CalgaryGuy

Hi all. I'm looking for some NVR advice for buying a new NVR on Amazon.ca. I have a pretty good/above average CCTV system now with 8 outdoor cameras that used to work really well until a couple of months ago. It is a non-brand name, rebranded as "The Surveillance Shop" here in Calgary—which is supposed to be a good commercial/industrial distributor. The dome cameras cost about $350 each a few years ago, and when two died on me (LEDs burnt out) I tried to replace them with the exact cams. However, they did not make these anymore, only higher resolution version replacements for about $500. The originals were all set up at their highest resolution (2048*1536) or 3MP on my NVR, but the two new ones can do 3840*2160 or 8 MP, so this is how I initially set them up. While I am no expert in NVR config and don't understand all the settings on the NVR, I did do all the CAT6 wiring myself, tested it, and it was working fine for 5 years until I replaced the two cams that failed. That's when the problems started. Ever since hooking them up a six months back the NVR started behaving strangely. First, I noticed that I lost the ability on all cams to playback in reverse. I would get a error msg that said, "No Resource Available." I don't know what kind of NVR it is other than it is standalone, 8 CH, and I believe uses a Linux based OS. The other thing that happened is that whenever I searched for Motion Events—such as I do every AM when I wake up—it would show none on the channels with the two new cameras, just the older, lower resolution cams. In fact the only way to see Motion Events on the channels with the two new cams is to dumb them down in resolution to 3072*1728 (5MP). It burns me that I had to pay for more expensive cams that the salesperson at "The Surveillance Shop" in Calgary said would work, but I need to dumb down the extra resolution I paid for just so I can search for Motion Events. I still have the issue of not being able to do playplack in reverse as well (on any channels). "The Surveillance Shop" abandoned me I guess because they had no solution and couldn't solve the problem, and there never was any documentation that came with the NVR in terms of configuration. I also found out that the $1700 NVR they sold me likely could have been bought online for a fraction of the cost, so I am through with these brick and mortar security stores. I'm willing to buy a new NVR but don't know what to look for, as I don't know why these problems are occuring. It seems the higher resolution of the new cams started all the issues, so I want a NVR that can grow as I will inevitably have to replace other cams with higher resolution in the future. It seems like there is a resource shortage on the NVR of some sort. As I have a Mac for a computer I wanted a standalone NVR that was not dependent on the computer. I'd still prefer this approach, but want a decent OS on the NVR that allows for video download to flashdrive, reverse playback, slow motion playback, etc. What should I be looking for in terms of specs? All of my cams I just plugged them into the ethernet ports on the NVR and they worked (all are POE). I want something similar to this as well. Am I looking at this the wrong way? Are NVRs considered old fashioned now and should I be thinking of a software/PC solution instead (I will if I have to). Looking for advice please.

I have 8 cams. I don't normally use an app for remote viewing because I don't understand enough about firewalls and security and am worried about getting hacked. So I just view locally on a screen attached to the NVR. However, the few times I have remote viewed on my phone I have used Guarding Vision. The ability to remote view isn't a requirement for me. I know I got ripped on the NVR. But WRT cams, all my neighbours who bought cams from Amazon were disappointed. Most of the cams are designed for USA moderate climates. In Calgary we get extremes from -45C to +36C, so most cams fail in a year or so. The ones I have at least last 5 yrs. or more.

Hola y como estas from Calgary, Canada. You do live in a beautiful country Marcos -- the pics I have seen of it are breathtaking. Amazing place with all the animals and trees. I bet you could tell us stories of things seen on CCTV from your country that would amaze Canadian and USA citizens. Your security challenges are nothing like the small stuff we deal with here. Best of luck and I hope you find answers you need here.

Hi all - Not sure where else to post this. I have a really good 7 cam POE system with 3MP cams, a NVR and an high end UPS. I recently got a good deal on another cam for my last remaining channel. My question is, where is the best bang for the buck from a security perspective? I have one cam in my garage (tons of high end tools), two in my backyard (pointing away and towards my house); the side of my house with my gate and my neighbour's gate; two on the front of my house at cross angles on my driveway, and one leading up to my front door. Rather than place the new cam on the other side of my house with no gates and nothing of interest really, I was thinking there could be value in having it capture visitors to the front door. We currently don't see visitors well except for when they walk up the path--but then they go out of frame once they arrive on the door step and we have no eyes on them or a facial closeup while at the door either when ringing the doorbell, leaving packages, or talking to us at the door. Other facts here: we have a 7 foot fence around our backyard; our back gate that is monitored by a cam cannot be unlocked from the outside of the yard--only the inside; we have a dog as well as a monitored alarm system; my CCTV cams do not capture sound; we are retired and home most of the time. Our neighbourhood has the second lowest crime rate in a city of 1.3 million. But we have issues with renters on the side of our property with the gates, and increasingly more problems in the neighbourhood with people who are testing homes during the day to see if they are occupied by either ringing doorbells or stuffing flyers into garage door weatherstripping. Since a new train station went in nearby we see more strangers and the number of B&E's are rising, especially during the day. I'm thinking there is good value in having a record of faces at the door, more so than monitoring the area on the other side of our house with no gates, windows, doors or access. If anyone scaled the 7 foot fence in this area the backyard cams would capture them anyways. Anyone have any thoughts here for my remaining channel?? Is the value high or low for capturing people at your door?? Thanks, in advance everyone.

Hi everyone - this is my first post. Does anyone have any feedback on this problem I am having up here in Calgary? I have a residential NVR system with 7 POE cams. It's reasonably good quality from a devoted commercial security shop here...not cheap stuff as a package deal. All works well down to -35C (which shows they aren't cheapo cams). One of my units looks between my house and the neighbour's house. Both of our homes have light coloured vinyl siding that reflects IR (I know, bad, bad, bad). But my issue is that when the camera dome is on, everything is washed out. When I remove the dome, everything looks great. So the Sherlock Holmes in me says the problem isn't the light coloured siding, but the IR leakage to the lens inside the LEDs that encircle it. Thinking this way I attempted to isolate the lens further than what is provided by the internal foam ring between the lens and the surrounding LEDs using an additional foam O-ring I made myself. It helps, but is nowhere near the quality I get when the dome is removed altogether. I'd love to be able to selectively disable LEDs to test if TOO much light is the problem, but my cam (I and think most cams) don't allow this. I could open it up and de-solder every second LED or so to test this theory, but I am not sure if leakage of the remaining ones would cause the same problem. Another approach I was thinking of is to drop the camera closer to ground level and aim it up (instead of down from 12 feet or so) so as to avoid some of the reflection from the white siding. For the record, everything during the day looks great, and all my other cams are fine at night. I have explored the option of supplemental lighting in the area and do have a strong (2200 lumen) LED motion light there as well. When it turns on this solves the problem when the IR LEDs in the cam disable, but this causes two new issues: 1) the delay makes me miss the event in question 2) the light triggers constantly as the area has two clothes dryer vents and two garage space heater vents that trigger the motion light constantly at night and annoy the neighbours. I am attaching two pics -- one with the dome off and one with it on. Any help from forum members would be appreciated. Is my troubleshooting sound here, or am I completely missing something? Thanks all.

I am in the same boat -- looking for waterproof ones but I only need for one cam. They are pricey. I've used indoor ones in the past and then sealed them with UV heat shrink tubing. Works like a charm, unless you need to regularly disconnect them. Even then, I have lots of indoor ones so it is just easier to cut off the tubing and reconnect when done. Just my 2 cents worth

All good advice. Except the neighbour weirdo caution. That ship sailed a long time ago...curiously, about the same time I fired up a home made pulse jet engine in my garage. Thanks.

Thanks. I like your idea. I have on order another camera and once I get it I will have one to play around with more. I also have a bunch of IR LEDs from another project years ago. I just need to build an op amp modulator for it and add a weather proof enclosure and light sensor. Or I can probably do both with an Arduino. When I put a scope on my working cam I saw the PWM signals are about 38 KHz, which I think is pretty common. I didn't know about issue with the IR filter being opened though. That's news to me...but mine do have OSDs. Another benefit of your approach relates to my original post. In the area mentioned there are two dryer vents and one garage NG vent. In the winter these trigger the third party devoted IR lights that are combined with motion sensors (like the type you find on Amazon or eBay). But your approach of just using an ambient light sensor that turns on with nightfall would solve that. If I used an old school photocell (resistor type) I wouldn't need a trigger mechanism...it would be turn on and off with nightfall and daylight. I like it Sherlock Holmes used to say, "This is a two-pipe problem." I think this is a two "Rum and Coke problem." Thanks for the idea @justsomeguy!

Update 2017 Apr 05 Hi everyone. Thanks to all for your kind help. Attached is the latest result pic. When I went to try masking the IR LEDs I noticed that both the stock foam washer, as well as the additional one I added a year ago, had deteriorated significantly. These are the washers that isolate the lens from the LEDs. I have always wondered if leakage was the culprit. Maybe our Canadian winters are too hard on these foam components. So, in a completely unscientific manner that would upset any analytical types on this forum, I addressed both at the same time. First, I removed the stock and additional foam washers that had failed and replaced them with a material a neighbour of mine provided: rubber backed silicone. He worked in the HP gas industry and had some left over. Actually, any high quality rubber/silicone should work, but the rubber side was textured to allow for glue which eases placement when reinstalling the dome. (Hint: mark the location of your lens with a tile or wax marker on the outside of the dome prior to removal. This helps greatly in aligning things later when trying to snug the fatter washer between the dome and the lens.) Then I masked off 25%, and later, 50% of the LEDs. But before doing this I used a Fluke 63 IR Thermometer to check the temperature. I measured it in four different places as I know the dome will give a unreliable result. I saw only a 2 degree C rise with 25% of the IR covered and a 5 degree rise with 50% covered up. Not significant enough to worry about since the high end of my cams is well past what we worry about in Alberta. Here low end (-40C) is our concern. For now I am using high quality 3M electrical tape to mask, but will need to monitor this throughout the seasons. If it proves to be a maintenance issue then I will desolder the parallel-connected LEDs on the PCB. Thankfully the LEDs are not surface mounts--but are nonetheless small enough that I will need to back off on the caffeine the day I do the solder sucking. No way to get snips in there Anyways, you can see the very positive result in the pic! It's almost as good as without the dome now. Was it the masked LEDs? The isolating silicon washer? Oooops....I also cleaned the dome as well...just to complicate the experiment more. (I've noticed that a "star-like" pattern, or any symmetrical pattern for that matter, on my video screen is almost always indicative of dust/moisture on the dome. Lessons Learned: 1) try cleaning domes and lens routinely just in case this makes me think I have a bigger problem 2) isolating washers likely leak over time and need to be inspected as part of routine maintenance (see #1 - cleaning) 3) too much IR light CAN be a bad thing 4) never haul my fat *ss 250 lbs on to a 12 foot step ladder when the ground is in spring thaw and the ladder can sink 5) it hurts to fall from 12 feet

I'm going to try the electrical tape option this weekend if the weather holds out and I don't have to fight wind and snow on a ladder. Sadly my cameras don't have a software switch for day mode.

Hummm...most of the bullets I've seen share the same layout of a single protective shield covering a lens that is isolated from the IR LEDs by a foam seal or ring. But I understand where a different setup with no chance for leakage could solve my problem. I'll have to research bullets more I guess

Have you already swapped the working cam to the other channels to eliminate the dvr issues? And tested your cables?

Won't the IT rad (heat) from the LEDs damage something if I do this? I had an indoor camera years ago that I aimed through a glass window to the outside and the heat reflected back and destroyed the cam.

Being able to narrow the angle might, as this type of source supposedly allows, solve the problem. Good thought. sadly I can't disable the IR from my software, so either way I am disconnecting the LEDs on the board. But you may be on to something.