scorpion

Thank you for the heads up!

I just found out that the Flex 8 (not the PRO only shows 2 cameras at one time during playback! Very interesting! Live and learn!

I truely do not know. I am not familiar with your view. I would suggest experimenting with different lens, and see what you get.

I posted the spaghetti marketing here.. (located in articles section) http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=32 ____________________________________________________________ What is Guerrilla Marketing? http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=60625#60625 ____________________________________________________________ Home Builders Association http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9149 ____________________________________________________________ Press Releases http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=9165&start=0 ____________________________________________________________ Starting your own business http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=31 I hope you enjoy them!

Hello everyone! All of these ideas I have used over the years for my businesses. Some that I thought were dead on target failed in one time frame, but it worked way above expectations in another. I have come up with the most stupid idea to take advantage of something that came up out of the spur of the moment and have it pay off so well that I was over whelmed! 1 On your advertisment put an extension number in the phone number. When I get a call and they ask for extension 69, I know what newspaper, thrifty nickel ad, road side "realestate" sign, flyer, door hanger, or business card taped to a gas pump. I know if it is the local paper, the out of town paper, or the home town wannabe newspaper. I know if it is my hometheater business card, CCTV card, or my nightclub/bar business card. Extension 32 yes one moment. Put them on hold. I have cheat sheets with the promos. Find # 32. Now pick up the customer and you see the ad that they see. It is funny how I get calls from a business card that I gave out 5 years ago! 2 You want to do radio on the CHEAP? Find a friend, or talk to a business that would have an interest in doing this. I go to the radio station and I get the time slots after 10pm. If I beg, I sometimes can get the spots for $20.00 each. I take the first 30 seconds, and my friend takes the second 30 seconds. This is a one minute commercial. We do 25 spots a week on the radio. We split the cost 50/50. It cost me $10 a spot X 25 = $250 a week! Yes this is a lot of money but it is dirt cheap if you get daytime quotes. Friday at drive time at 8am cost me $75 - $100 per spot! We rent a digital multitrack recorder from the local music instrument store. We make our own commercials. It is a lot of work! We leave blank spots in the ads so that we can taylor it to the season, or change it with a different voice. This commercial can be five years old but you do not recognize it. Sometimes I have the DJ from that radio station fill in the blank Over different stations they sound different. Some stations are hard rock, with the "stoner", some are top 40 geared to daytime women listeners, some are geared to 20's something or the 40's something. It is great when hollywood movie star is in the news and you can grab a premade commercial and fill it in with the "event" and get this on the air. It blows people away that someone famous does something, and I have a commercial on the air that day! 3 Buy or make some cookies. Ok,a lot of cookies! In advance go and have some stickers made up like a business card. It should be a round circle. Order at least a 1000. You get a better price break. It will probably cost somewhere around $200 to $300 depending on the size of the sticker. Wrap the cookies in "saran wrap"(yes tm for all of you lawyers out there!!), and put the sticker on the bottom to "seal" it. Place all of these cookies in a box. Now go to all of the High School Home Coming games in your area. Talk to the cheerleaders in advance as to what you want to do. You can bribe them in a way if you offer to take out an ad in what ever "newspaper" sponsors the cheerleaders. Go to the Home Bleachers. Divide the bleachers in to 3 sections. Start with the left side, then do the right side. When you get to the middle section they will have seen this done and it will be a mad house and they will be screaming the name of you company at the top of their lungs!!!! Would you like to know what I do? Here is what I do. Go to the left side and have the cheerleaders chant scorpion, scorpion, scorpion, and toss a cookie here and there. The crowd will look at you like you are smoking crack! Someone will figure out that if they chant scorpion that they will get the cookie that they would really like! Now you will have more people actually trying to chant. Toss somemore cookies! Now the section is really lively!!!! Wait till later in the game and do the right side. Again they will look at you like you are on crack. Now comes the sweet spot. When the center section sees you pick up the box with the cookies in them the whole bleachers start chanting in unison scorpion, scorpion, scorpion, scorpion!!!!!!!! Now start tossing those cookies everywhere!!!!! You can toss some chips too if you wanted. The place will go mad!!! I have stopped games where the players wanted to know what was going on!!! scorpion, scorpion, scorpion!!!! I cannot walk in the mall without group chanting scorpion, scorpion scorpion!! Ah MAN We thought you had some cookies!!!!! IT DOESN'T STOP THERE! Before the game a big box of programs will come in. I tell the head coach that I can get people to buy the programs like mad in the next year! HOW? Here is how. Take 2,3, or 4 programs, what ever you feel comfortable with. Have the coach hand write a message on one particular page. "Congradulations! You have just won a free security camera and you can pick it up at the concession stand! During part of the game the announcer will anounce "HEY EVERYBODY GRAB YOUR PROGRAM AND GO TO PAGE 11. IF YOU HAVE THE COACHES SIGNATURE YOU HAVE JUST WONE A FREE SECURITY CAMERA FROM SCORPION THEATERS!!!!!!! It is a blast to watch people "come on down" like it is the price is right or something while they shake their program over their head, and they scream all the way down!! I put sticker on the camera as well. When they get back to their seats everyone around them will ask if they can "see it"! I also put banners on the fence around the field, and I have "realestate signs" for people to see when they leave the game later. I usually bring a camcorder to the game and just walk up to randome people and ask them to say something. "We love scorpiontheater, and XXXXXX high rules"!!!!! I usually will go to some pizzera and show the video to who ever shows up at the gathering. Make sure they have a very large banquet hall! 4 Mothers day. I buy an obcene amount of daisys. They are very reasonable in price. I will usually go around to doctors office, lawyers etc. I give all of the ladies a flower for mothers day, and I leave a bowl of YES YOU GUESSED IT! CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES! I also drop off business cards as well. 5 Build a float for the Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the 4th of July Parade. Find a buddy who has a DJ business you can promote each other. He brings his lights, fog machines, speakers, and amps!! I love watching the night time parades and you can see the kids dancing to the music before you even get up to them! Pass out candy! Pass out YES CHOCOLATE COOKIES!!!!! 6 I have banners and realestate signs around all of the time. Once people were lining up in the street. There is no parade! What is going on. OH its the Olympic torch runner coming through! BAM I get the Banners up, get the signs out, and call the radio station who is marking the route of the runner and ask for a shout out from Scorpion Theater. There are usually a lot of people with radios and I get to hear my self. We have a lot of rocket launches and the tourist love to hear the count down and watch them take off. The launch area is about 40 miles do north of me! 7 Have a signage/printer shop make some really small stickers with the name of your company and give them to the kids of your customer. The customer will want to strangle you a week later but the kids will love you forever! 8 Have some banners made up. "CARWASH" sponsored by scorpiontheater. Have some hand held signs made up that say CARWASH. Get some buckets, sponges, hoses, towels, soap, and whatever. Maybe get some ot those orange cones at the hardware store. Talk to the local Burger King, McDonalds, Subway, area supervisor, or owner. Get some tickets made up with a BOGO. Buy one sub/burger get the second one free. The football team, cheerleaders, mathclub, rocket club, Glee club or who ever can sell these tickets in advance! They money off the carwash even if the ticket purchaser never shows up for the carwash! You get all of the exposure by helping out these groups! Now find a place that will help out with the groups that will let you have a carwash in the lot and let you use their water. Mix some groups. I tell the cheerleaders that I get can get the chess club to help wash the cars if they will help at their car wash. Believe me the chess club is really going to need a bunch of girls in bikinis if they expect to make any momey! I have some more ideas but I think I have bored you all enough. Remember if you do not like the idea thats ok. Do not do it. If you like it, feel free to modify the idea to suit your needs. Good Luck!!!! Let me know if anyone likes these ideas.

Guerrilla Marketing! Guerrilla Marketing mean to draw attention to yourself without spending any money. Guerrilla Marketing means to draw attention to yourself spending other peoples money, (leagally). Guerrilla Marketing means to draw attention to yourself by thinking outside of the box. _______________________________________________________ Advertising without spending money. You can standout side of your business holding up a sign, made out of magic marker, and cardboard, or you can have one made with vinyl lettering. You can go door to door knocking on doors. You can have people refer customers to you. You can ask your customers "is there anyone else you know that can benefit from a video surveillance system? Using other people's money. Have you ever seen a story in the newspaper such as: Chinese New Year. There is a picture of chef Wong from Wong's Scorpion Buffet. In the news story, Chef Wong teaches us how to make a traditional chinese dinner. This did not cost Wong's Scorpion Buffet any money!!! People will see this article in the Food section of the newspaper, and they might want to try this restaurant! Hey! I just advertised SCORPION twice for FREE! THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX! A lot of things done to advertise a business started out as a really "wild" idea. How about the first time someone dressed up in a costume to advertise their business? The first time someone strung up balloons all over their business? Advertising in video games is thinking outside the box in the traditional sense of advertising. I was renting some tools in the late 1980s while I was working on my teen club. I heard the guys talking about this new weird device that they had. They were just waiting for the first customer to rent it so that they could see how it worked. This thing was wild!!! It was a road side sign that you could actually type your own words!!! LANE CHANGE AHEAD. DETOUR HERE. ETC. I asked how much it cost to rent, and then my hair stood up on end!! OUCH! These guys wanted to see it work, and I wanted to rent it so they gave me a break on the rent. I put the sign next to the roadside in my parking lot of the teen club! CLUB METRO TEEN CLUB LADIES FREE. I was on a very busy road and a lot of people saw this sign before I ever opened for business!! Do not be impressed! I used Radio Shack strobe lights, red/blue revolving police lights, a mirror ball, amps, and rdo shk speakers, and I had a 6 foot track lights in each corner of the dance floor with color gells over the lights. I had a wooden box that had buttons that you had to manually push for the "light show". We were the hit of the town!!! It got so wild that we had to hire 6 off duty police officers because everyone came from Orlando! This is an hours drive from us!!!!! Talk about money hand over fist. What made this work? We were the first to play rap, and house music! No one had ever heard of this music before! What ideas do you have that can draw attention to you, and make you standout? This is all good and all, but if you do not have good service, good pricing, or go the extra mile to please your customers than you are wasting your time advertising and promoting. You have to have a plan before hand. Even if you are flat broke you can put a plan together and start your ad/promo and build up from there! Did you hear about the Home Theater Company in Orlando Fl that sent high end remote controls to every player at a major golf tournament? This company installed several home theaters to the stars of the golfing community because of this promo! Good lucK! Scorpion Audio, Video, and Security Ah Ha! I advertised again! This would normally get this post deleted. I am only using this as a lesson plan on how you can use things in your environment to make you stand out of the crowd!

What solutions do you have for turning off video recording? The DPD trained officers during a two-hour classroom training session. In hindsight, Summers says that follow-up training would have proven valuable one to three months after the initial training, with regard to video equipment use. “Video cameras are automatically activated by events such as turning on the cruiser’s siren, reaching speeds of 100 mph or more, or being involved in an accident,â€

Thanks! Not a problem. I will just add flight/hotel fee to the quote for repairs. YAAAAAAA! Another paid vacation! I need to install some camera in VEGAS!!! This would be great for recurring revenue, and maintenance!!!!!!!! Hey UK! Can I subcontract? I want to see Big Ben!

GE Camera takes a licking but it stopped ticking! Anyone know where I can just order a replacement board???? You can view the picture of it at http://scorpiontheater.com/1.aspx Thanks for the help! [img ][/img]

Congradulations! You want to start your own business. Starting your business is very, very easy. The hard part is maintaining it. I do not care what anyone will tell you. I know a guy with $200,000 investment, and he is out of business. This was the best thing that ever happened for our industry. I also know of a guy. I used to call him a snot nose punk. He was right out of high school and as wet behind the ears as you could get. In the beginning I did not want anything to do with him. I was afraid that his crash and burn would affect me as well. I steered clear from him as far as I could. He comes in the shop asking for help. I new who he was, so I gave him a break. I sold him what he needed at my cost. I saved his butt big time! He worked out of a 4 door car. He put everything in the trunk and in the back seat. He placed the 6 foot ladder across the open trunk and he tied it down. He did all right for a trunk thumper. He started this business with no money down! I lied he spent money but wisely. To start the business he planned to "open" the next year. He went to the pawn shop, and bought a crap hammer drill for 99 bucks (new $350). Everyweek he took his fast food check and he would buy old beat up tools out of the varios pawn shops. He found a 6 foot ladder at a thrift store for 10 bucks! One month he spent his extra cash on business cards. The next month he bought P OF S computer. It had XP, and Office allready on it. His girl friend had a friend that made up an excel sheet for him with his name, logo, and it is set up for proposals. All he has to do is hit the the new quote icon and he can type in the cameras, how much they sell for, and how many units. On the next line he can put in dvr, how much, how many, and so far down the line. At the bottom it totals everything automatically. He then emails this to the guy he just did a site survey for. One hour at the site, one hour on the computer, now you just need the customer to say yes. You will need to let your customer know that they will have to put 50% down, and pay the other 50% at the time of install. Do not spend this money! This will give you money to buy all of the equipment. When it comes in, burn it in like you would with a computer for 24 hours before you install it. Tell your customer that you will not give them install date until all of the equipment comes in. You can give them a "tenative" date, and you will call them when it comes in. This is to save your butt. Maybe the stuff did not get delivered that day, and they shipped it the next day. Now you are 24 hours behind schedule. Nothing sucks worse than have a 9am install date and the equipment comes in between 11am and 1 pm the same day! OUCH! If they send you the wrong item, or you ordered it wrong, or they forgot to install a hard drive, (or what have you) you have some "lead" time to get it right! Alway do the right thing. Even if it is not your "JOB". Be nice to the old lady. It is not your job to move all of her boxes, and her furniture, do your install job and then move the furniture, and put back all of her boxes of junk. She will ask while you are here could you tighten this screw on this (what ever) since you have your tools?? Always anticipate what can happen to the install process. What if you make a mistake? What if it does not meet her expectations after the install. If this is the case you did bad on the site survey. Take a 13" monitor, a camera, a power supply, and a cable and do a dog and pony show. Hook all this up outside her house and stand on a ladder and show her what the view looks like on the monitor. What you see is what you get. NO lost expectations if you do this. I only carry three cameras for a site survey. A motion detector camera, a bullet with a 3.8mm, and a vandal dome with 4mm - 9 mm vari focal. The customer will be educating themselves as you do this. OK! You have your business cards, you have a home office, or you sub lease a corner from some other business. You have a van, or a truck, or you are working out of your trunk. How do you get business! It takes money to make money right? Yes it does! That is if you want to make a lot of money up front. Keep your overhead low (used tools, home office), and let your profits ramp up. You may have to keep your old job a little longer. Put your business card in to a business card holder and ask friends, relatives, and go door to door (business to business) asking if you can put your cards on their desk or table. Here is the first easy one. Your local bank always seems to have some kind of static display in the corner right? Summer time: They have a sea doo, a beach ball, beach towels and such on display right? Ask them if you can set up a display, or at least put your cards on a table. Keep a bullet with you out of the box. When you go to restaurants, fast food restaurants, gas stations, any where you go, let people see it. If they ask about it, then you talk about surveillance. Here is the trick, If you are talking it is not a sell!!!!!! IT IS NOT A SELL!!!!!! If you want to know if this is a potential sale do this! LISTEN!!!! Someone who needs a system will ask all kinds of questions. Is it water proof? How much does it cost? They will tell you their story and you will feel like a bartender! Someone broke into my house, someone broke in to my car, ect. When it comes to pricing be vague. Tell them, let me get back to my office, and let me send you a quote. I have a vendor that might give me a discount on (what ever intrested the person you were talking to). Let me talk to him, and let me see what I can do for you. This will at least get you to the end of the conversation before you have to give a price. You do not want to give a price then have them blow you off. You will have to give storys about how people get ripped off buying junk, or not understanding how things work. I use this kind of a story. Wow I really get hammered around December because systems fail left, and right and people call me to come fix someone else's installation! Now they are curious as to why? Hook line and sinker! It is because it gets dark at 5pm, and these installers installed cameras that do not work in the dark! There are business where the ladys check the monitor before they go out in the parking lot to check to see if their ex boyfriend or exhusband is out in the parking lot. If they cannot see the video then they may be afraid to go out to their car! Mix up the story. Make it work for you. Here is a trick! Practice your sells pitch on people that you know that are not going to buy a system. Start with your relatives, and friends. Try to sell them a system. Yes I know they are not going to buy from you, but do it anyways. What will happen is you will stop stuttering, and stammering, and saying "and uh" all the time. Your pitch will become smooth, will have a ring of authenticity. You can spot the newbie car salesman right off the bat right? You do not want to deal with him, you would rather deal with the pro who knows what he is doing right? This is how your customers are going to treat you. You will not get a lot of sales in the begining because they can spot that you are new, or you do not know what you are talking about. This is OK! This is your practise time! Now how do you advertise?? Here is a post on some of my rambling on how to advertise on the cheap! http://www.cctvforum.com/about8369.html SCROLL down to the bottom. THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!!! If you have not worked for a security surveillance company before you start your business than you are short changing yourself. When you hire employees later on how will you know how long the installation should take? Are they dragging their feet making you look bad? Did you predict how long it would take and your figure was way off? Maybe the combo of both? Go work for a company. All you need is at least 3 months. I would tell you at least one year, but really more. If you do not work for a company for one year than you are really doing yourself an injustice! HIRING EMPLOYEES The very first employee you hire should be a person who can site survey good, sell, put together a design, order parts, and do the install. Pay him a base pay of $250.00 a week and give him $50 for each camera, and the DVR that he installs, On a 4 camera install he can make $250!!! A sixteen camera install earns $850.00. This is called project pay. If it takes longer, then you are not paying buy the hour. If he is not selling, and installing then it only cost you $250.00 a week. You can make him feel good by calling him the director of operations. Give him 10% of the quote for the sell! When you hire a seperate sales person pay them on sales with a base, and then the first employee will be to busy doing installs or helping in the office. What other questions do you have? This is not the way to start a business. You need to do it right. You need to talk to a lawyer, and a CPA. Good Luck!!!!!

I had a problem for a while. I cannot describe it so I will make up a fake story to give you the point. A dirty cop gets busted on tape red handed (court authorized). Cops know how the video was shot. Guess who the bad guy is now. Now I get all of the tickets for not signaling 100 feet prior to the intersection, failure to signal changing lanes. I am doing the exact same speed everyone else is doing and I get pulled over. Here is what is said in court. Your honor, I do not know why I was pulled over and given a ticket for 5 miles over the limit. Judge to officer..What happened? Officer.... Your honor everyone was speeding, and I turned on my lights, and my siren and he was the only one who pulled over! Ha! Ha! Ha! That court house went nuts!!!! SILENCE! SILENCE IN THE COURTROOM. Needless to say the ticket was dropped. I was asked by a high ranking person for a video surveillance system for his house. I was speaking to him at his office when I decided that we should go to the show room so that I could give him my "dog and pony show". On the way we get pulled over. He treats my passenger exactly as he treats me. Hey buddy, if you are going to act like that you need to know who your superiors are. Busted!!!!!!!!!! Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought all of the officers were "out ot get me". It turns out the whole force hated this guy. His departure was the best thing that ever happened. It is really nice knowing that I do not have to look over my shoulder anymore. Oh ya! I got pulled over for doing the speed limit!!!!!!! Do you know why I pulled you over? Nobody does 35 miles on this stretch of a six lane highway at midnight. The ticket was dropped in court. The road goes from 55 to 45 to 35, and then back up to 45, and then 55. The slow part is right in the "hood" where they have a lot of problems. I knew I would get pulled over for minor infractions, so that is why I was doing the "speed limit". During the daytime if you do 35 you will get run over!!!!!!!!! (or rear ended)!

SSSSSSSWWWEEET! I am going to send you a PM on how you can get the officers face in the video with a hidden camera.

I have to agree with you on the changing the remote video camera view. I have customers that I check in once in a blue moon just to make sure the system are still up, and running, and that they still have remote view capabilities. I really hate to start pushing camera buttons because I know that they are going to have to watch what I select. I always leave the view up as I found it before I exit.

I remember an incident that I had with the 9 channel after I installed it in a bar. The owner calls up begging for help. "The red light comes on, a siren comes on my lap top at home, and it keeps me up when I go to bed. My desk top is full of icons!!!! Help"! I had no idea what he was taking about. The next day I went to the bar, and he brought his lap top, and sure enough the desk top is full of film strip icons. It was filling the screen faster than I could delete them. I went threw every setting for motion and recording and I could not figure it out. After calling tech support, and I could not get help through them, I tried one last time. I happen to go in to the remote viewer and found the system config button at the top right of the video server S. I clicked on alarm, and I unchecked alarm trigger. Ever since then I have loved this feature! Did you know that you can use video server E to look at a machine that uses video server S? I hope the rep is still lurking! I want him to know that I love his machines!! I just wished that Ecps in south Fl carried the network versions of the 9 channel, and the 16 channel!!!!!!

I apologize for the confusion. This is DVR dependant, and the ones that I use I can put the DVR on a shelve for storage. JAN HD, FEB HD, ........DEC HD. ONE YEAR HISTORY!!!!!! Hot swap is correct, you can pull the drive, and place another one in. With the ones that I identified I have to shut down the machine, and then pull the HD, then I have to repower the DVR. In more upper level DVRs you can hot swap. If i were doing a casino, I would not use the ones that I listed. I mostly do entry level residential, and entry level commercial, and I wait for the few giant jobs that come around put the gravy money in my pocket. I do not do 32 camera systems on a daily basis. I do about 20 4 camera installs a month. Some are VCR/multiplexor units (2 a month) most are 4 channel, and some are 9 or 16. These are quick in and out jobs. I can save the video data. I pull the hard drive out of a machine and I put it in to the same type DVR. When I turn it back on you still have the old video footage. The thing that I have to be careful about is that a company stopped selling brand x DVR and replaced it with the same brand of DVR but it is not the same electronically. The outside case looks identical. This is how I lost the footage on a HD. The newer style DVR needs to be formatted. I found out the hard way. This is ok. I will just keep the hard drive on a shelf until the DVR comes back from the distributor. Then I can put the HD back in to the original machine. I learned that the 16 channel DVR is not hot swapable the hard way. I fried a 250 GB hard drive. OOOOPS FAUX PAUX! Thank god it did not damage the DVR!!!!! I hope I clarified myself some.

Sorry. That was the best that I could do. I forgot that you were in the UK.

I will send you a PM

There have been a few on the forum that were displeased by the 785 (or was it the 785D?). I had just put my order for one (branded by another company) and was waiting shipment when I saw that particular post. My eyes flashed open, and my jaw dropped. I did not have any problems and it has been in operation for at least a month now with no complaints. (knock on wood). I like some of the features on higher end DVRs. I like the idea if cam 1 detects motion then PTZ A can reorient to a preset and provide a different angle of cam 1 view. Now that is really nice! Cam 2 detects motion, and PTZ A reorients to cam 2 view. I wish this was an option on entry level devices. There have been times that I have bought a higher level DVR than what I use normally for a particular feature only to really waste the full potential of all of the feature/options. The very first time I saw one of these menus I said to myself WTF! To many boxes to check or uncheck. I just want to plug and play, collect my check and go. This is why I do not do PC based (self built) DVRs. I do not build enough of these to get past a learning curve. If it was not for the forum, I probably would never build a geo system.

With the AV tech 776 and the 777 branded under another name; I have pulled HD and reinserted them with no problem. I wish they were hot swapable. In the rare case that a DVR has to go back to the distributor for warranty work, then I can put their hard drive in to a loaner, and they can keep their video. There are some DVRs that want the hard drive to be formatted before they wil operate. I got caught off guard with the SEC Cam Dir DVR4002. I had a customer that wanted to upgrade to network. I put his old drive in to the 4002 and lost all of his old video. Luckly for me he did not need any of the video. I has asked him about it in advance, so that saved my butt.

I will help you out. Have you ever worked for a cctv company before? What experience do you have? I have a question: What is the difference in view between the 2.8mm, the 4mm, the 6mm, and the 50mm lens? This question is very important. Based on your answer I can get you started on the fast track.

Others http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8498487406.html

I Have not called them as of yet. To my knowledge they have not carried it. I could use the Security Cameras Direct DVR 4004 / DVR 4005. These are the same units. Although they do not sell these models any more. I do not know it the DVR 4002 has the same board or not. What I am really after, are the CB3 and CB4 chips. These are in the power supply. I am going to email avtech to see if I can find the source for these parts. I had one go bad in Vero Beach, one in Merrit Island, and one in Melbourne, after our storm with the flicker and flash. I never had problems with this product, now all of a sudden I have three blown ones. These are way past warranty. I fixed one of the tjree. now I have two to go. I want these for loaners. Thanks!

Couple of question for your install/system. Will you be placing the DVR on a desk/table/office kiosk? Will this be mounted in a rack in a IT closet? If this is going in an office desk/kiosk then I would recommend the Flex Series. If this is going in a server room then the PRO would be the one to recommend. If you decide on the Flex series there is a part number for an upgrade that gives you realtime recording. The part number is R-30. Ask for the Flex 8 with the R-30 upgrade! I would PM Security Monster. On the forum home page scroll down and click on the name securitymonster, and then click on PM. Send him $100 for advice.... NO I am only kidding. He is a good guy and he knows his stuff. He has worked with the IC Realtime dvrs. Hope this helps!

I wish I had it on my bench here. I could give you better info. Here is where we have to trouble shoot. Yes the dvr can give you issues. The environment can give you issues. Firmware could be an issue. You do not know what brand it is, but does if have any kind of name tag? On the bottom or the back? This could give us a resellars dvr model number so it may not be of any use to us but.....? Do you have the instruction manual? Does mention anything there? Can you do a google on this device that might show a picture of it even though it may show a different "brand" then what we think it is? ____________________________________________ Lets move the camera for testing purposes. A different orientation perhaps? I would take it off the maximum setting for sensitivity. How do you know this is the maximum setting? If you have the manual then I see this is so. Motion detection is not perfect. It is only designed to help eliminate unwanted footage to save space on the hard drive. In High threat areas it is more preferable to have it to record 24/7. High threat situations can afford larger size H drives. A residential install does not need terabyte storage capacities. They just need to check on it every few days or so. Ok. How old is your DVR. If it is really old? It may just be the best technology at it's time. Here is a trick since it is not under any warranty. Open up the cabinet, and check for dust in the fan, and any heat sinks. If this has become clogged with dust it can raise the temp of the dvr making it work harder, and making it struggle real hard to keep up. I am hoping this would be the solution to your problem. Is this your business, or building? Is this for a friend? Is this a customer of yours and your butt is hanging out in the wind? If this is your cctv business, get a new one to save your reputation. If this is for a friend, then he got a good deal, and there are trade offs in saving money. He shoud appreciate that he has a system! If this is yours and you are just "poking aroung" for a hobby, then you shoud be ok as is. What does the RECORDED video look like. I bet the video is really nice and has good detail. Am I right? Skipping frames may be a part of this. Can you change to a lesser setting? The recordings may be more interested in "detail" then having a smooth playback. I bet you can count every leaf on a tree if the camera was pointed outside? IF NOT THE ABOVE... This may have been built more for remote viewing over the internet. What does it look like when remote viewing? The same? I figured it would look the same over the internet as well as watching the recorded video straight to a tv/monitor. Do you have extra connections where you can hook up more cameras? If yes add more cameras. If you miss them in one camera you may pick them up in another camera. If you have no more inputs left then I do not know what to tell you. After you try all of the above and you are still stuck then you may have to buy another one if the "threat level" is high enough! Sorry I could not be of more help! Keep me posted.

Hey Rory, Thanks for that link to the story. This would be great to put in a showroom when customers are asking for these kind of products.