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Anyone here buy this set yet? Reviews? The Costco site has only one so far, but it is favorable.

Please do, as it may push me off the fence on this deal.

So, in looking into this, it appears Hikvision (and Lorex) need the current date of the NVR (month, day, and year) because they use it (with the serial) to generate a code that is good for that 1 day only. Thus, once the NVR hits 12am, the code no longer works. This could be a problem when dealing with support in a different time zone. Also, you say you can't get the current date from the NVR. Is there no way to view it without logging on? Have you tried a port scan to see if there are any open ports on the NVR such as 23 (telnet) that might show the date even if you can't login? Does the NVR main board have a button cell battery you could pull for a while to potentially reset the date to whatever the default date is? If so, hopefully Hikvision knows what that date is or you could see if someone here with a working NVR could pull the battery and see what the date gets reset to... If you can figure out the current NVR date, see if Hikvision will generate the code for that date, the next day, etc. Just some ideas. Good luck!

Thinking about buying this set before the deal ends. Are those of you who already have it pleased generally? The 2 recent reviews at Costco are not good and mention some issues of concern such as the camera not staying in place on the swivel no matter how tightly screwed and insufficient quality for face detection. Anyone here have such issues? Seems like a good buy for the money--cheaper than buying the equivalent Hik from China or the 2 U.S. dealers I have found online (both of whom appear to be OOS). I know that these are apparently the older model domes, but I'm not overly concerned given the price and fact that I mostly want/need the bullets.

Confidential pricing is a non-starter for me. If you want to sell something, be upfront about pricing. If you aren't upfront about that most fundamental part of the transaction, then it makes me wonder about everything else.

Didn't realize the cameras are only 100mbps, so that is a limiting factor with both the POE and non-POE model. That said, the connection between the GigE port on the NVR and the GigE port on the external switch connected to it should still be 1000mbps. Ultimately, I'm not sure I see a downside to the -P version, other than added cost. If I decide I don't want to use the POE ports for the other reason you mention, I could still just use an external POE switch off the network port... What am I missing?

Not sure I follow this. The specs for the NVR3204/3208/3216 and NVR3204/3208/3216-P (POE version) both indicate they have 1x 10/100/1000mbps RJ45 network port. The -P version also has 4 POE ports. With either, if you connect an additional POE switch to the network port to support more than 4 cameras, you will be limited to 1000mbps (not 100)--unless you are saying the internal POE switch has only an internal 100mbps link to the network port, which seems unlikely. I also found a thread debating whether the -P version is a router or switch (may be part of your reasoning?): http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=32432 I don't see a definitive answer to that and do not see why it would be a router. I would guess both versions include a DHCP server though, to make it easy to assign IPs to the connected cameras. Am I mistaken? Looking to buy and trying to decide which way to go. Thanks.