Various setup questions for my new DVR

[CNLivesOn 0]

Hi, glad to have found this forum - any assistance would be much appreciated.

I have an H.264 DVR (no name brand) which I'm struggling to set up. It was working OK (not great but OK) but now it's not picking up everything I need it to and there are some settings I don't understand (the instruction manual is, shall we say, less than helpful) so I have a list of questions I'd like to ask if you don't mind (It's a wired system, I'm using motion detection after hours and viewing the files on the DVR or dowloading relevant files that I want to keep to a stick, no internt connection or anything like that):

 

Under Main Menu - Record - Record Conf there is something called 'Redundancy' it is not checked. What is that and should I check it?

 

In the same place 'Prerecord' is set to 5 seconds. I assume this means I would get the 5 seconds before the motion detection kicked in - am I correct? Because I don't, it only seems to start recording a second or two after the motion is detected which is a problem.

 

Under Main Menu - Alarm - Motion Detect I have Enabled the motion detection, set the sensitivity and the region and set the period of activity. There is an otpion called 'Interval' which is set to 1 second. What is that interval and what should it be set on?

 

Neither Video Blind or Video Loss are enabled - what are they and should they be enabled?

 

I'd like the best picture quality I can get (it's not great at the moment)

Under Main Menu - System - Encode I have a variety of resolution options. It was set to CIF (352 x 288). I changed it to D1 (704x576) thinking the resolution would be higher - is that the right thing to do do you think? The third option is HD1 (704x288).

The bit rate type is VBR (other option is CBR), the Frame Rate (FPS) is 25 (highest) and the Bit Rate (kb/s) is 2560 and can't be changed. The 1 Frame Interval is set to 2 - what is this and should I increase it / decrease it?

 

I also changed the GUI Display resolution to 1920 x 1080 and then the system said it needed to be rebooted after which it said 'Not Optimum Mode, Recommended Mode 1600 x 900 60Hz - ANALOG' - is this becuase I changed the GUI resolution or is it connected to the changes I made under 'Encode' and what does it mean? Is it a problem?

 

Finally under Main Menu - Advanced - Device Info there is something called 'Maximum Playback Large' which is set to 4 - what is this and should I change it? It also says 'Default playback large' which is not selected - can you tell me what that is?

 

Sorry for the long list of questions, any help would be so much appreciated I'm totally alone with this and not a technical person at all.

 

Thanks!

CN

[shockwave199 0]

I believe redundancy is when you have more than one hard drive in the unit, such as a raid setup. Leave the setting unchecked.

 

If you're having a problem with motion recording kicking in late, try increasing the sensitivity setting. I also set post record to 10 seconds. If you still have problems, try increasing prerecorded a little higher if you can.

 

Interval probably has something to do with email frequency, if you set up email notification for motion events. Or it could mean snapshot interval if you've enabled snapshots- still pictures. I'm not sure though. Every system terms things a little different. Probably no harm done keeping it at 1 second.

 

Video blind can be set to send email notification or set off an alarm. It means the Dvr will sense if the camera has been sray painted or covered over in a robbery. It can give false alarms though if it's an exterior camera in heavy rain or fog, so it's not always the best idea to enable that for exterior cameras, or interior ones with no ir for night vision. Video loss is when the video signal drops out completely, such as a cable being cut. That can be good to enable. Those settings need to be used in conjunction with notifications or an alarm, or even to start other channels recording. Otherwise having them enabled doesn't do much.

 

Set each channel at the maximum resolution and bit rate you can, usually dictated by the frame per second you choose. If it means keeping each channel at 7.5fps to get D1 for every channel, do so. If your unit can do more fps for each channel at D1, go for it. Always record at the highest settings the unit offers. If it means putting in a higher capacity hard drive to archive more time, than do it. If your unit has sub stream, that can be set at lower resolutions for remote viewing or cell phone app viewing. But main stream, keep high.

 

Display resolution will depend on the monitor you use. It has nothing to do with channel encode settings.

 

I'm not sure what playback large means. When in doubt with system settings, leave them at default - don't change what they're set on.

 

And, welcome to the forum. Hope some of that helps.

[CNLivesOn 0]

Thank you so much. What a pleasure to be talking to people who know about this stuff. Much much appreciated.

[mkkoskin 0]

Also, in the future if you need help with the system, I think it's safe to say it is a Dahua DVR, all the menus you described seem to match. Is the product code NVSxxxx ?