ncdoc

Many of our recorders are recording at around 3 IPS per camera and I think it provides a good playback as long as the quality is good. Motion is fairly smooth even at 3IPS.

Of the DVRs I have tested or used I have found that the Pelco Spectra and Esprit can be controlled up-the-coax by Pelco DVRs for full control/programming and by Dedicated Micros DVRs with limited control and no programming. With the Dedicated Micros unit you can do PTZ functions and I believe call presets using up-the coax. Bosch Divar can be ordered with Bilinx option allowing you to be able to control Bosch domes up-the-coax. All others I have seen require a data link for control. If you can buy 4 or 5 fixed cameras for the cost of 1 PTZ then many times that is the best way to go since even if you run the dome on a pattern you are going to have to run it slow for it to look decent in playback, your are likely to miss something, and you wear the motors out quicker. The number of channels on a DVR does not seem to affect the cost that much. We love domes in the right application but they are often overused because they are fun to play with.

I would get a clarification as to what "All" recorded video means because even if you are only recording on activity the hard drive(s) are going to reach capacity in days or weeks depending on your quality and IPS settings. You have to off load that archive video somewhere and I often have to explain to the user how many 700MB CDs it takes equal 600GB of hard drive recorded video. Other than true incidents that our sites archive to CD, DVD, USB, or sometimes a networked desktop I think external hard drive arrays are the only way to go if they truely need all video (event or otherwise) archived for long periods of time. Since we are a goverment institution with statewide sites we have looked at archiving this to our central servers as a possible option. The problem with RAID storage as I see it is simply cost. You can buy a DVR with 600GB for around $3400.00 and then adding a 2.4TB RAID will cost you 3 times that amount. One other thing we are looking at is using external USB hard drives for archive but I am not sure how fast they can tranfer video. It's a big transition from cheap tapes to high capacity hard drives. BTW we only use embedded DVRs at this time.

Looking for feedback on the American Dynamics EDVR. Looks like a new embedded unit and the specs and pricing look good. Any feedback would be appreciated.