Madriver 0 Posted September 26, 2008 I was hoping I could get a little advice here about what DVR card I should use for my situation. I have several retail stores that currently have 4 camera DVR systems built by a local company using Safeland DVR cards and software. In a few of the stores I would like to upgrade to more than 4 cameras (possibly more than but was thinking of upgrading the DVR myself. I'm decent at building and upgrading computers so building or upgrading a DVR doesn't seem that difficult, my problem is picking the right card and software. Although it might seem trivial the software that the capture cards use is important to me. Currently I can sit at home and view multiple DVR's and cameras from different stores on the same screen at the same time through the same remote software tool. This feature is too convenient to not have in a new system. Do both Geovision and Avermedia allow the remote user to configure their client to view multiple DVR's and cameras at the same time? The Avermedia CMS3000 seems interesting, how easy is it to use and configure? Any advice or comments are appreciated. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Madriver 0 Posted October 12, 2008 I'm more interested in the software associated with the various cards and how easy it is to remotely configure them to have cameras from multiple DVR's on the same screen. In other words, bump for any advice. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
roygbiv 0 Posted October 13, 2008 You should be able to save the expense of upgrading your PC hardware by using hardware compression cards. I am only a techie so don't know much about brand names etc but you should be able to find suitable cards that will do what you want if you google SMICT compression. They are sold under a variety of different names but are all the same hardware and software from a company in Taiwan. Have seen them used widely in stores across Europe, good quality video and good networking and yes you can view all channels on screen at once (unlike similar cards from China). SMICT compression is a form of H.264 and offers good framerate on remote view and low storage requirements. Look for the cards that do Real Time on all channels, the cheaper ones will do part of the compression in software and will put a strain on your hardware. I don't remember seeing an 8 channel SMICT card but I have seen fairly modest PCs running 4 X 4 channels at full frame rate without a problem. Sorry I can't be more specific about brands and models, I really need a memory upgrade . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
