Hi,

Nice forum you folks have. Lucky that I stumbled upon it.

We are a distrubutionj company with a large warehouse. We have 32 cameras and 2 Pelco DVR's (7000 and 7100). We feel it's time to replace and upgrade the DVRs. We want remote capabilities, though not via the web but rather by IP. We want larger storage.

2 local companies have come and proposed solutions. One wants to replace the Pelco units with 2 Bosch Divar DVRs. They would have 600GB drives and DVD writer. The other company proposed Pelco 8116 with 1TB storage each + DVD writer. The Pelco seems to be PC based as the device is quite large, like our current Pelco models. The Bosch Divar's are small. The 2 systems are within a couple thousand dollars of each other but I must say they aren't cheap.

We are not really that versed in this whole DVR world, being that we are a distrbibution company so I would like some advice/guidance as to which of the above would be the best solution or is there something else that would be better.

Look forward to the replies.

Thanks

Just to add to my post, I found this interesting.

The proposed Bosch Divar's originally were quoted with 320GB drive and no writer. I asked for pricing with the larger driver (600GB) and writer and was quoted like $2500 more per DVR. Can that be right? I can buy a drive and writer at a computer store for like $200. Are thses drives some sort of special drives?

Thank

Both are good DVR's. Ask for a demo and see which unit you like working with best. At the same time size up the two dealers. A good dealer is gold. You won't want to fight to get acceptable service down the road.

I don't know what the story is about these DVR manufacturers charging big bucks for the drives, but they all seem to do it. There are drives better suited for these DVR's but I haven't noticed significant price differences. Ask your dealer about adding your own drives and let us know what they say. His answer may determine if you want to do business with him or not.

In a nutshell you should be able to add your own drives, but I don't have personal knowledge of Pelco or Bosch's warranty policies.

How's the distribution biz treating you? I have a hand in a local cookie distribution territory. The fuel prices are hurting us but cookie sales keep going up so we are still seeing rising revenues. I hope the oil prices at least level out real soon...

The two dealers are quite reputable. Actually, I believe both are owned by Stanely. One is Sonitrol, the other is Frisco Bay. Sonitrol does our security at the office/warehouse as well at our branches. Both are basically at like 20K for 2 DVR's installed, etc. That seems pricy, though what do I know. I'm in Canada where everything seems pricy. Our two biggest issues witht he current setup is no remote capability and if I have to go and make a video clip of something the sofware is crap. Takes over my whole computer and when finished I need to reboot. I'm also lead to believe picture quality will be better with the new DVR's.

Frisco Bay offered to let us go see and demo their solution. Sonitrol hasn't but I'm sure they would if we asked.

I'm in the IT department. Biz is busy like usual. We're in plumbing/heating, etc. Lot's of contructing going on. You'd think heating would be slow at this time of year but it's not. I guess they use the summertime to repair/replace for the coming cold season.


Thanks

I'll let someone from Canada chime in about that pricing. I would demo both units and base my decision on that.

Good luck!

With the strength of the Canadian Dollar you would think prices would be somewhat comparable. When our dollar was worth like 40% less I could almost understand the descrepancy.

Being an IT guy you could probably source and install the new DVR's yourself. The biggest hurdles I can think of would be if you are currently using PTZ's or alarm outputs/relays.

But be warned there is a learning curve to optimize the systems and after considering the value of your time any savings may be a wash when all is said and done.

I don't really have the time to learn. If the quotes would have come in at what we think is reasonable we wouldn't really be looking further. We'd demo both and see which we like best. At 10k+ per DVR we were caught off guard. It seem pricey but I don't know.

The current system was in place before I and the ops manager were here. The company that was servicing them is no longer in business. Sonitrol does our alarm/security so that is why we contacted them and someone turned us towards Frisco Bay so that is why we had them quote. Its possible these prices are reasonable. I'm sure both are good devices. Are there better, and for less. Hmm...............

Hopefully a fellow Canadian will chime in here :)

Thanks

I'm new to all this as well. I'm finding the markup on this stuff is super high. I dont see the value with some of these security companys? They charge double or triple for the units and if you have a problem a few years down the road, they come out and charge you again! A real racket(IMO).

I've been messing around with a few DVR's and I'm finding the G4-RTA-D1 to be avery good value. I just did an install of an 8 ch for a friend and it looks great and has a simple gui interface.

A couple of 16 ch RTA/D1's would run you about $5000. and there real good about returns if your not happy.

http://www.intellicamusa.com/product_info.php?products_id=100


my $0.2

$20,000 for 2 DVRs?? Seems more then a little bit pricey.

Seems a little bit on the high side.

What frame rate and at what resolution do you need to record in?

Can you please explain what you meant here: "We want remote capabilities, though not via the web but rather by IP." Do you just mean you want to access it on your LAN?

How many days are you looking to record for?

Also, what type of cameras do you currently have and when where they installed. Remember, garbage in - garbage out, if your cameras are sub-par then your probably not going to increase picture quality by switching out your DVR's.

LOL!

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=83404#83404

Ok, I wish I had answers to your questions :?

Frame rate and resolution: Not sure what we get now. How do I go about checking? What should we be aiming for?

Remote: Rather than visiting a website we would want the few users we allow to connect via IP. Requiring those with access to be connected via VPN.

Recording days: I'd say maybe a month. Is that realistic?

Cameras: Don't have much info other than they are Pelco Dome cameras of some sort. They been here for like 5 years. We just had them serviced. They are all clean and some had power supplies replaced. The company that did the servicing (Frisco Bay) says they are good cameras and that new DVR will help in getting us better picture quality. I figure they must be good otherwise they would have tried to sell us new cameras as well. I guess we'll find out

Hope this helps.

Thanks

The RTA/D1 looks intersting. I'm certainly liking it price wise. Can I find this in Canada is another question.

Again, I'm hoping a fellow Canadian chimes in :)

I've done a bunch of research in the last month and the RTAD1 that I helped my friend install in his complex looks fantastic! I had a non D1 4 ch the the D1 series looks much better. In fact it was hard to tell weather you were watching the live view or recorded view. For the money, I really can see anything else blowing it out of the water.


I dont see why Canada would be an issue.

Can someone tell me why they say that it can record in 4CIF and the next sentence they say it´s D1?
("It rivals over its predecessor (RTA) with double the recording resolution at full D1")
Not a huge difference but still not the same. And the name of the DVR includes D1.

D1 = 704x480 in the ntsc video standard. 720x480 = the ntsc DVD video standard.

So the RTA/D1 will playback 30 fps D1 on all ch.

[quote="BennyBoy"]

D1 = 704x480 in the ntsc video standard. 720x480 = the ntsc DVD video standard.

quote]

Can you tell me please where in NTSC standard it says 704x480 ?
Thanks

just don't assume it's d1 on all channels ...AT THE SAME TIME...

in this case it supposably is. I do not have personal experience with it. but bad experienes with other DVRs

So a third company came and quoted. They are like 1/3 of the price of the other two. This quote is using Speco DVR's. http://www.specotech.com/cart/products/downloads/specs/tnseries0508.pdf

Time for some more reading.

After some reading I'm not sure Speco is the way to go. Though the price is right :)

The Nuvico Apex AP-D1600 Series looks interesting.

We just previewed the Apex from Nuvico and they are very nice units and they have a pretty good support team too!

I hope someone in Canada carries these so I can go see one in person. I've sent them an email asking if there is a Canadian reseller.

So we had a demo of the Nuvico AP-D1600 last week. It was done at our ofice, connected to our camera. Demo went well. Picture quality is much improved over that of our old Pelco 7000. Seems pretty easy to use, etc.

We like that it came with 1TB storage with room for 3 more TB drives. We have yet to demo the newer Pelco (8100) or Bosch Divar. Hopefully we can get them to demo using our camera's. Even then, with the price they want to charge it may be difficult for them to get our business.

Not fond of the speco line.

Wording is tricky. What is not said in ad is very important. watch the specifics, data, and try to pin them down to terms before purchasing.
Know the terminology before buying from any vendor salesman because they are not going to help you out by pointing out product weaknesses.
forum members are excluded from last statement.
Just my two cents.

Nuvico is also bringing the Apex line out with a 32 channel, and the extra storage server that you can add is awesome. :D

My recommendation would be Nuvico, though I guess I should wait until demo'ng the others. I just can't see paying twice the price, if not more, for the Bosch or Pelco.

We are thinking about getting 2x 32ch's as opposed to 2x 16ch's as we may be addding on to our building. My thinking is to take 16 camera's from each building (old and new) and run those into one dvr and take the other reamining cameras and input into the other dvr. If one DVR goes down for any reason we'd still have 16 camera's in each building recording.