security_hobbyist

Purchased a Hikvision unit and tested it today. It "supports" Firefox through IE Tab - Which is an IE wrapper. If you're running Mac OS or Linux, these devices will not work. I am now going through the process of returning.

Hello everyone, I've recently purchased a Swann 8-Camera DVR and I've found out the hard way that these DVR's are Internet Explorer only. This is a big issue for me because my family primarily runs Linux. I'd rather not run new wires through the house, and the current cameras fulfill our desire of quality, so I'm looking to just perform a DVR replacement. I guess I'm looking for some input on my choices: Purchase a new DVR with non-IE (Chrome / Firefox) support. I can't actually find one, but our price range is less than $1000, and ideally less than $300 - so if you know of a good one, please let me know. Purchase a BNC receiver card to use with ZoneMinder. I'm not familiar with hardware options, but a lot of people are saying you can run into framerate issues with some of the cheaper models. This needs to handle 8 cameras (even if it's two cards) without an issue, so I don't want to get stuck with something cheap. Reverse engineer the SwannViewPro Android App and figure out how they're communicating with the DVR. I have a background in software, so I have no problem writing a viewer app - if only there was good protocol documentation. I've tried to figure out some of the communications between the app and the DVR - but I have no idea how any of it works since it's all proprietary. (Also I don't want to discuss this any further if it would get me in trouble, being "hacking" and all. I understand the rules and will follow them.) The unit I bought: http://www.amazon.com/Swann-SWDVK-830004-US-TruBlue-8-Channel-Cameras/dp/B008P8FDEW Thanks in advance for any help, M