Sloride

Why has it crossed your mind to take it back? Over a months time, are there things not doing so well with anything? What's the worst part about this system? What's the best part? A few reasons. The first was simply cost and nothing to do with the system. With some unexpected medical bills, money became an issue. Second was low light performance. Since I bought the system with the domes (before the IR cam package was available), I lost the lighting that I had in the old analog cameras with IR built in. I have since bought 4 of their HD90 IR cameras, and added a $10 IR illuminator for one of the domes that is in a dark area. If I was going to do it again, I would buy the IR camera package, and add on dome cameras as needed. This was really just about the needs of my specific install rather than the product. Lastly, there are a few software issues. I'm confident that they will be resolved with an update, but in the interim I'm stuck with a few bugs. Worst part of the system for me. I like to watch different screens depending on the situation and currently there is no way to configure a custom layout. You want to watch a 4 way? You can watch 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16. You want to see a 4 way with camera 1, 4, 9, 15? nope. You just have to watch it in a 16 window view. A couple other things that bug me would also be easily fixed. The "search" function gives a list of videos (i.e. searching by date+time+motion) but you can only play one video than you have to go back to the search window start a new search. Since your setting isn't saved, it's a little frustrating to search through 10+ events unless you have a good memory and remember the last one you played each time. AvertX tells me they are hard at work on an update that addresses this and several issues. Best part? Function, design, video quality are all good. It's an incredible bump up from my analog system. All that considered, what I have found most surprising is the support. They aren't open nights and weekends, but when they are open my calls were answered immediately by people that knew the product and didn't treat me like an idiot. It also helps that I don't have to strain to understand the accent of someone trying to speak English as a second language. If I bought a similar Chinese product, I don't think I could expect attentive support, updates, and a decent return policy. Lastly, referring to the post about compatibility. It might be an issue with some of the IP cameras out there, but most of the newer ones seem to be ONVIF complaint (which this system is). I did try to hook up 2 Q-See (Dahua?) 720P cameras but they were older and not ONVIF so they did not work with this system.

Looks like you missed it. http://www.avertx.com/contact-support/ has both the California address and phone numbers. I'm not going to jump to the defense of the company just yet as I have yet to see updates, but I have definitely had very positive interaction with their tech support. Coming up on a month since my last post about the system. I do still have it. Considering Costco's liberal return policy, I could easily have taken it back and it has crossed my mind a couple of times but all in all I'm pleased with what I have. I don't know about any link between them and Openeye. Taking a look at their NVR, it doesn't have the capabilities that this one does (i.e. Openeye limits live view to max 4 cams??), but I really didn't do a lot of digging here. I'm doing my best to be un-biased and just relay my observations of my overall experience.

The web interface requires an ActiveX plugin so it works natively with I.E. I use Chrome and with the Chrome I.E. extension it works fine. I too hope that they succeed. To me, having a U.S. based company with real tech support is worth a few extra dollars and patience with some growing pains. Of course if the updates don't come along soon (as their material says it will), I can see that people will lose patience with the product at that price.

It looks like I may have to get my post count up here a little before I can post pictures. I'm not sure as I did not see anything specific about it in the site rules, but I can't seem to find a way to upload here or make a link work (yet). I'll dig into it some more this weekend. Until then here is a little update. I'm happy to see that the odd nighttime behavior is gone after a couple days of use. The cameras seem to have somehow adjusted themselves as I have not done anything different and they no longer pulse at all. This has helped my confidence in the system as I really wasn't sure that I could deal with the cycling light/dark/light constant adjustment. So far my dealings with tech support have been responsive and show a true interest in my comments. I know that cleaning up the programming isn't going to happen overnight, but it does sound like like they are working on it. The menus on the cameras are good and work well. There are also web based menus on the NVR that have some little bugs (i.e. sometimes registering a double click when just single clicking) but nothing that stopped me from getting the settings that I was looking for. Switching from page to page or cam screen to screen has a little lag that I was not used to with my analog system, but the higher res is definitely worth the 1/2 sec wait. I played around with a couple $15 Amazon IR illuminators and found that the cameras picked up the IR lighting well, so dark spots will no longer be a problem for me. My biggest issue is still one that will likely be fixed soon.... I can't configure the 4/9/16 views at all beyond the default camera number order. I'm interested in setting up the triggers as you mentioned, but need to do some more learning on what all I can do with them and how to actually do it.

First post here and by no means an expert at this stuff. I have an older analog D1 system and this is my first venture into an IP system. I'll do my best to provide my observations but I may not have all the terminology correct as I'm still learning. I purchased the 16 channel system from Costco online and have set up the 8 cameras that are included in the system. Overall I'm satisfied with the system but it definitely has some room for improvement. The look and feel of the NVR is nice and conveys the feel of a quality product with the exception of the network cable connection area. The metal feels a little loose and flimsy, similar to PC towers that sometimes have a flimsy insert for the usb/audio/etc. I have had no issues with it, but it doesn't seem quite as solid as it should be. The connections are straightforward and relatively easy to manage. I was a little concerned about noise when I saw 3 fans (2 side, 1 rear) but they are pretty quiet and provide decent airflow. The included cameras are ideal for ceiling mounting, but not so good for mounting on a wall as you can't really tilt the view sideways without shimming the back of the dome. There are 2 tilt adjustments (up/down ~45* and side to side ~90*) that make ceiling mounting easy. There is some conflicting info out there about audio on these cameras. On the AvertX site, the manual says it has one way audio. but my cameras do not have the 3 holes like the pics on the Avertx site and I can not get any audio to work. I have 4 cameras inside the house (wife needs to monitor sick pets) 1 in the garage, and 3 outside (more on the way). The image quality is very good during the day and with any amount of usable interior lighting. Color is very good and the cam stays in color mode with much lower light than I expected. Low light performance is a bit more challenging since there is no IR projection from these cams. I mounted one near a very low wattage porch light and it does very well. The cams mounted in areas that get very dark have had some trouble and cycle between trying to let in more light and suddenly going very dark as it senses that it went too far. I'm playing with some IR illuminators and think that will resolve it. The Web interface uses ActiveX so it looks like I'm stuck using I.E. (or Chrome with I.E. extensions). The interface works great but needs some more development. You can't re-order channels and move camera frames around at all. You have a 4 way, 9 way, and 16 way window to work with but no customization. The overall feel is that the live viewer is more of a beta product. A couple of chats with Tech support have me impressed. While I didn't ask where they were based, it was obviously a US operation with clear understandable English speaking staff that didn't treat me like an idiot. I bought the system knowing that it was from a new company with a new product. I expected some issues and indeed there are a few to work out. Talking with support, I do believe that they are actively working on them and I'm ok with that. Would I recommend this system? For commercial property with some lighting - Definitely. For home use I'm a little more reserved because of low light performance, but in fairness I'm not using their IR cameras either. AvertX says that they will be pushing out a 2-pack of their IR cameras to Costco and I'll be trying those out as soon as they do. tl;dr Decent system that works well but needs a little development time.