Bison 0 Posted March 2, 2005 Hi, Been reading this forum for a couple of days now and i have to say i think i'm more confused than when i started! We have a standalone DVR unit at the moment and being really nice about it i'd say its not very good. Its an 8cam unit with only 250 gb storage. It can't review while recording, we have no easy way of exporting footage for police use and it fails to record quite a lot. After doing all the reading i think buying some PC cards would be a good solution for us as we're a techinical company and building a PC with enough storage isn't an issue for us (i just gave it the kiss of death). The features we're looking at from the unit are as follows: Abilty to record at at least 12fps (pal) on upto 16cams. Abilty to review footage while still recording Abilty to watch live cams over IP at a decent rate without effecting recording Abilty to burn footage to DVD/CD Abilty to buy from a resller in australia that knows what they're talking about They are the absolute musts but anything over and above that is always welcome. The two products i've been looking at are: Geovision GV900-16 Vguard VG4C-RT4 x 4 as far as i can see the pro/cons are: Geo has more features Geo is a much more widley used solution (pro for support/bugs) Vguard can do 25fps recording Vguard is cheaper My fear of vguard is no one is really talking about them or their software. Can anyone shed any light on what i've said and point out what i'm missing? All suggestions and advice are more than welcome! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
qman 0 Posted March 2, 2005 Geo sucks. Vgard is LinuX based. You need I-view, take a look here: http://www.shscomputers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=75&osCsid=d5ed4076e52883ab21cb68e0cb6d3d9e Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rory 0 Posted March 2, 2005 Hi,Abilty to record at at least 12fps (pal) on upto 16cams. Abilty to review footage while still recording Abilty to watch live cams over IP at a decent rate without effecting recording Abilty to burn footage to DVD/CD Abilty to buy from a resller in australia that knows what they're talking about Stand alones come in RTOS or PC. They can do all that, if you buy the right ones. EG. GE, Bosch, Iview, and many more. Sounds like you may have an Intellicam DVR (?) if so they are the ultimate in low end DVRs, so cant expect the same features. Anyway, since you are technical then yep check out a PC card. Im testing one tonight and will post reviews - iView 120pps. Rory Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
steve6690 0 Posted March 2, 2005 I use Geo and find it very stable with Windows XP Pro. The hardware/software is very good. There is a consensus that Geo as a company "sucks" in some regards but their products are fine. In your position I would probably let pricing decide for me. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rory 0 Posted March 2, 2005 Their GUI also sucks though ...if you want stability then a "good" RTOS embedded is the only choice. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CCTVINSTALLER 0 Posted March 2, 2005 Hi Bison, if you're in australia, there's a company called altechvision, www.altechvision.com.au Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
qman 0 Posted March 2, 2005 Hey, that's DVR'S old company!!!!!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bison 0 Posted March 2, 2005 cheers guys, @ hermish - why does geo suck? and the vguard i saw defintley wasn't linux based. I'd be very happy if there was a good linux solution as at least i'd know the OS wasn't going to be the weak part of the solution! I can't find an i-view resller in australia, any ideas? Also that link is for a 120fps card, and i need 12fps per channel. @ rory - how did your iview experience go? @ steve - cheers for the Geo feedback. Fast becoming the option of choice. @ CCTVINSTALLER - thanks, i actually spoke to them already... a helpful chap named arran. However, they won't let me buy from them as i'm not a dealer. Only thing is the two compaines they gave me don't actually sell geo cards! Doh. I guess vguard isn't an option then as no one mentioned them? Checked out the software yesterday and wasn't overly impressed. Any more angles i should be checking out? Thanks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VST_Man 1 Posted March 3, 2005 I am running a Video Insight 16 channel V240 PCI card. XP Pro, 3.2 Ghz. Works very well, advanced software and great support. Check them out at www.video-insight.com Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
