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dexterash, thanks for the clarification, I am still glad I went the two NVR route because I know for sure I won't have problems running the higher bit rates on eight cameras, and at the Costco price I can upgrade the NVR later without kicking myself too much. Maybe come out ahead if I post the two 4 port NVR's on eBay. I was going to order a Zyxel ES1100-16P but instead went with a BV Tech 16 Port Network PoE Switch (Up to 120W) that is working out well so far (4 cameras). It has switch selectable PoE available to all ports so you could power more than eight under 10w cameras on it. From what I read the Zyxel is limited to 8 dedicated PoE ports, and in my plan I need 10 ports. I'm not a network guru so do your research, the Zyxel may be a better switch, but the BV Tech fit my plan and I took a chance. Cheers -Larry

One area I haven't heard anyone discuss is the max recording bit rate of the NVR itself. I recently bought a Costco Q-See package and was going to buy a 16 port Dahua NVR and extra cameras from Empire until I read the specs for the Q-See NVR. It says it has a max recording bit rate of 32Mbps. Notice that the recording resolution and recording bit rate is the same for 4/8/16 port NVRs. My guess is that they are using the same processor in each NVR and just limiting the amount of cameras one can attach with firmware. I did an experiment with my 4 port Q-See... I used the NVR's net load monitor to see how much bandwidth my cameras used at different recording bit rates. All four cameras set at 1.3M 15fps (fps limited by the cameras) 4096 = 19Mbps 6144 = 27Mbps 8192 = 35Mbps So, if you plan on recording at max quality you better fasten your seat belt and get ready to run far fewer cameras than you had expected. Unless the specified max recording bit rate spec is not accurate. I would not want to run less than 4096 bit rate and eight 1.3MP cameras running at 4096 would be over the 32Mbps limit of the NVR. So what good would it be to have a sixteen port NVR? Because of these results I decided to purchase a second Costco Q-See NVR package and just deal with the two NVR's vs. one. This way I will not have to back off the recording bit rate and can run all eight of my cameras at full quality if I choose. I also ordered two WD 3TB AV-GP drives so each NVR will have 4TB of room. Whoopee! I found that both VGA and HDMI are active at the same time and worked perfectly on a little 24" TV. I also ordered a 4X2 True Matrix HDMI Switch w/Remote from Monoprice to feed TV's in two other rooms. I will post an update when I get it hooked up. Here's a tip... I plugged my Logitech wireless M570 trackball into the NVR and it worked right off the bat with no fuss. What a shock. I would guess you can run any Logitech wireless unified remote mouse, however, I also tried a Logitech wireless keyboard but no joy, no workie. I sure hope someone proves this post is non-sense, I would love to have one Dahua NVR that can handle eight 1.3MP and two 2MP IP cameras at 15fps with high quality recording bit rates. I just don't think Dahua is going to be the answer at this time. It would help if all NVR manufactures would publish ALL the real meaningful specs. The only place I have seen the max recording bit rate is in the Q-See manual, not once in any of Dahua's or Q-See's promotional brochures or literature. "Look here our NVR can run 32 cameras! (unpublished fine print... quality recording max 2fps)". Anyway, greetings everyone I have learned a lot from reading here and appreciate everyone's sharing. A special thank you to buellwinkle for the great job you do on your website. " title="Applause" /> Cheers! -Larry