Alan2000

Hi JoeyJoey - That is great news! Were you also able with the firmware swap to use the 6 stock cameras in 3MP vs the reduced 2MP mode they come shipped from Lorex? Would you mind posting the steps you took to flash your firmware and the link to the firmware file you used that worked for you? If (when) I try it I want to make sure I follow a known good process. On PCs you can often save the old BIOS firmware in case you want to flash back to the older version. Do you know if there is a way to save the Lorex firmware to a file in case you wanted to revert it back to stock? I played some some more with the Lorex in manual camera setting. So far zero luck to get even the Lorex camera to work in manual mode despite all the settings matching the plug n play settings and rebooting each time. I think maybe Lorex has crippled the NVR so that it can only be used with Lorex cameras. (I hate when companies do proprietary stuff like that. )

Hey buellwinkle - Thanks for insight. Looks like we were typing at the same time. I have considered flashing the firmware but I want to first try to get all running on stock setup. Costco has the world's best return policy but before I try the firmware updates I want to make sure I know what I'm doing in and out. I have not considered using a PC as a NVR. Food for thought and one more thing for me to research. I didn't want to clutter up the Costco NVR thread with info more specific on how to get this camera working. At this point I don't know if the Lorex camera did not work on the manual settings because their tech support is right that nothing works in manual mode with their NVR, or just because I did not reboot the NVR after making the changes. The Lorex camera would not even work in plug n play mode until I rebooted the NVR. Need more time to reboot, wait, change settings, reboot, repeat. LOL. Now that I know how to access the cameras and change settings with my PC progress should be much faster!

I was able in 5 minutes talking with Hikvision to get information that nobody in level 2 "support" at Swann or Lorex could figure out despite Hikvision not being able to support other branded products. The Hikvision non-support was 1000 times better than the Lorex or Swann "support". So far I was able to download the Hikvision software (SADP) that allowed me to located the camera on my network. Form there I was able to change the IP address on the camera so I can now view it on my browser. Next I will attempt to get it to work on the Lorex NVR. The Costco CONHD-C1080 camera is identified on the software as a SWNHD-880CAM camera. The user name is admin and password 12345.

Hi Robin. That is what I am trying to do. I figure anyone who will break into a house will usually first go to the front door to knock and see if anyone is home. So Cam1 will get a close up mug shot of the face. I was thinking of putting the 2 varifocal cams in positions 2 and 4. #2 would be zoomed in to max and will capture detail of any cars pulling in and out of the cul-de-sac. It should be able to capture the license plate during the day. (There have been a number of break ins very close to us and all have been in the day time.) #4 I would zoom out for a perspective view out front. I'm a newb at this stuff so if I could do something better let me know. Luckyfella - I originally had my old system out near the corners. But the resolution was so poor beyond about 15' or so that I thought maybe it was better to have both cams in the center so each is only working 1/2 the distance but at the cost of a blind spot in the center. The new 1080p cams have much better resolution but still not good enough to probably recognize someone at the opposite corner of the house. Revised pic below. With so many cams around I'm hoping a burglar will just keep on walking by! At fist we thought to try to hide the cameras as much as possible. Now I think if they can be seen it may be better. Don't know really.

Hello - Missed this intro section before my first post. Last year I installed a Q-See D1 8ch system. The DVR kept crashing my internet so I returned it and got anther Q-See unit. It also crashed my Internet connection but not as quickly as the first one. Last week the DVR starting having problems so I returned it to Costco and picked up their Lorex 8CH NVR with 6 1080P cameras. I was never happy with the D1 as the resolution was just too poor unless the subject was very close. 1080P is a lot better! I stumbled across this site trying to get some more info on a couple camera I am trying to get to talk to my NVR.

Ah, that makes sense! To test what the Lorex person said that the NVR will not even work with the Lorex cam if in manual setting mode vs Plug n Play mode, I changed Ch1 camera to manual with all the same settings it was showing under plug n play, and indeed the camera would not work. Strange. I set it back and it worked. I tried again and now the Lorex camera will not connect in either mode. Ugh. Lorex needs to hire someone from Apple to make their NVR more user friendly. (Although compared to a Q-See unit it replaced it is an improvement but could be better. ) I didn't try changing the password. At this point not even the Lorex camera on Ch1 I switched back and forth will not work. Time to reboot everything and see what happens... EDIT: Ch1 started working after reboot. So maybe I need to reboot NVR after setting up Swann cam. Need more specifics to really go further I guess. (Will create new thread to deal with the Swann camera issue.) EDIT 2: After rebooting system I notice night quality is improved. This is odd. Maybe there was some glitch before.

Hi guys! Here goes my first post. I'm a newbie to IP cams so be patient with me... I didn't see in this thread an issue I read about elsewhere that may account for some variance in picture quality reviews here. I read that this NVR by default comes set at 720P. I didn't think that was the case but when I went through all my settings sure enough it was set to 720P. This was a week ago and I already forgot exactly what setting it was, but I think it may have been the record resolution setting that was factory set to 720P. So check your units or your playback resolution may be less than optimal. Mine was. Switching from D1 to 1080P was a huge improvement for me in daytime PQ. However, I was disappointed in the night image quality. In fact, I wish I could use one of my old analog cameras that at night with only ambient street lighting was giving me color and a clearer picture than my Lorex cams at night. So I picked up two of the Costco Swann 1080p HD IP Vari-Focal Bullet Cameras (looks like the Hikvision DS-2CD2632F-I). They have a decent Lux rating so I thought I'd see how they would do and complete my system with 8 cameras. I could not get the Swann cams to connect to the Lorex NVR. Next I spent 2+ hours on hold with Swann and Lorex. Swann said to call Lorex. Lorex said their NVR only works with Lorex cams using Lorex protocol. I pointed out to the level 2 tech guy that there are 10 protocols in the NVR menu to pick from in the manual settings. He said it didn't matter and than even their own Lorex cams will not work using manual settings. He said I'd have to buy Lorex cams if I wanted them to work. Is that true? If the NVR doesn't support anything but Lorex it seems odd to me it gives you options for the various other protocols and manual setup option. I'd love if someone here could tell me how to get the Swann cam working with the Lorex NVR. On a side note, I noticed in the Swann cam there appears to be 2 servos motors. Can the cam focus and zoom be controlled remotely? There was zero documentation as far as specs or setup goes with the Swann cameras. Here is a pic inside the Swann camera. One motor is hard to see because it has a black Velcro strip on it.