Hi, I know it has been asked many times before which DVR card is the best (overall). However, may I ask which is the best if quality of recorded video is the ONLY concern?

I'm really tired of the recorded quality of my DVR card. Even the worst youtube clip beats mine.

So, if I need superb recordings at 640x480 (tired of 320x240), should I be looking at GeoVision? Or H.264 (which product though)?

thanks!!

Hi, for the best recording quality,please set the resolution at
704*576(PAL)、704*480(NTSC) ,please have a try!

Nice answer! The best I've seen so far are the Gv2008 cards but they take a lot of space up for recordings.

I have compared both AverMedia NV7000H and Geo 2008. I find the Avermedia to have a better image with a smaller file size with H264.

better yet, 720x480 .. ;)

I haven't seen the Avermedia H.264 H/W compression card yet, but would like to. Also, they Avermedia H7000 can't do D1 in Realtime, while the gv2008 can (the Avermedia can do 120fps on 16 channles at D1, GV2008 can do 480).

Hi,NV4016HC and NV4016HCS H.264 hardware compression card can do 480fps on 16 channels at D1 in Realtime in preview.

In recording,NV4008HF can do 240fps on 8 channes at 4CIF in Reatime.

Is it possible the speed quoted on Avermedia NV7000H (120fps) is for H264 compression, while the 480fps for GV2008 is only MPEG4 not H264?

Otherwise it doesn't make sense, given GV2008 is only using software compression for H264. HW compression only available for MPEG2 or MPEG4; see Compression Format in table here:

http://www.geovision.com.tw/english/product/GV-2008.pdf

Yes, the Gv-2008 ony has mpeg2/4 H/w compression. The geo H.264 is software compression, which can be used with these boards but defeats the purpose.

I like the Aver resolution of 1920 X 1280 compared to Geo 720X 480. I was told by Aver that it can record that res at 8 fps per camera. I will be testing one in 2 weeks.

Thanks 501. Makes perfect sense. Also, you've already hinted about the large file sizes in your first post above (I guess that's a result of H264 not being used).

I can live with "quad real-time" recording at D1, i.e. 120fps instead of 480fps (but thanks 501 for bringing up this point though!!)

Looks like I'll go with NV7000H, everal much better value than GV2008:
1) cheaper (only ~$750; GV2008 retails at $1,200!)
2) comes with sensor/relay I/O (GV needs separate board GV-NET/IO!)
3) hybrid NTSC & IP cams support or better upgrade path

Anyone sees showstoppers with NV? Love to hear...

Amazing! I'd be happy getting this speed still (7.5fps or 120fps over 16ch) at that resolution.

The details seen on cam#3 at their demo site (an IQInvision IQEye511?) are awesome. Let us know after you've played with the card.

Yes but cameras used for DVRs only go as high as 7xx pixels .. so it would not make any difference to them.

We looked at several MEGA Pixel cameras at the Vegas show that are for DVR's that would be used on this system at that res.

did they have BNC connections?

Rory, I suspect by "DVR", iSpyVision is also including those that handle both analog cams (vis BNC) and IP cams (CAT5 ready). I know strictly speaking this class of "DVRs" is normally referred to as "NVR" (by the way NV7000H absolutely qualifies to be in this class, as implied under '3' in my list).

I'm now more convinced NV is a good buy... (after adding '4' to the list -- hardware compression of H.264 compared to SW in GV2008).

Well all these "comparisons" are on paper -- got to see the real thing though......

I believe this class of DVR call Hybrid

I haven't used both systems, but when compared on paper the Avermedia seems to win. the 1280X1024 resolution would be strictly for IP cameras, there are no "standard" analog CCTV cams that cam transmit close to that resolution. This means that aver is only accepting the data from the megapixel camera and that resolution is dependant on the camera. No matter, it seems IP cams are the wave of the future, I hope Geo catches up. I haven't even tried an IP cam yet because geo doesn't support it. If you purchase the avermedia card, please post the results. I checked out their NV5000 demo site and it was very slow. didn't find the remote IE client to be as good as geo's, at least from this site.

NV7000 demo clips anyone? Can someone show us the quality of this card.

501 I strongly suggest to try mega pixel cam
after selling about 15 of them so far I have hard time to look or sell reg so called " hi res" cctv product

ak357, thanks for correcting me, yes when DVR meets NVR these should be called hybrid (no exception on NV's own spec).

Besides cost factor, what else do we sacrifice by going megapixel IP cams? Limited lens options (or do these work with CS mount lenses)??

Don't think "sacrifice" you gain quality and this is for me is #1
priority

they work with 1/2 CS style
I use 4-10mm and 10-40mm

Thanks for the advice Ak357. Do you have any sample clips of a mega pixel camera we could check out? They sound awesome. How much does an average cam cost?

Version 8.11 of geovision supports IP cameras. How well I have no idea, as I dont have any IP cams to test it with..

But it does allow you to add IP cameras, you need to enter the server ip, and other details.

Yeah i figure he is talking about IP cams and Hybrid DVRs .. just checking .. as a typical DVR would not use that size video, but there could be something new out there im missing :)

that said, if your client will never be able to afford a Megapixel IP camera nor be able to handle and maintain the separate network required, then Id just stick to talking about normal CCTV cameras for now .. like everything cost will only drop though if more and more people actually buy the cameras . .. so once you see the price dropping, then Ill be looking closer at them ..

501 .. you can see a mega pixel image on any $99 digital camera these days ... ;) But I imagine, well hope, these $2000 cameras are much better ..

that said stick a high res CCTV camera into a capture card, no compression, use VidCap or AmCap, and see how high quality it is .. its sweet .. even a 350TVL camera looks nice without compression ... though its still limited.

PS. anyone remember Covi??

Cool tip kensplace! I should knock off '3' from my list as Geo does hybrid too.

Based on this HW compatibility chart AverMedia seems to be have completed serious testing and diligently documented the 17 IP cams (and specific models) NV7000H supports. See IP cam section here >>

http://www.avermedia.com/nvd/hardware-recom.asp

Not saying Geo is not serious, just that i haven't tracked down a similar statement yet..

I thought it was just the video server thing, not IP cams ... ?

I think Rory is right, 8.11 only supports the IP servers, but the next version will support IP cams.

Yup Geo does not support IP cams and definately not the 2.4MP that the Aver products do.

Granted these cameras are not fully supported as Aver is reling on their web interface which is less then optimal.

All cameras need a dedicated network, be it made of RG59 or Cat5. The maintence is the same, they basically don't mess up once properly assembled and configured.

cheers for the clarification, I guess I was mislead by the 'install IP cameras' on the menu, and the box asking how many ip cameras you want to install. Misleading of geo that :(

its still good though, you can install 1 single cheap color bullet camera at a clients location with the video server for very little money, no DVR or NVR or expensive network video gear involved .. then monitor it remotely along with other local cameras .. or using Control Center ..

Hikvision H.264 cards are the best for quality and performance. Get them at [Edited:CR - Removed link to vendor site]

How abt this one?
it can do:
1.4ch D1(704*576) in real time
2.8ch CIF in real time
3.8ch D1 in 20fps/ch
...
but it only sell for 250$
 MODEL
KVECXX04F 4/8
channel compression card
 FEATURES
 H.264 (MPEG4 Part 10) compression algorithm with high compression ratio & good image quality
 Realtime live display up to 32 cameras with D1 resolution
 Realtime video/audio recording with no frame lost.
 Support multiple resolution type: D1, 2CIF, CIF, QCIF.
 Support dual encoding stream rate for local recording and network use.
 Provide full SDK & demonstration with source code
 Provide player SDK & network SDK for PC platform
 Smart video detection: motion detection, camera blank, video loss.
 Smart camera settings: privacy masking, camera lock, color setting, and title display
 Support OSD, LOGO & MASK Overlay.
 SPECIFICATIONS
 General
 DSP Model - TI DM642
 PCI Standard - PCI 2.2, PCI-X
 Video
 Video Input - 4/8/16 Channel, BNC, 1.0Vp-p, 75Ω
 Video Standards - PAL（625Line，50f/s），NTSC（525Line，60f/s）
 Video Compression - H.264
 Video Resolution – Format NTSC PAL
D1(4CIF) 704 X 480 704 X 576
2CIF 704 X 240 704 X 288
CIF 352 X 240 352 X 288
QCIF 176 X 120 176 X 144
 Video Recording - PAL 1f/s-25f/s, NTSC 1f/s-30f/s
 Video Display Split - Full and multiple screen display, 1 / 4 / 8 / 9 / 16/25/32
 Image Quality - 1~6 level(Level 6 is the best)
 Motion Detection - Zones: 192 (16*12) detection zones
Sensitivity: 1~6 (level 6 is highest)
 Privacy Masking - Self-defined four-sided zones for privacy masking for each camera
 Camera Adjustment - Adjust color according to different time period
 Audio
 Audio Input - 4/8/16 channel, BNC, 200-2800mV, 30KΩ
 Audio Compression - PCM/ADPCM
 Hard Disk
 Space Occupation - Audio :14.4MB/H Video :56~400MB/H
 HDD Management - Hard disk hibernation technology, HDD faulty alarm, I/O error alarm

That's a HikVision card with a different model number. Looks exactly like the one in my hand. DS-4008HCI, if I'm not mistaken.

G-Mac, are these the cards that Airship uses? I checked out your site and the demo's and the videos and liked what I saw. I would really like to see some sample clips of regular CCTV cameras recorded on your DVR's. Currently my company uses Geovision with great success, hwo does your product and prices compare? PM if you prefer.

Cheers.

Ultimately, we will all be using Mega Pixel cameras soon, the only limitation is just how to you transport the bandwidth and how do you view it...for example.

A large 20 Megapixel cctv camera image is huge and you would need to scroll around the image to find the info you want, this is fine after the fact but not so fine for live viewing...so the problem is...... Imagine viewing an entire carpark of 400 cars, quite easy to do with a huge megapixel camera, but can you see the guy in the corner breaking into a car because the gate was left open or can you see the girl getting harrased on the walkway....well yes you can but only if you go back to have a look becasue it is far too much to view in one image.

The latest products I have seen are truley amazing... they take one very large 20 - 30 Megapixel image of a large area, you then mark the areas of interest on that huge image...IE entry gate, walkway etc by drwaing a box around it and zooming into that point...that box becomes a camera.... to explain more simply imagine this.

1 x Huge image from 1 camera becomes 10 camera views that are zoomed in, the effect is that you now have 10 cameras that can be viewed individually on the screen at once, the remainder of the unused areas is still recorded but each box or camera zoom has its own zoom point and indeed its own IP address...it is truley amazing and it works out fairly cheap for unobstructed views!

Yeah that IS great :)
Been around for a while also .. (Covi, etc) .. (not 20 MP though .. thats rough) .. I imagine they have taken it somewhat further now also ...
Heck I could do that with my USB webcam using my own code .. thanks for the ideas ;)

...

Though most places Ive seen arent unobstructed .. except some car park areas .. (sorry no stadiums down here) ..

my place for one example .. i have 4 cameras mounted .. but I need at least 6 .. reason is one on each side of the building .. then down one side there are trees that the landlord decided to leave there .. tropical thing and all .. anyway i have to add at least another 2 cameras .. but really i need a few more than that, time as i get around all the trees, bushes, and buildings . .. If I want full coverage that is :(

Now a Megapixel camera would be great and all, but as a typical home user, no way Im shelling out the cash for one of those .. man these $50 bullets work just fine ;)

Maybe in time they will drop the cost on those to mimic the cost of my bullet camera .. until then ... :D

I tottaly agree Rory, it is not a finished product yet becasue of price point, however it will get cheaper as you rightly pointed out, quite obviously no camera can see around corners but quite rightly as well a lot of times you can take advantage of the resolution.....one example would be a cash register, how many times do we say that you can see the notes....OR...the customers and products and not both...or an Entry camera that is zoomed in......I am not saying it is ready now, just that it is obvious we will be heading down this path, the resolutions are growing and using stitching technologies and mirror optics allows for multiple Meag Pixel cameras to be enclosed in one unit.

I guess down the track we will have no need of a DVR, just massive storage, quite simply compression will be at the camera and each cam will see as much as it can without obstruction...our design will be simple becasue we will simply find a point on the wall that can be seen from many points...IE walk around and see if you can still see that point...every time you can see that point on the wall you will be able to cover that area...we will simply apply a blanket approach to large areas and then one larger image will become several cameras with several IP's.

Prices will fall because their is less of a need of hardware and the same technology is driven for consumer electronics...be prepared to see people like Cannon and others agressively enter the CCTV market... it would seem that big companies that sell consumer photograpy products will be entering the arena heavily.

IP mega cams will become mainstream within 4 or 5 years, there is simply no reason that they will not become affordable...better start learning IP a lot more ..me thinks :shock:

I know of one company in particular that s about to release Mega Pixel cams for the firts time with this zoning and IP approach, they are scheduled for release early next year!

Yep and dont forget, no more hard drives :)

Cant wait for that .. they have huge solid state drives now .. pricey but hey .. we can only wait .. :)

256GB SSD announced ..
http://www.pqi.com.tw/news_1.asp?ID=1617
(heard simpltec also announced 500GB ones for this year)

Ahhh ... technology :)

But hey, they'll still be DVRs .. Digital Video Recorders ... even an NVR is a DVR .. just a marketing pitch is all .. as they both record Digital Video ... hey we use DVRs to record TV and all .. the term DVR wont go away anytime soon .. unless we get rid of Digital Video ... just like an AvTech 4 channel is completely different from a Geovision 1480 ... but they're still DVRs .. yet they are soooo different. ;)

* hooks up his 3MP digital still camera that cost $99 and watches the crisp images from it .. yet remembers cant see what he took at night, as its one of the cheap cmos cameras :( , so goes back to his sweet analog (so called digital) camera on his 13" CRT TV :D **