Newbie here trying to get up to speed for possible purchase of a simple, low-cost home surveillance system. I gather that encoded/stored analog video is often much lower quality than live video but have no idea how to evaluate the quality of a DVR from its specs.
For example, Costco's $300 4 channel Q-See 720p system includes a 1TB DVR that seems to claim 30 FPS recording of 720p, but doesn't specify if that's on all 4 channels. Is FPS the main thing that suffers in stored video, or does resolution of individual frames suffer as well, and any way to judge that from specs? In general, what do you look at to evaluate the quality of an analog DVR?
System - http://www.costco.com/Q-See-4-Channel-HD-720p-Security-System-with-1TB-HDD-and-4-720p-Cameras.product.100151663.html
Spec sheet - http://qsee.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/get/233950/1416270864/redirect/1/filename/QC904.pdf
