DVR Transfer Video

[sappstter 0]

Can anyone recommend a brands of DVRs that transfer video off of the hard drives relatively quickly?

 

I have a Q-SEE and it takes for ever to back up or transfer recorded video files on to a USB drive. 30 minute low res video takes half an hour or longer. Watching the footage off of the DVR takes forever since the fast forward doesn't seem to move as quickly as it says it is (16x). It's easier to transfer them over to my pc where I can skip through the video.

 

I'm guessing the answer is something more expensive, but I don't want to spend the money to be in the same boat. I'm only looking for a 4-channel.

[SEANHAWG 1]

Are you looking to just backup large amounts of video for storage? If so, I would just look into getting a DVR that can handle alot more hard-drives. Or better yet, a DVR with a hot swap hard drive.

[groovyman 0]

I have someone I do work for who has some Q-See DVRs and although they lack many advanced features I find that transferring video to a USB drive is very quick. They are the QR414 models set at D1 7fps (DVR setting is D1 / Normal). I recently needed to save 3 hours worth of video from 2 cameras and the transfer went very quickly. An hours worth of video at the current settings is approximately 200MB. So 3 hours for 2 cameras was around 1.2GB and went as fast as i would expect 1.2GB of data to transfer via Hi-Speed USB.

 

I also saved video from these DVRs by connecting a laptop to the same network as the DVR and logging on to the DVR (using it's local ip address) with the DVR software installed on the laptop. This isn't as fast as USB (about 4x-5x slower) but still works well.

 

I would try the following:

1 - Use a different USB drive and make sure it's hi-speed usb 2.0. USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer rate of 12Mbits/second where Hi-Speed USB has a max transfer rate of 480Mbits/second. If by chance you use a USB cable to connect the USB drive to the DVR and the cable is not rated for Hi-Speed USB, that can slow the data transfer rate also.

2 - Connect to the local network with a laptop and save the video file(s) using the DVR's remote software. Slower method, but should work fine.

[sappstter 0]

I have someone I do work for who has some Q-See DVRs and although they lack many advanced features I find that transferring video to a USB drive is very quick. They are the QR414 models set at D1 7fps (DVR setting is D1 / Normal). I recently needed to save 3 hours worth of video from 2 cameras and the transfer went very quickly. An hours worth of video at the current settings is approximately 200MB. So 3 hours for 2 cameras was around 1.2GB and went as fast as i would expect 1.2GB of data to transfer via Hi-Speed USB.

 

I also saved video from these DVRs by connecting a laptop to the same network as the DVR and logging on to the DVR (using it's local ip address) with the DVR software installed on the laptop. This isn't as fast as USB (about 4x-5x slower) but still works well.

 

I would try the following:

1 - Use a different USB drive and make sure it's hi-speed usb 2.0. USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer rate of 12Mbits/second where Hi-Speed USB has a max transfer rate of 480Mbits/second. If by chance you use a USB cable to connect the USB drive to the DVR and the cable is not rated for Hi-Speed USB, that can slow the data transfer rate also.

2 - Connect to the local network with a laptop and save the video file(s) using the DVR's remote software. Slower method, but should work fine.

 

I have 2 different brand usb drives that I use, they transfer from USB to my PC in just a few minutes but a 30min video clip from the DVR to the USB drive takes close to 30 minutes. I don't think the DVR supports USB 2.0.

 

MY primary use for transfering video is to review the video. The dvr says its fast forwarding at 16x but it's nowhere near that speed in reality.

 

I don't think I can log into my dvr and transfer videos over the network, that would be even better if I could. The dvr is sitting between my computer and the router. I'm able to access the video feeds through my phone, I'll have to see if I can transfer data over the network as well.

[sappstter 0]

Are you looking to just backup large amounts of video for storage? If so, I would just look into getting a DVR that can handle alot more hard-drives. Or better yet, a DVR with a hot swap hard drive.

 

A removable hard-drive would work as well... Any recomendation for a brand of DVR that has this feature?

[Soundy 1]

Can anyone recommend a brands of DVRs that transfer video off of the hard drives relatively quickly?

 

I have a Q-SEE and it takes for ever to back up or transfer recorded video files on to a USB drive. 30 minute low res video takes half an hour or longer.

What video format are you exporting as? If it's something other than the DVR's native format, the DVR has to re-encode the video as it goes, which will slow things down substantially. Vigil, for example, is much faster exporting to native MJPEG that to AVI... Capture systems are MUCH MUCH faster exporting as a "minibank" file than converting to AVI.

 

Watching the footage off of the DVR takes forever since the fast forward doesn't seem to move as quickly as it says it is (16x). It's easier to transfer them over to my pc where I can skip through the video.

What hard drive are you using in it? If the drive is slow, fast-forward playback will be slow.

 

I'm guessing the answer is something more expensive, but I don't want to spend the money to be in the same boat. I'm only looking for a 4-channel.

You get what you pay for. Cheap machines just don't have the features, performance or capabilities of a higher-quality, higher-priced system.

 

I don't think the DVR supports USB 2.0.

That could definitely be part of the problem as well.

 

A removable hard-drive would work as well... Any recomendation for a brand of DVR that has this feature?

 

Be careful with this - as we've seen here many times with these cheaper DVRs, there's a chance once you remove a drive, that it won't be recognizes properly when you plug it back in.