Samir

That sucks. I hate people like him. The 'cash and dash' people. What type of cable is it? There may still be a way of using it. I've run ethernet over 20 year old untwisted non-category anything plain old solid core telephone wire, so anything is possible.

Agreed, but unless it's a XPe or PC-based DVR, why not? I'm sure there's some rare hacks for even standalone units, but what are the odds of really having an attack?

It's out-of-the-box thinking, that's for sure. But I don't think they'd be resistant to it if it accomplishes the same thing without any other serious contingencies. Right now I'm actually working in the capacity of an accountant, so these type of ideas appeal to us very much. There's a cost in transitioning anything to a different system/outsourcing/etc. And this cost is usually up-front. If you can avoid up-front cost and pay a little more going forward while still reducing the expense, it makes more sense. After all, business still has to be running through transitions, and the messier, the more expensive.

Since we already have cameras, covert cameras are pretty much out. What we really need is a covert DVR, if there is such a thing. And it has to be pretty much maintenance-free as I won't have the time to do anything with it on-site.

I know this is an older thread, but I wanted to add some important information. MTBF is not only rated in hours, but duty cycle as well. Enterprise drives will have a high duty cycle such as 100% while consumer drives will have something like 20%. That duty cycle makes the MTBF a variable number. With DVRs, the duty cycle is 100%, and anything rated for a high MTBF with a lower duty cycle should have the MTBF re-calculated for the higher duty cycle. There IS a big difference between enterprise and consumer drives. True enterprise drives are faster, more consistent, and typically require more expensive interfaces likes sas. I've seen the differences between consumer and enterprise drives for over two decades now. Also, enterprise drives still spin up and can read and write fine after being in storage, while consumer drives will fail in as little as a year in storage. Enterprise usually cost significantly more (30%+), but that's because they are built to last better. Now this being said, with DVR technology evolving pretty quickly, if the DVR will be replaced in 5 years, a consumer drive may work just fine. SSDs can make random writes much quicker, but sequential writes won't be much different than on a traditional drive. And because there are no moving parts where the data is written, data recovery becomes very, very, very difficult when hardware in the drive fails--there's literally no way to get it back--just like for flash drives.

I was thinking of this too, but then it's all too easy to break the box or find the power source and cut it. So far I've come up with putting it in the attic with a dedicated power outlet there, and a car battery with an inverter and charger on it (or some other crazy long power source). But of course, this system has its own drawbacks. I guess something that's industrial strength should be good, but I have no idea what that is. The industry doesn't typically deal with this type of theft by trying to monitor it, but actively prosecute and eliminate the people behind it. Unfortunately, we're not in the position to do that yet without some evidence. Any other thoughts?

If the cameras automatically adjust for exposure, then they should be able to compensate to a certain extent. Otherwise, they will blind each other. Think about it this way, if you had a light on a normal camera, how would two react pointed at each other? Same thing with the IR cameras.

I used to have a lot of stuff running off my car battery including an inverter. I've found the best battery for something like this is a deep cycle battery. Optimas used to be my favorite, but I'm not sure anymore since Odyessy and Braille also make great competing products. If you get a deep cycle battery with a high amp/hr rating, you should be fine. These batteries can power all your cameras for weeks without a worry. I once left my car in Chicago for 3 months at the airport. Came back and it started right up.

I like KENSTV's idea. Converting the signal and using extenders can do wonders, especially if you have existing cable that you can run it over.

I think that Ethernet extenders would be a better solution, or a harsh environment NVR. Otherwise, a solar panel system powering an AC might be a way to go, but I'm sure the costs would be up there.

While the merits and detractors to overseas can be debated until we're blue in the face, that's not the real issue here--it's cost. So how can you make the current employees jobs 'cheaper' and still keep them here? Well, if you're going to outsource monitoring, why do these employees even need to come into work? Let them monitor from home in their PJs using their own Internet connection. It's not much different than the quality drop from outsourcing. But it does cost you less, and the employees less (no commute time/fuel/expense, no more daycare, etc.), and they might be willing to take a paycut for this reduction in their personal expenses. In this economy, efficiency is the name of the game on all levels--getting the same job done with the same quality at a cheaper cost. And there's a lot of efficiency to be gained in most companies, even on the simplest things. Efficiency=cost savings, which fixes the money problem for a lot of companies.

I ran into this forum while looking for a good backup power solution for a newly installed DVR system. There's always a great forum for whatever topic I have to research and I'm glad to have found this one.

I've been happy with the Digimerge brand DH series. It's decently cheap and packs a lot of bang for the buck.

Why not just convert the rs232 and run it over common cat5 using something like the startech rs232extc1?

I like the idea of using VGA extenders from the main NVR, but that also may limit what you can see since the guard shacks will see whatever is on the NVRs. The DVR I've got experience using has a 'spot out' that is programmable to display certain cameras or just rotate through certain cameras. If your dvr has something like that, then you can use a VGA over IP signal extender to run just a monitor at the guard shacks. Be sure there isn't any IP subnetting or issues like that though. As far as cable length, I use Netsys ethernet extenders for length and cable problems. I've actually got 10mb running over almost 30 year old non-twisted non-category anything phone wire. This should be sufficient for the cameras, and more likely you'll get 100mb since you have good cabling. I can understand your IT department's wariness to putting PCs out there--nothing better to do and have a PC? Facebook! Games! Porn! You name it! What I've found works well in these scenarios is old xp embedded thin clients. They're frustratingly slow for any modern computing, but do things like viewing single DVR streams well. They can be locked down like fort knox so nothing can be changed and are basically a toaster so if there's a problem, just reboot it. The configuration can't be altered by the user--not even viruses or malware. Just reboot and these are gone too. I love them, and I think your IT department would too, although I like the plain VGA monitor idea the best. Good luck and share what solution they go with. It's an interesting problem and I'm sure the solution will be just as interesting.

A lot of systems that have built-in 'clientless' viewers need IE and activex. And the not signed control doesn't surprise me either. It's why you have to MAKE sure that IE isn't used for browsing anything other than the dvr or you'll gunk up the computer with all sorts of malware quick.

I had this same scenario at one of our businesses and replaced it with a Digimerge DH series product. Pretty happy with it. It was decently cheap too.

For India, I wouldn't recommend trying to sync the DVRs or you're going to be paying waaaay too much for bandwidth. You could try using the dvr out and just sending that video signal to the office as a video signal. Since there's no real regulation like with the FCC here in the US, you could boost the signal as high as you needed it. But be sure to pick a frequency not typically used or someone else could evesdrop on it, possibly thwarting your security system. You could also scramble the signal, which would eliminate that problem.

It's been a while since I've bought HDs, but the thing I look for is the MTBF spec and at what duty cycle. An MTBF of 1 million hours at 70%+ duty cycle is great, since that's about 80 years. Most cheapy hard drives are rated with 20% duty cycles and lower MTBFs. I avoid these drive lines.

Hard drives can deteriorate, but since you replaced it with a new one and the problem persists, it's not the hard drive. I would try this--set the dvr to record 24x7 at the highest framerate and see how much time you get out of it. Then check that with the amount of data being produced and how much can be stored on the hard drive. If everything adds up, then you just need to check your settings on the dvr as something changed that caused it to use more space than before.

Or another way to test the cable/camera is to swap the camera with another one without a pink color. If you still have a pink color, it's the cable. If the pink moves with the camera, it's the camera.

I can probably help, but need some additional information. What size hd did this originally ship with? Does the owners manual tell you how to change the hard drive?

Dlink uses the 192.168.0.x subnet on a lot of their products for the configuration or default subnet. Change your other subnet addressing to 192.168.2.x and the problem will go away.

Definitely a router issue. A quick and dirty fix it to just put the DVR in the router's DMZ.

Are you able to not ping it from the WAN or LAN? If it's from the WAN, then it's a router forwarding setting. (I'd just put it in the DMZ and be done with it.) If it's from the LAN, then something is still wrong in connecting the DVR to the network in the first place.