Greetings from Sunny Phoenix!

I'm a homeowner and a cheap bastid on top of that. :shock: Oh - and I'm long winded. :lol:

BACKGROUND

Over the years, there have been various incidents of vandalism - nothing major - but I'm interested in catching the vandals. Most recently, some neighborhood teenaged twit has taken to "egging" my beater car that's parked in the driveway....

So, my main interest at this point is being able to get enough "evidence" to identify someone in my driveway at night with our "coach lights" on (two 75 watt lightbulbs to illuminate my 30'W x 20'D driveway). I'm thinking a frame rate of 7.5/sec is probably just fine for my purposes... But I'm concerned about the "crispness" and detail of recorded playback - it seems from what I've read that sometimes, a LOT is lost through compression, etc. I think I read somewhere that MJPEG would be the best compression for my type of application??

My neighbor does surveillance systems for hospitals and such, and he gave me an old camera/housing, transformer, some Siamese cable and an old time-lapse VCR and monitor - spare stuff he had laying around. I mounted the camera up about 15 feet up and 10 feet from the side of the driveway, looking down and hooked the rest of the system up, but unfortunately, the VCR is kaput - dead. :cry:

I'm thinking I'd like to get a 4-camera DVR, and later on, pick up a few other cameras and run the cabling and so on. What DVR will allow me to identify someone standing maybe 20 feet from the camera, in the dark, partially illuminated (see Background)? That's all the resolution I really need, and I don't really need any fancy bells and whistles - just something with sufficient quality that when paired with the right camera, will give the desired results.

Oh - and I'm thinking I want to just do a stand-alone DVR at this point, as opposed to a PC-based system. I just want something simple and straight forward. I've considered just buying a time-lapse VCR, but I like the idea of the motion activation. Oh - and I also like the like 5-second "buffer" that shows a few seconds of video before the triggering event - cool technology! Internet monitoring isn't so important, and "live" monitoring while at home isn't a big deal - just getting the person recorded is all I think I need...

Eventually, I'd add maybe one interior camera and one at the back yard, and maybe a 2nd camera on the driveway from a different angle. But at this point, with one good quality camera (neighbor says it's worth $400) installed and wired, I'd like to get an idea of what I need to spend on a DVR... Is there a basic unit that's worth considering? $300 might be easy to justify to the wife. $500 will take a bit longer. $1,000 probably won't happen, given that I could do the VCR thing for a couple hundred...

What say ye to this cheap bastid?? ;) Thanks in advance, and thanks for putting up with my longwindedness! :D

I'm at the budget end... of the spectrum. I've had good luck with AVTech/CPCam and with the AverMedia EB1304. They should be around 400-ish. They are not fancy, and you get what you pay for... But they work fine for the entry-level home system.

Many of the professionals on this site will cringe at that recommendation - but as in my case, it's not worth the cost of a premium system to do what you are trying to do.

The VCR thing is no good - you can't be changing tapes. It's bad enough on a time lapse, but a standard VCR would be even worse.

As far as getting a good image - If you go with the AVTech be prepared to have the camera view close in on the subject. The comression on the newer AVTechs is good in terms of size, but the image quality suffers, even on Best quality compression. You can counter this with more thoughtful camera placement.

Remember that it's easier to recognize someone you know than someon you don't know. You need a much better image quality / closer view for a 'wanted poster' type image - but you can probably recognize little timmy form 3 doors up the street with a wider view/ lower quality image.

Well, this is part of my concern. I'm not sure I have many options with regard to camera placement. Right now, I'm capturing most of my 20 foot x 30 foot wide driveway, from about 15 feet up, aimed "down" at roughly a 45º angle (maybe a tad less).


Yeah - I think it likely that we would recognize whoever it is - it's likely a kid from the high school my son attends. If my son didn't recognize the kid, one of the neighbor's kids likely would.


It looks to me like the AverMedia is quite a bit more expensive than the AVTech/CPCam. Knowing "you get what you pay for", but not wanting to pay for what I don't/won't need - what do I get with the AverMedia unit vs. the AVTechs?


PS - love the screen name! :lol:

Cheap is always good... :D but, how many days of recording do you expect to gain from these type of systems? Also, does the warranty matter in your purchase? I understand most of low end DVRs and cameras come with one year warranty, will it worth for you to pay little more for three years warranty?

Embedded system will do this trick for you, no question about it...

As you stated, someone gave you the camera equipment... What do you really have on hand, like make and models of these cameras?? Having good DVR does not mean anything if your cameras produce poor quality video to start off with...

I probably can not match up $400.00 range for a DVR, but for $500.00 range, I can give you a package from major manufacturer and with three years warranty...

A possibility in your price range! Do an internet search for best price.
G4-LTA H.264 DVR; its a 4 channel networkable pentaplex unit and if using the motion detection feature you can adjust pre-motion record from 5 to 30 seconds and post motion record from 5 seconds to 10 min.

Thanks for the replies.

Warranty isn't that important to me. Quality is more important than warranty!

Days of recording... Well, initially, the only thing I imagined needing is yesterday. Then I thought, ure, maybe a week might be nice. (I suppose it could be a week before I noticed that a kid bashed in our coach lights (again).) I tend to notice things like the car getting egged right away! I suppose it would be nice to go on vacation and if (heaven forbid) anything happened while we were gone, it would be nice to have a record of it. So I dunno...


mr.surveillance -

The H.264 compression is supposed to be REALLY good stuff, right?? Like DVD quality? I looked at the MSRP, and it certainly seems like the best deal I've seen - recorded images should be VERY high quality, yes? This unit looks promising!

Will Sanyo Brand suffice?

Brand isn't important to me either! (I've been burned on too many a product that was burning up their good name...)

If you know of a Sanyo that you think beats the G4-LTA H.264 DVR that mr.surveillance suggested, I'd like to hear about it. I'm pretty impressed with what I've learned about the G4-LTA... That said, if there's something that would serve my needs better, I'm all ears! 8)


Thanks to all that have responded so far. Keep it comin'! :D

Here is a link to the LTA manual : http://www.cctvdealers.com/customer/intsys/support/LTA%20User%20Manual.pdf

The G4-LTA seems to have the most bang for the buck of what is currently out there, and plenty of bells and whistles too.

The record time varies to the Hard Drive size and the speed and quality you setup to record. If you are using motion detection mode and do not have a lot of activity a smaller Hard Drive should suffice.

For small business I usually prefer the ARGUS JPEG2000 machines. The Police Departments seem to like the evidence CDs the units make however the internet speed sucks if you try to play back from a remote location. (These are larger and more expensive) I dont think this is what you want for residential use.

The LTA has good internet speed, (depending on your internet provider), so if you go on vacation you can view live or play back via the internet.

Sanyo makes good products too!

I hope this information is helpful.

Yes it absolutely IS helpful! My only experience with DVRs is using them to record TV, and knowing from that experience that they represent a QUANTUM LEAP in usefulness... I can only assume the "leap" is of similar magnatude with surveillance DVRs as it is with DVRs for television.

What I am missing tho is real world experience. That is, with the right camera, will the LTA provide sufficient recorded playback to allow facial recognition of a known individual in my situation?

My "situation" is two 75-watt "coach lights" shining onto my driveway, and incidents happening in the dark of night. Driveway is about 20'X30' wide, with the camera shooting from about 15 feet away from the edge of the driveway. I only really need to hit somewhere around the middle of the driveway I think.

Obviously, nobody can promise anything about what my real world results will be. But an educated guess puts me leaps and bounds ahead of where I'm at now - which is more or less a blind stab in the dark!

So, what say ye? 8-[

Before you can focus on the type of DVR, my suggestion was to share what type of camera equipment you really have. It is a mute point to ask the DVR to provide certain functionality if video quality coming from your cameras may be substandard... You remember GIGO effect right?

I am not familiar with the product that mr. surveillance is referring and chances are good that it is a decent product. But if you cameras do not provide the minimum and decent quality picture, then it really does not matter which DVR you use... the end result will not be satisfactory...

Seems to me that only price is the driving force on your selection of DVR. If so, then why not look at what members offer from GEO or similar company solutions? As long as you have a decent computer, these guys can guide you to purchase something fairly cheap and yet works well... and there is a tremendous amount of support for GEO and other similar company products in this forum...

That's a valid point. I get it - the whole "weakest link" thing... I've gotta get back up there and tweak the focus on the camera - it looks nice and sharp during the day but at night when the iris opens, it's blurry as hell! So I'll see what I can find for markings... I *DO* know it's a variable focal length auto-iris camera that came out of a professional install.

I'm not all that concerned about cameras, since I've only got the one, which didn't cost me anything. If I'm not happy with its performance, I'll replace it and use it somewhere else. I'm actually thinking that I'll prolly eventually put the existing camera inside the house, and put a day/night IR camera in its place...

Camera's a PELCO. The only markings I could find were:

ICS-2CRV4A

Sometimes you may want to set your expectation right as well. Watching too much of CSI, 24, Las Vegas, etc Serials may set false expectation to what you can get out of CCTV System, e.g. unlimited zooming in and enhancement to the recorded CCTV images. From just a 25 pixels captured of the face, you are able to blow it up to see a perfectly clear image of the person, all CCTV video recording looks like what you get out of your DVD movie video, or better still, your High Defination Recording....

Certain things, are possible, but just not feasible, e.g. Some system allows you to record all cameras up to live (25/30fps per cam) at D1 quality. Even with Mpeg4/H.264 or watever compression, it'll still be consuming a large amount of harddisk space for recording. Yes, harddisk are cheap, but adding it up, will it be cheap enough to keep 6 months recording ?
At 786kbps per camera for a 4 cameras system, you'll run through a 500GB harddisk in abt 2 days. So 6 months, you'll need abt 90 pcs of 500GB harddisk, abt 45 Terabyte of space.
At vcd quality of 144kbps, you'll need a fifth of the space, at 9 Terabyte, i.e. 18 pcs of 500GB harddisk.

So sometimes, really have to point these out to customers.... possiblities vs feasibility. :D My motto... anything is possible... what's your budget ? :)

You may want to post some capture or backup from what you had recorded, and maybe some of us here can comment if that's a ok quality capture, or is really a bad one.

Camera wise..... some of the cheap mini camera in dome, ir outdoor housing does give quite a good images (as i call them value for money) as well. You may want to consider them instead of using auto iris camera. With build in electronic shutter, they work both in day and nite situation.
Prices are like ard $40-$50.

It may be the problem with your lens as well. Some cheap lens does not work well during day and night. The focal lenght's different during day and nite time and that's causing the blurrness at night. You might need to change to aspherical lens. This was highlighted to me vie fujinon salesperson. Just remembered.

I adjusted the focus last night, in the dark. Picture is MUCH better. I think I've probably got the video quality I need, even with VHS playback, tho a bit more detail would obviously be better!

So far, I'm most intrigued by the G4-LTA mr.surveillance suggested. Sure would like some feedback on that unit tho!

Daryl733 you quote a dvr that can record D1 on all channels at the same time but it's not practical. can you give me some honest examples of an 8 channel DVR that can do this with very good picture quality at 30 frames per channel, disregarding memory storage requirements for now - will add it myself, and at a reasonable price? I'm looking to seriously upgrade. Currently have EX82, EX40, and Pano 484 cameras

Gesualdo

Can't quote price here. :) Against forum guideline. PM or email me. But then again, I am in Singapore. You may want to buy from your local vendor so that you'll have local support.

THanks Don't need a specific price but model(s) to consider would work. PM'ed you.

Anyone and everyone else can join in with recommendation too. :) :D :D

Gesualdo

OoooKay then! How about some thing completely unreasonable then....

Something that will give D1 at high res at better than 7.5 frame rate?

One thing to remember with compression, be it h.264 or mpeg whatever, is it can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, product to product how good the final image quality is.

There are many settings they can tweak when they set up the compression, just having h.264 is not going to be a definitive guarantee of dvd quality.

H.264 can vary greatly in quality depending on just how much compression is used.

Can you explain how that works and how to check it and set it. I was looking at the ICRealtime Pro 8 but can not find pricing and am told the flex also can be upgraded.

I am learning more all the time.

Gesualdo

Well... you can check out Kodicom DVR.
KSR-816,
http://new.kodicom.com/Products/Eng/Prod_KSR816.asp

Cheaper one.. you may consider
AVTech AVC787 or CPCAM - 507
http://www.lakson.com.sg/brochure/CPCam/CPD-507.pdf

You made no mention of any network requirement,searching methods, etc... so basically both can record at D1 quality at the framerate you want. :)

That is exactly my concern. The Intelicam G4-LTA looks good to me just reading the marketing info, and the price is within my budget. But I've hesitated to buy because of exactly what you said above, kensplace...

They've got 3 video clips that they claim to be "worst case" quality. If I trust those videos to in fact BE worst case, then I think I'm okay with the unit...

(Sorry - it won't let me post those sites as links for another 3 days. :cry: ) But they're at intellicamusa dot com...


www(dot)intellicamusa(dot)com/video/ptz.wmv

www(dot)intellicamusa(dot)com/video/indoor.wmv

www(dot)intellicamusa(dot)com/video/IR.wmv

Any opinions? How does this quality compare with the lower-end residential 4-channel systems using the MPEG4 compression technology like the AVTech/CPCam or AverMedia?

Oh - and who exactly IS "Intellicam"? Are they the manufacturer? Or is this a generic Chinese unit they've slapped their label on?

Oh - one more! They really tout the Texas Instruments DaVinci Technology DSP chip. Is this chip really all that they make it out to be? Seems reasonable to me that hardware based compression would be superior or more efficient or cheaper (or all three) than perhaps other compression methods...

Help! :shock:


Thanks in advance. :D Hope I haven't violated any rules... Just tryin' to get info...

I've only sold one G4 LTA and the customer was very happy with it. They remotely view when they vacation in Mexico.
For the budget you stated this should give you the most bang for the buck.
In my store I use a JPEG 2000 machine, however the remote playback speed sucks. If you wanted to increase your budget take a look at the dual codec machines, (JPEG 2000 with H.264 over internet) made by ARGUS and is sold by one of the advertisers in the banner at the top of the CCTV forum page. They named the recorders after a former penitentiary located in the SF bay.

Thx, Mr.S.

Did you look at any of the videos I mentioned, or is that just marketing bologna not worth considering?

For what it's worth, I'm not imagining much in the way of remote playback. Would a JPEG 2000 provide better pic quality than H.264 for the same $$$? What I'm asking is, would a JPEG 2000 machine provide more resolution as evidence for playback to police, etc. than a H.264? Or is that a dumb question? :oops:

The Police here in Alameda seem to like the JPEG 2000 machine I think its a combination of the 1 to 64 X search jog shuttle knob and the evidence CDs it produces.
I will PM you with an IP address so you can remotely play with the G4 LTA.

Daryll733
the Kodicam says max480 @CIF not d1
unless I should buy a 16 channel DVR and only use 4 channels???

The CDP507 states:
Maximum Recording Rate Frame: 720 x 480 pixels with 120 IPS NTSC / 720 x 576 pixels with 100 IPS PAL
Field: 720 x 240 pixels with 240 IPS NTSC / 720 x 288 pixels with 200 IPS PAL
CIF: 352 x 240 pixels with 480 IPS NTSC / 352 x 288 pixels with 400 IPS PAL
Adjustable Recording Speed Frame: 120, 60, 30, 15 IPS <NTSC> / 100, 50, 25, 12.5 IPS <PAL>
Field: 240, 120, 60, 30 IPS <NTSC> / 200, 100, 50, 25 IPS <PAL>
CIF: 480, 240, 120, 60 IPS <NTSC> / 400, 200, 100, 50 IPS <PAL>
Image Quality Setting Best, High, Normal and Basic

for a 16 channel DVR it is the same and the connection to image quality for frame rate is not connected but my experience is the faster the rate the lower the quality to achieve it. so the quality will be basic the rate will be 7.5.

Is there a DVR that records 4 or 8 channels at 30 fps, at D1, with best (high) quality,- on all channels -at the same time?- not one at a time.

Or am I just dreaming?

Thought u said you want 7.5FPS at D1 ? Or is it 30FPS at D1 now ? Got me confuse.....

Sorry for the confusion.
I was looking for 30 but can only find a max of 7.5 which is why I asked for "better than 7.5".


PLEASE-- Keep the suggestions coming.

Thanks,
Gesualdo

Hey CG,
Have you selected/installed a system yet? Different situation but I'm kinda in the same boat myself... I don't need anything fancy and am looking for best bang for the buck. I too have looked at the Intellicam DVR's (I'm in the market for an 8 channel) and looks to be a good system. I'd been looking at the AVTech line but have heard the internet/remote piece isn't all that great, thought not sure how the I-cam is at that.

No, but I need to do something soon. Recording on the time lapse VCR sucks!

I haven't been very impressed with image quality from the movie files I've watched of different machines. So far I haven't seen anything where you'd have a prayer of identifying a person without a shot that is pretty close - like a from-the-waist-up type shot, where the person's body more than fills the frame. I have seen the G4-LTA, and to me, I couldn't really say it's any better or worse than the other machines I viewed. :?:

I think the budget and the level of quality you want doesn't really match. :)
As i said.. normally..... you pay peanuts... .anything better than a monkey's a steal. :)
You might want to consider spending more on the storage. Get a DVR, set it to HIGHEST resolution and framerate, and watch it burn through your storage . :)

Well, that's certainly possible.


Well, I've been assuming that what I've been viewing has been highest resolution/framerate... At least w/ stuff from sites offering units for sale.

I have no objection to brief storage times. I don't anticipate actually recording much, since I plan on using motion activation. I could probably record a month of motion activated uncompressed video on the smallest HDD that would come with any unit... It's just my driveway and back yard I want to capture. Even if I could only retain for a WEEK, that wouldn't kill me... Retaining a week's video at a high quality setting would be just fine with me!

What I want to be able to do is recognize a known person walking on my driveway (3 cars wide). So that's what - maybe their entire body taking up maybe 1/3rd of the screen? Probably an unrealistic hope that I'll get that... Probably need one of those IP cameras or something ultra-high res. :cry:

In my opinion, you need two cameras to fulfill your goal. One camera is a wider shot, viewing the total driveway and vehicles. This camera will capture the actions of the vandalism. The second camera is the identification camera, zoomed in with a 12-50mm lense, aimed at a choke point where the suspect will pass. If he is hitting both cars parked side by side, I'd zoom in on the area of space that is between the cars.

Thanks, UMDRanger. I appreciate your suggestion.

Two cameras for the driveway is, in fact, what I had planned - though I'm not at all confident of really being able to get a "choke point".

The nature of a 3-car wide driveway is such that there are multiple paths of approach... So, my thought was that I would install one camera in plain view (in an enclosure) and the 2nd camera looking down and concealed - in the attic looking through a louvered gable vent. I'm not sure what else I can do, given that there are 4 approaches to the house, 3 of which are likely paths for vandals or burglars... :(

But what do I know? I'm a homeowner, so heck - you guys might have some brilliant idea that's never occurred to me... Which of course is what I'm here! ;) So keep those ideas comin'! :D

Well it all depends on your unique situation. Are there trees, bushes, birdhouse, mailbox, etc in the vicinity of the most likely chokepoint?

If the vandalism has been centered on the vehicles in the driveway, the suspect is likely staying far from the house. Yet if your goal is to cover the house, obviously a choke point in the vicinity of the house makes sense... all the reason why people start with one or two cameras and quickly realize "what if they go to X?....." and want more cameras.

You could hide a camera in a custom home made enclosure at your mailbox, birdhouse, or other yard decoration. You would need to provide a path for the cables though, but it is an option.

As the homeowner, you have the benefit of being able to visualize whether the camera's view and location are in your interest. We can only provide ideas for locations. If you do a bit of searching here, there have been a few good threads with homeowners doing their own installs. One guy made a mailbox enclosure, and posted pictures. Google Earth images showed us his unique situation; but thats a whole nothter personal privacy concern with posting your home's location on the net.

In short, you could get a covert camera pretty much anywhere on your propertly, it just depends how much work you want to put into it, and whether it is worth it to you.

Well, I bought a DVR. Got the Intellicam G4-LTA w/ the H.264 compression and upgraded to a 250 GB HDD, which was a less-than-$50 add on. It should arrive toward the end of next week...

Thanks to everyone for their help.

Please post in this thread when it arrives and you've had a chance to tinker with it. That's the same model I'm considering in the 16ch version. Thanks and good luck!

By the way, did you buy it direct from their website? Doesn't appear to be a ton of dealers selling it though did find a place selling it for quite a bit less than their website but am a bit leary since it's so much lower.

Wait till daytime comes... your picture might be blurred again.
If that's the case, basically you are not using the correct type of lens.

Should use day/night lens.

The focus is fine during the day. Probably not *quite* as crisp as before, but good enough.

As for the DVR - yes, I bought it through Intellicam. I didn't find any prices that were less - they dropped the price on the 4ch by $50 a coupla weeks ago, which made them less than the cheapest eTailer I found in many, many Google searches... G4-LTA is what I bought w/ a 250GB hard drive and VGA output.

Hello,

I sell and install this unit and other Intellicam products as well. We do this for a living and have the LTA protecting my own property. We are a Mastrer Distributor for Intellicam. You are welcome to PM me and I will send you a username and password so you can demo yourself. Can be viewed using Internet Explorer but Active X will need to be enabled. Have 4 cams on this system, one being a PTZ, 2 IR cameras and a basic color security box camera monitoring my street.

Cameras really are the weakest link. Even with a great DVR with poor quality cameras, the DVR will only record what the camera "sees"

Thanks

Mike

www.shoreviewsecurityusa.com
Always on - Always Watching

The unit arrived yesterday and is up and running now. Having some problems with the motion activation - getting it to not be triggered all the time. Guess I'll have to play with the activation areas a bit - tree motion reflecting off the windshields of the cars seems to be triggering it!

Please excuse my ignorance as I am quite new to this market and am learning as I go along...

My intent is to set up a 4 camera surveillance system in my home to complement my security system. There have been a few recent break-ins in the neighborhood, so I am looking for a peace of mind when I am away from home.

I started with the standard internet searching (shallow at that), somehow coming back to the Swann DVDR4-Pro-Net Maxi Pro Kit. All the while I had been hoping to find something that would help me in my decision making process, and luckily I found this forum.

I am impressed with what I have read about the Intellicam units, but am hoping that more than just a handful of people are providing positive feedback about them.

Mike (shoreviewsecurity), what made you decide to go with the Intellicam products over the multitudes of others out there? I ask because I spoke directly to one of the top sales directors at Swann, and of course he was convinced that his product was far superior to everyone else's. He was quite believable, although thusfar he has not been able to provide concrete testimonials, forums, blogs, software download links, etc. Understand that since I am purchasing this for home use, I want to know that I am purchasing a quality product (for the price range) as opposed to getting stuck with a toy such as the Swann. Plus, since most of my monitoring will be done via the internet, good remote performance will be an important factor.

I also have a question about cameras. Since I had spent most of my time researching Swann products, I took interest in their Maxi Day/Night cameras. Now that I have been turned in the direction of Intellicam, I am interested in how their G4-400HPT camera compares to the Swann model. Are they comparable, or does the Intellicam camera beat the pants off the Swann model? Also, for home use, do either of these seem to be overkill? Although I will be mounting them indoors, they will have a good unobstructed view of the outside, so the infrared will come in quite handy at night. If there's another camera in that price range and feature set that is a better recommendation for home use, please let me know.

I apologize if these questions have already been answered in other threads. And if the camera question needs to be reposted in one of the camera threads, please let me know.

IF i am not wrong, Swann's basically for DIY.
And most of their cameras are low range CMOS cameras (so far the range i had seen in aust and singapore).
And their DVR's basically OEM's from other brand.
E.g. http://www.swannstore.com/store/cart.php?target=product&product_id=515&category_id=44
DVR 4400™ MPEG 4 = CPD-560 = AVC-760.

IT stated MPEG 4, but did not mention MPEG 4 only when you record at CIF. :) At Frame (4CIF), it's recording in mjpeg.

DIY, easy to install, yes. Go with swan. Want something better, check out other supplier.

I'm a "noob" myself so can't speak from the technical side but I was in the same position as you about 4 months ago. Unfortunately I didn't find this site until after I bought a Sam's Club "kit" (SVAT 4 camera model) and was disappointed in the overall quality. It's not horrible, but it's missing enough features that I wanted more and started doing some research. I've gotten some great info on this site and am very close to a purchase (Intellicam or Argus). In general it seems the professional opinions on Swann and other "mass marketed" systems are that they're a joke, but I don't have any experience to make such a comment. I think it all depends on your needs and expectations, for what you want to do maybe the Swann system is perfect. Keep doing what you're doing... lots of info out there to help make an informed decision.

As you said, there are many choices out there and I have experienced many of them in my day to day maintenance effort. I have been using this product for about three years and once I found this DVR, I never looked any further. There are many reasons why I stick with G4. One that is most important to me is that I have NEVER had one fail. Important to me simply because once I install a system, return visits to the property cost me money. I am a firm believer in not changing horses in midstream so to speak. Also, we offer FREE DDNS service with every unit sold. Please visit my website for more info on this. Another added value and I would assume being this is going to be installed in your home, you have a dynamic IP address ( one that changes ). You'll drive yourself crazy comparing, talking to reps and the like. I did that already! I have other manufacturers calling me to sell their DVR and I simply say no thank you. Maybe a little close-minded but this DVR works for me.

As far as the camera, I see that the Swann has only 24 LED's whereas the 400HPT has 36. I can tell you though that the G4-400HPT may be an overkill especially indoors but an excellent cam outdoors. It features a varifocal lens and a special lens covering that eliminates IR back wash. A common problem with IR cams. Also, I don't like the fact that the wire is exposed on the swann where the wire is enclosed through the bracket on 400HPT. Can't tell if the swann changes to B&W at night HPT does. Provides sharper images in this mode. Just a better cam. Think I am running out of room to go on here. Hope this helps?? Thanks

Mike

Actually, IMHO, more LED's doesn't mean better.
The cameras consume more power when there's more LED. Also, more LED doesn't mean further. It depends on your surrounding as well. Most cameras does auto contrasting, electronic shuttering nowadays. When there's a stationary object in the near field of your camera view, e.g. table, lamp pole, flower, overhanging branch, or even spider web, the IR LED will reflect off these object. It'll basically force your camera to adjust the brightness lower so that they are able to see these object shin brightly by the IR LED light. This in turn will render things further away into total darkness.
That's why the specs say the effective distance of the LED, and not how far the IR Camera can see. Basically, those cam that says can see that far a distance at night guaranteed... be sure to ask for $$ back guarantee. :D

First, the break-ins were occuring during the daytime, but now they are starting to do so in the middle of the night, when the lights inside my home are off and an infrared camera would come in very handy. Understanding that I will not be purchasing a top of the line camera with high-def resolution, or a 4CIF D1 DVR capable of recording at the best quality, would a combination of a G4-LTA DVR and G4-400HPT cameras be a good solution for my home? Would a G4-4XLA be a better choice? FYI Mike, I already posted a request on another thread for a comparison of these DVRs, so I won't ask again in this thread.

Any camera can be a good deterrent when displayed in full view, but if someone does decide to snoop around my door to look in to see whether I have a surveillance system, I would like to be able to have a somewhat reasonable recording of them doing so, so I can give a copy to the police if need be. And if they decide to break in in the middle of the night, I would hope that I can provide a decent enough recording as well, given the rare chance that they would not be covering their face and would actually look in the direction of the camera.

I realize the camera may be a bit much for indoor home surveillance, but I would rather be safe than sorry. Is there another camera you would recommend for my home?

Mike, do you predominantly sell to businesses, or do you have enough home sales?

Thank you for taking your time out of your weekend to answer these questions!

Well I just got off the phone with Mike, hard to find anyone these days to answer the phone on a Saturday then spend 30 minutes answering all of your questions. :o I think his business is going to do well if he keeps that up!! Anyway I have the same issue as kampkrusty and have decided to go with the G4-LTA and three of the G4-400HPT cameras (wish I could afford the fourth :shock: ) Once I get the system I will give my COMPLETE unbiased opinion and include some screen shots and stuff. I curretly have an older (2005) dvr that I am replacing with this one. I was really happy with the user interface and stuff. Anywho, I dont think you can go wrong with either and Mike does have some pretty good prices on his site, aswell as free shipping and free DDNs. Sounds like a win win to me. PS Mike if you get this and wouldnt mind pm'ing me that site and password you offered earlier for the G4-LTA, I would like to look at it.

See ya

Oh yeah, and check out this info I got from the Intellicam website, I have never seen this offered by any other company:

Warranty Period

All of our DVR systems feature an industry leading 3 year protection period. Even our installed HDD units are covered under this 3 year peace of mind policy. Compare warranty policies before making your final decision. We don’t add or conceal the cost or up-sell this peace of mind. Both our DVR manufacturer and our HDD supplier are that confident. We install Seagate model SV35 HDD units in all of our DVR products. Engineered for the harsh “always” write environment of DVR technology. A bit more expensive, but well worth the cost.

Return Policy

We’re not happy unless you’re happy. If you are dissatisfied, return ANY Intellicam product within 30 days of purchase for ANY reason and expect a full refund. No restocking fees, no hassles, just peace of mind. We only
require that you pay the cost of shipping from your location to ours. We’ll even refund your original purchase and shipping cost from us to you. Most importantly, we want you to understand we offer a complete no-risk policy. We know what we sell, we use it to protect our own facilities. We’re confident you’ll appreciate our quality as well.

I sell mostly to businesses but do have a few residential customers, but really surveillance is surveillance.

I think you are waiting for me to post a comparison sheet. I am in the process of doing so, so please bear with me.

The XLA is a better unit and the RTA even better as far as recording resolutions. Also, the XLA and above offer the option of a built in DVD and more options to record audio.

As I have posted before in another thread, frame rates are driving factor in ID'ing people. Let's say you choose to record at 4 fps, too choppy and even if the person were to look at the camera and turning one's self quickly, you may not capture the face as well if you recorded at a higher frame rate. When you playback, and you have recored at a higher frame rate, you can literally go frame by frame in playback in an attempt to ID. Also, facial reconition is important but we have found the what usually gets them caught is their mannerism, the clothes they were, etc. We have even seen crooks wear very identifying clothing. Amazing!!!

You may want to consider the Speco dome camera we have on our site. About the same money but primarly indoor use. This cam offers IR. I like this cam.

I honestly believe that this combo will meet your needs. But agian, without actually surveying the site first hand, it becomes a shot in the dark ( please excuse the pun ).

Thanks

Mike

Well, I caught someone at 11 minutes after midnight last night, running up my driveway. It was the neighbor 17 yr. old, and he was using my driveway to avoid his Dad's CCTV cameras! LOL

Quality for IDing him wasn't great. But I had the kid's Mom take a look, and she instantly recognized him - in part due to his clothing and his gait while running (jogging).

Anyhow, I tweaked the settings a bit - I set the "bitrate" at 2 MB/sec, which I'm hoping might increase quality. The documentation on the G4 is pretty basic and does a downright lousy job of explaining the purpose of the various settings, so the "bitrate" could have to do with output to a backup device. I'm not sure.

Anyhow, while I wish the resolution were better, it's not bad, and it was good enough for Mom to ID her kid at the farthest reaches of my camera. Maybe with a 2nd camera, I can improve upon what I'm capturing...

So, thanks to all who helped in my (ongoing) endeavor at DIY CCTV.

Hmmm, so do you think its the cameras quality at night or the DVR? I was just getting ready to pull the trigger on that DVR and 3 of the G4-400HPT cameras but now you got me worried. :? What do you think?

I think it's more camera positioning than anything else. To get the quality you'd need to ID someone from the "bird's eye view" of what happened, you'd need HDTV quality. And that ain't happenin' on this guy's budget!

Hope this helps. I think the quality is satisfactory - and I also think it's better than others at this price point. I'm talking about the playback quality, by the way.

Is it true with the intellicam system you cant watch the video in reverse or something like that? I read it in another post. I will try to find it again.

Posted by RonW

"I have looked at the intellicam and icrealtime units, and they look great. However, the ability to play the video in reverse is another must have feature, something that both of those units aren't capable of to my knowledge. "

Can someone verify if this is true? I would think that all dvr's should have this feature.

eric9547,

I picked up the G4-4RTA very very recently and I can say from my own personal experience with the G4-4RTA that it does not play the recorded video in reverse.

The documentation states "backwards", but that means the currently viewed video will be "replayed" from the beginning of the current video file. However, if you are slow on the "backwards" button and the next video sequence has already started playing, you cannot go back multiple files - you'll have to select the video you want to see again from the menu.

Keep in mind this is using the ir remote and the unit's button interface. I didn't get to the web interface, especially since it's not my intention to serve up remote viewing.

Currently I have sent in a support request at icrealtime to see if their dvr flex r30 units will play in reverse. From what I intially received for an answer the flex can step forwards or backwards frame by frame. I'm still waiting for a definitive yes/no answer about full motion playback in reverse via the ir control or the units push button interface.

Maybe a flex user can answer this, but I haven't received a confirmation response yet.

Hopefully that answers most of this question. ;)

The ICRealtime and Intellicam were on my short list of dedicated systems but knowing that they cant play reverse will put them out of contention.

At this day in age it should be a standard, heck even my cable box dvr can play video backwards.

I couldn't agree with you more! I finally heard back from icrealtime and it's definitive about the reverse play, it's not supported from the remote or the unit. If I read the tech support reply correctly, the remote connection software will allow you to use a "slider" to move forwards/backwards during playback.

Thanks guys, I thought that was standard on dvrs, playback forward and reverse, I know ours do, the only thing I usually check carefully on most dvrs we test is that they will accurately step both forward and back. If it is set for 7ips then it should be seven steps per second and I have seen a few that cannot do that very well.Learned something new today 8)

I wanted to comment on the Intellicam unit as it can not "play" in reverse as has already been established. Additionally, the idea of using the "slide " bar over the Internet will be a challange. The Intellicam unit can do the same thing via the Web interface and the Client Software BUT somewhat difficult due to the nature of the Internet. Even on the same network, you will not get fluid playback by using the slide bar. I have tried it.

What I have done in the past is actually download the portion of video in question to my or my customer's PC and reviewed using the included viewer. This viewer WILL allow step back and step forward reply frame by frame and by using the slide bar you can very quickly scan the file for anything obvious. I have used this method on customer's DVR's who record 24/7. They call and ask me to review a portion of video for whatever. I download and play in the viewer using the slide bar back and forth looking for the whatever. Also, the viewer can convert H.264 to .avi. Yes, the drawback is having to have the viewer software where ever you are to do this ( playback frame by frame ) but being in the business, I have it on my laptop.

Just thought I might be able to shed more light on the subject.

Thanks

Mike

I wanted to put up a demo of this viewer and how it works as described above but my screen capture program would not fully display the video :(

I would recommend a PC-based DVR.You'll have all the flexibility you need.

Those ready DVRs will always lack some functions, and are not "out-of-the-box" at all.

Hi,

I am looking for a DVR system for my home, I think I will need
- not more than 8 cameras, maybe 4-5 outdoor,
-I was considering a SVAT CLEARVU3 for $1200, but I think it is a simplex
-or Q-see QSD2216C16-250 from Costco with 16 cameras (8x 3.6" and 8x 6")

if anyone can give me some comments on the systems above, but their menus look really hard to deal with.

besides, after reading some threads at this forum, i would even consider getting a separate DVR and customize the cameras

My budget for the whole system is around 1200.
I need 8 channels, I will use motion detection, and I will need the highest quality only for 2-3 cameras so I think 250 GB should be enough, the menu should be really easy to use, and I think I prefer a pentaplex and DVD-RW backup if it is possible.

just from briefly looking on the website, I liked the
Kodicom KSR816 with DVD backup, but I have no clue how much could it cost.
G4-LTA with 8 channels looks good but I think it does not have DVD-RW

Cameras:
I need probably 2 good cameras watching my car parked on the street about max 50 feet from the house, I want to be able to catch the guys who throw junk from a slow driving car at night, but there is enough street lights, so perhaps IR might not be necessary, but I need sharp pictures.
I need 3 indoor cameras -watching the garage door from inside, 2 entrances front back from inside,
and another 2 outdoor cameras watching the house from the front, nothing specific to watch for, and there is street lighting.
So that is 7 cameras, maybe another camera to watch the DVR to make it 8.
anyone can give me some feedback?

thanks

Al

I sent you a pm with what I would get, I didnt include it here so as not to ruffle any feathers for posting prices (even though they are retail) I will say that the best price on the brand of equipment I sent you will be found at www.shoreviewsecurityusa.com

I know the price is a little over your budget but I think its worth it. Get the DVR without a hard drive and DVD burner and just add them yourself. You can find great deals on those at newegg.com or my favorite www.zipzoomfly.com

Talk to Mike he is very knowlegable and great to talk to. I dont work for them or anything I just like to pass on good service when I get it.

I chose the XLA over the LTA because it will record at 2cif giving you a larger picture for verification purposes. I have the LTa and its ok but I wish I had gotten the XLA for the better recording resolution. I also have the cameras (P540X) that I posted and have been very happy with them. They will do your driveway justice. Here's a link to a review I did on them http://dopalgangr.bravehost.com/
And dont forget you will need to add power and cabling to your list as well :shock:
Again I dont work for Intellicam or anything just passing on my 2 cents :D

thank you so much dopalgangar, really apreciate your very useful advice. just few questions:
-I took a look at newegg and zipfly, when you get the HDD and DVDRW, what type do you buy? ATA-100, ATA-66, SATA, ATA-6, is it the same for XLA and LTA?

-what kind of powersupply do you get for all those cameras? a whole powerwitchbox, or individual, is it going to be more than $100
is the cabling going to be more than $100

-I took a look at the XLA manual, and I think I like how it works.
but In case that it is over my budget, I want to look at the LTA-8channel one, but could not find the manual, I found only the 4channel LTA manual.
both LTA's look different on the outside, but the manuals that I found were the same.
thanks again

Al,

I'm on the way home from work now, I will explain it all to you in a couple hours.

ok dopalgangr,
no rush,

Al, check your PM's I sent you a message

[Mod Edit -Thomas There appears to be a language barrier issue here. I'm going to offer my translation.]

I am too stupid to read the forum guidelines.

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I bought the G4-LTA and I want to drop kick it out the door.
The remote is difficult to get to work, the quality of the recording is not good, I have two cameras hooked up, if the cameras are run into a monitor without the DVR, perfect, if they are run through the DVR, terrible. And yes, we have tried different wires.
If someone else has had good luck, my hats off to you. I bought this unit because of the good reviews, but I am one disillusioned consumer.

Hi,

I am actually a distributor for these and I must ask did you reach out to who you bought it from for support?? I have an LTA that I use for demo purposes for potential customers to log into. The reviews are good because it really is a nice DVR. Maybe I can help you resolve your issue even though you did not purchase it from me.

Thanks

Mike

Hello Again,

I am concerned that a response has not been posted nor have I received a PM.

I do not want this DVR to get a bad name when it's not deserving. Who ever it was purchased from should make good on it by either out right replacing it or issuing an RMA for it's repair.

Please either reply or send me a PM ( Private Message ). I want to help you.

Thanks

Mike