out later today. I am in cctv haven now! Everything can be found here! Shenzhen! Try the roast duck (or I think they use goose) in Shenzhen!

I tested one last night. They do indeed have a inbuilt mic. A nice feature i was not aware of. I read your other post about poor mic performance. One thing i noticed, through the web interface i found the sound performance really low/disappointing. Through BI it was far better range/clearer. It may have been my browser plugin or settings but worth checking. Oh I see, I will try out the sound from software instead of browser and see how it goes! Thanks!

Looks good! do you have the one with the mic? Do you have an estimate about how far you can hear the audio from?

1. Do a factory default on your camera, sometimes the stream doesn't appear until after you defaullt it. 2. upgrade to latest firmware if not already

No problem, glad to hear you fixed the problem! Factory Default or upgrading firmware or rebooting will fix most of the problems of your NVR =]

Three things you can do to hopefully solve the problem. 1. update your NVR firmware 2. Turn down the quality for sub-stream - when you see all the cameras at once, it is through sub-stream, hence if you lower the sub-stream quality to CIF, it will sometimes work. you'll notice if you double click on the camera with no resources the camera will be fine, because a single camera view will be from main stream...so if something is wrong wih the substream of the camera, go to step 3.... 3. update the firmware for the cameras

can you plug turn it on and take a picture of what the menu looks like?