pearlite TL 0 Posted December 24, 2009 Hey Everyone i am a new member here and have browsed the site and have found valuable information. I am a member of a car forum and know that searching is key so i did before i posted this. Hope eveyrone has a Merry Christmas. Alright so I am looking to do a 7 camera system and was first looking at my options on a DVR. i see many folks here use the brand Avery and then i also saw Intellicam and Swann etc. I am looking for a 8 camera dvr Will need networking with added feature of DDNS Mpeg 4 as my backups will be local and reviewing will only be when im at the condo in Florida i wanna watch my house at times. 30FPS per each channel would be great I wanna look at around a 1000 or less for the DVR and around 1000 for camears that would put me around 2500 dollars for my camera system. Could i get some advice on the perfet system for my house Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pearlite TL 0 Posted December 24, 2009 So anyoine recommend Digimerge? i have found the DH200 8 channel to be somewhat what im looking for. Anyone have any pros or cons to this dvr or have a better dvr they wanna request?? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shoreviewsecurity 0 Posted December 25, 2009 Merry Christmas to you as well and welcome to the forum... You may recognize me as an Intellicam DVR fan. As you are very much aware, there are many many DVR's on the market most of which are decent DVR's. I have often been told that I have tunnel vision, as the only DVR we use in our local market is the Intellicam DVR. It serves our customers needs and then some. Once we found this platform we never looked back. It just works. I am glad to see your budget is realistic. Spend your money correctly the first time around. The DVR should be the "easy" part. The cams on the other hand may be a challenge depending upon what you are looking to monitor, outside, inside, field of view, IR or not, etc. If there are 10,000 DVR's on the market there has to be 100,000 cams. I think you get the point. I can only comment on the Intellicam DVR and hope others will comment on the Digimerge product and the others as well. You mention you are looking for MPEG recording. The Intellicam DVR records in .dav and .mp4 files and they will not play in a windows media player but can be easily converted using the provided file player. I might add that reviewing archived video can be accomplished using the embedded web viewer anywhere. Additionally, once the File Player program is installed on your PC and you click on a downloaded video file, the file player will open and play that video. In other words, it’s just another media player loaded on your PC. Let us know what you are looking to monitor and I’m sure we can point you in the right direction. Also, please remember, your system is only as good as the cameras then the DVR. High-end cams on an entry level DVR would be a waste. Conversely, low-end cams on a high end DVR would also be a waste. It is truly a balancing act to some degree. Good luck with your search. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pearlite TL 0 Posted December 25, 2009 Merry Christmas to you as well and welcome to the forum... You may recognize me as an Intellicam DVR fan. As you are very much aware, there are many many DVR's on the market most of which are decent DVR's. I have often been told that I have tunnel vision, as the only DVR we use in our local market is the Intellicam DVR. It serves our customers needs and then some. Once we found this platform we never looked back. It just works. I am glad to see your budget is realistic. Spend your money correctly the first time around. The DVR should be the "easy" part. The cams on the other hand may be a challenge depending upon what you are looking to monitor, outside, inside, field of view, IR or not, etc. If there are 10,000 DVR's on the market there has to be 100,000 cams. I think you get the point. I can only comment on the Intellicam DVR and hope others will comment on the Digimerge product and the others as well. You mention you are looking for MPEG recording. The Intellicam DVR records in .dav and .mp4 files and they will not play in a windows media player but can be easily converted using the provided file player. I might add that reviewing archived video can be accomplished using the embedded web viewer anywhere. Additionally, once the File Player program is installed on your PC and you click on a downloaded video file, the file player will open and play that video. In other words, it’s just another media player loaded on your PC. Let us know what you are looking to monitor and I’m sure we can point you in the right direction. Also, please remember, your system is only as good as the cameras then the DVR. High-end cams on an entry level DVR would be a waste. Conversely, low-end cams on a high end DVR would also be a waste. It is truly a balancing act to some degree. Good luck with your search. WOW i really appreciate your opinion! I am looking to do 1 indoor camera and 6 outside. All need to be IR . They will be motion activiated and will need to be at least 540tvl. Is there any recommendations you would like to give on 7 cameras that would fit my budget? I hope im not msising anything here but back lighting i think would be a plus in this situation and auto irs too. Thanks you for taking the time. What model Intellicam DVR would you recommend me? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shoreviewsecurity 0 Posted December 25, 2009 No problem... I would definitely use cams with an IR cut filter especially on your outside cams. This choice is two fold. They do provide a cleaner night image and eliminates false triggering when recording in motion only. Some may also suggest a WDR cam and deploy separate IR illuminators. That works as well. This configuration will eliminate bugs triggering motion. A common problem with cams that have built in IR's. What's nice about all of the Intellicam DVR's is a feature called "Anti-Dither". This feature can be set at any number of seconds to not to begin recording until that pre-determined time frame. Additionally, the pre-record feature can be bumped up so nothing would be missed. Yes, it does work as I have done this on numerous occasions. It may take several attempts to find the happy medium depending on the environment. Anti-dither settings on one cam may not work as well on another cam. What is the distance of IR needed?? Be careful on this one. Although cam specs claim a certain distance, the effective distance is usually half. Although the IR will reflect out to the claimed distance, the effective distance is the key. You can also have too much IR washing out the image. For example, installing a cam that has 48 IR’s in an area like a front door where the cam is only 10’ away from the door will be an over kill. Inside cam is an easy one. Nothing fancy but again, what would be the IR distance?? Tell us what frame rate and resolution you would like to record in. A DVR that will record in D1 all channels at 30fps would be too much for your application ( in my opinion ). Typically, the human eye cannot tell the difference between 15fps and 30fps. Even a DVR that will record in D1 at 7.5fps may meet your needs. I have a JS XLA 4 channel recording at D1 7.5fps and it works for us. Please forgive me if I do not respond until this weekend. Getting ready here to meet Santa. According to the latest radar, he’s in South America on his way to the states. I think Santa should stream his journey and mount a hi res cam on Rudolph’s head. Although I like to think our surveillance system is the best, we have never been able to capture him on our system. Go figure. Very strange?? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pearlite TL 0 Posted December 25, 2009 Very good information. I suspect most cameas will need to have an IR distance of at least 60 foot. Except for the one downstairs inside. I also will need one to look out roughly 150 foot to watch my Gate. I would iike to have the highest quality recording rate and at least a 540TVL camera that when someone is lurking around the house i will see a face and not some scribble. Could you give me some examples of cameras that you have used that work great for you (like a spec sheet and model of camera on a website) that would help me out a lot. I understand about the Christmas and I hope Santa treats you well as you have helped me a lot so far. i wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS and will look forward to more knowledge on this. Oh and by the way that would be cool for the HIGH RES on good ol Rudolph Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cglaeser 0 Posted December 25, 2009 I can only comment on the Intellicam DVR Do any of the Intellicam DVRs support both analog and IP cameras? Best, Christopher Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shoreviewsecurity 0 Posted December 27, 2009 Sorry for the delay... No. The Intellicam DVR's do not support IP Cameras. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
