I can answer some of the questions on Amcrest having just installed a HDCVI 720p 4 channel, 4 camera system for a family member a week or two ago. The comments are in no particular order and this is a bit lengthy even though I could probably write a couple of pages worth on the Amcrest system. Hopefully this info will help others looking at the Amcrest systems.
Some if not most Amcrest DVR's and cameras are actually rebranded Dahua DVR's and cameras.
Forget the marketing specs on the night vision. That is under optimal conditions. In reality night vision quality and range is mixed and dependent on location and conditions.
960H is a step down from 720p which is a step down from 1080p. See this image for a rough comparison on image size.
Motion activation while it works takes some experimenting to get it to filter out false alerts. The motion detection can be triggered by something like shadows moving across the image/field of view. The Amcrest DVR does (at least the 720p DVR) have the option to set motion detection on a small area of the image.
The Amcrest DVR does support swapping out the drive for a larger hard drive. How large I don't remember off hand. So far the 1T drive with the 720p DVR I set up records about 10 days worth (24/7) of four cameras, recording both the main stream and a sub stream. When the hard drive gets filled the DVR overwrites the oldest recording files.
The Amcrest DVR has a USB port on back and front. It supports adding external USB hard drives for (I believe), recording and backing up content automatically or manually through the DVR administration interface.
The Amcrest DVR does support uploading files to an FTP server/storage location either on the local network or to the internet. I haven't used that feature so I don't know exactly how it works.
Not sure if any of the entry level Amcrest kits have cameras that support audio. The HDCVI 720p kit's cameras that I installed did not support audio. However, there is an audio input jack (RCA type) on the back of the DVR I setup that was for capturing audio via an external source or microphone. I didn't use this feature.
The 720p HDCVI DVR that I setup does support email notification on alarms and motion detection events. It can be configured to include a "snapshot" image of the event. It does NOT include a video file (or attachment/link) rather one has to log into the DVR to access the playback section to download or view video. One further note on email alerts, the Amcrest system sends 3 emails for each alert, there is no apparent way to have it only send one single email rather than three. The workaround is to have the email box filter out the two emails via rules or filters. Typically the first email is the motion capture start time, the second email contains the image attachment captured by the motion detection, the third email is the motion detection end time.
One note on the file type the HDCVI 720p and most other Amcrest/Dahua DVR systems create. The video file is in ".DAV" format and one needs to use the Amcrest (or Dahua) media player program to play the video file when it is downloaded. The DVR administraton interface does have the option in the playback section to save the file as ".ASF" when downloading the file. The Amcrest media player program does allow one to export the ".DAV" file to ".AVI" or there is a separate Dahua program for exporting the ".DAV" file to ".AVI". There may be other options to converting the ".DAV" file with command line programs like ffmpeg but I haven't tried them.
Unless you purchase a actual pan/tilt camera most of the lower end kit cameras with dome or bullet cameras are fixed in place and not able to have their motion controlled remotely.
The remote live streaming is dependent on the upload speed of your broadband connection that the DVR (or IP cameras) are connected too. The DVR has an option for a secondary stream or sub stream that can be configured for lower quality if your on a slow broadband connection. The system I setup is on a low upload DSL connection and at times the live video is jerky/slow/blocky when viewing the 720p HD stream, viewing the sub stream which is at a lower quality plays almost real time.
Downloading recorded video will be dependent on your network or remote connection speed. This means if you have a slow broadband upload connection then downloading files remotely will take much longer. This is where having the secondary/sub stream recorded can be beneficial as one can download the smaller secondary/sub stream recorded file more quickly than the larger main stream file on slow connections.
For remote access the DVR has the option to use DDNS, UPnP to allow for easy setup of remote access. Otherwise one has to open ports on their broadband router in addition to configuring the DVR for remote access.
Android and iOS mobile devices (phones/tablets) are supported by using a free Amcrest View Lite app. As far as I can tell these free mobile apps to not allow administration access on the DVR, rather they are just for viewing live and recorded content. There is the option to record content or take snapshots right to the mobile device from the live stream video. The web browser interface has these same options as well (recording/snapshots) from the live stream.
Currently the Chrome web browser is NOT supported due to Chrome dropping support for Java. One has to install a "pug-in" file to enable browser access to the web interface.
A few final comments....
The Amcrest system I installed for my family member is pretty good for the price, about $330 at the time they ordered it from Amazon. Even if you only need 4 cameras spend more money if possible and get a DVR that supports 8 cameras just in case you want to add more cameras later. The
The Amcrest User Manual (at least for the 720p HDCVI) DVR is awful. I mean really, really, awful. Like it was written by engineers for engineers. It doesn't explain some of the features and settings very well, in some cases doesn't explain them at all. In some cases the option on screen is isn't the same as explained in the manual. I found myself having to Google search terms and options to understand how they should be configured or what they even were.
The motion detection settings are a work in progress. It takes constant adjusting at first to get it not to trigger on things like shadows, sun, clouds, blowing leaves, blowing trees/bushes, etc.
Overall the system I installed is a good unit. Video during daytime is crisp and clear but don't expect to read license plates with the system if the car is parked more than 10 to 20 feet away from the camera during day time. Night time video is good but keep in mind its very dependent on camera placement and location conditions. Running the wires (we looked at wireless systems but decided on wires to avoid wireless interference) was a bit of a hassle but that was to be expected. The kit included two 60 foot wires and two 100 foot wires. The wires include both the video and power for the camera. The DVR kit did not include an HDMI cable so keep in mind you'll need one if connecting to a TV via HDMI. I had to use a VGA monitor at first because the HDMI setting the DVR used was not supported by the TV. Once I logged into the DVR and changed the display size in the administration interface the TV was able to display the video properly.
The password character limit was six characters for the DVR system I setup. I didn't know this and couldn't figure out why the longer password I setup wasn't working. Don't recall the system warning me the password was too long. The administration interface does allow one to add users and groups to restrict or grant access to the DVR and its interface.
So far the system has been working great and my family member is happy with it in spite of the quirks and user manual shortcomings. They wanted a low cost system and didn't want to spend more than a couple of hundred dollars. This system so far has fit their needs.
