DVR choice advice for a Noob (thats with TWO "o"'s)

[ubermik 0]

Hiya, I have been installing alarms for over 20 years but havent done much with CCTV as yet but its something I am trying to do more of

 

I have just had a job come in from an existing customer and need 2x DVRs and thought it would make sense to find one to use that isnt horrendously expensive but has a reasonable spready of features and specs for the domestic low end of the market which is all I would be aiming for being new to CCTV

 

So my "ideal" spec would be an 8 channel full D1 real time DVR with 2 or more audio in channels, VGA and HDMI out, alarm in/out, P2P and a cooling fan

 

The three I am looking at are these unless anybody has a better suggestion

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/QVIS-8-CH-Full-D1-CCTV-DVR-HDMI-H264-Digital-Video-Recorder-500GB-1TB-2TB-HDD-/190992453254?pt=UK_CCTV&var=&hash=item2c78098e86

 

This is at least some level of "name" and is the "bar" at the moment

 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CloudSEE-8Ch-H-264-Network-CCTV-DVR-Full-D1-office-security-Easy-view-on-phone-/191077682815?pt=UK_CCTV&hash=item2c7d1e0e7f

 

This seems ok, but no alarm I/O but not sure if thats even a big deal tbh

 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8CH-H-264-Full-D1-HDMI-1080P-3G-WIFI-P2P-CCTV-Video-Surveillance-DVR-Recorder-/171212782528?pt=UK_CCTV&hash=item27dd13bbc0

 

This one is the cheapest but seems to have the best set of features out of the three and is the only one with alarm i/o

 

 

I'm planning to purchase hard drives myself as you get the full 3 year warranty with them that way, and am stuck between the seagate SV35 and the Western digital AV-GP drives.

 

The WD drives are lower power and are cheaper but seagate seem to be considered better quality so is there any real difference that makes one stand out above the other?

 

 

I thought it would make sense to try and find one DVR to cut my teeth on and then stick to it rather than flitting around randomly trying to find a good one if that makes sense and thought that this would be the place to get some advice on the a good choice if thats a reasonable request

 

I had been trying to find one that worked with cabled cameras as well as IP ones that wasnt so expensive I would have to sell a kidney as that seemed to cover all bases but either they dont exist or I couldnt find one that was being sold in the UK

 

Anyway, thank you in advance for any advice

 

Mike

[varascope 0]

First I would say not to buy from Ebay. It comes down to support after the install. If you browse this forum, it is filled with people looking for help because their source doesn't provide support. An English speaking distributor with a vast knowledge of CCTV and networking. Odd are you can get better deals that way as well. One distributor even provides you with white label support, a free website and manages the products for you so you don't have to enter descriptions etc. They also offer dealer protection products such as product licensing activation so you know your clients will pay the bill or the software locks.

 

The ideal thing is build your business model on it. Choose someone that will support your business model. Rarely Ebay fits that bill.

[ubermik 0]

Some excellent advice some of which I had considered which was why the Qvis DVR was the "bar" despite having the highest price and the lowest set of features and the middle of the three is sold by a manchester based seller who happily spent 20 minutes discussing the features of their DVR (admittedly "mancunian" is only barely "english" at times though)

 

I have to admit the white label add on is intriguing as is the time out feature which I already use on the alarm panel I install

 

I had looked at a couple of larger distributors including security warehouse but embarassingly most of their offerings just looked too close to the professional end of the market for initial toes in the water having only done a dozen CCTV jobs in 20 years one being my own house and half of the others just being an add on or relocation

 

Locally there is a small CCTV wholesaler that is excellent for support but has such a limited product range and none of his DVRs have P2P on them which is something I did think would make sense

 

But I will go back and have another look for more specialised CCTV wholesalers who will sell one offs and small quantities and see if theres a happy medium as I was kind of lazy to be honest as I just looked around the security and electrical wholesalers I already use, then a couple of larger local suppliers and then went slumdogging it on ebay (hangs head in shame)

 

But the customer I need to quote the two installs for had already been looking on ebay himself which is a bad indication of the kind of budget he wants to spend, so although I might still go with one of these as a test run due to time constraints and pricing I will spend a bit more time exploring for a decent supplier that stocks the lower end of the DVR product range