AvertX 8 and 16 Channel Professional IP System at COSTCO

Anyone have information related to these two AvertX 8 amd 16 channel professional IP security systems that are newly listed at Costco? They both host full POE ports no POE switch needed to purchase. Dome cameras are only available at this time.

8 Channel $1999.00

http://www.costco.com/AvertX-8-Channel-Professional-IP-HD-Security-System-with-2TB-Hard-Drive-and-4-1080p-IP-Cameras-.product.100021434.html

16 Channel $2999.00

http://www.costco.com/AvertX-16-Channel-Professional-IP-HD-Security-System-with-2TB-Hard-Drive-and-8-1080p-IP-Cameras-.product.100021442.html

I never heard of them, not much even by Googling, but if you go to their website, their 1080P mini domes (comperable at least in specs to the Dahua 1080P mini dome), they sell the cameras for $230 each at list price, so not sure 4 + an NVR are worth $2k. They are not day/night cameras. They are a brand name that you may not have luck with using other NVR's or NVR software.

Also, they only sell one network camera, not many choices and very limited by not have a day/night camera or one with IR illuminators.

At that price, I would guess you can get a name brand system like fom ACTi or Vivotek.

I never heard of them, not much even by Googling, but if you go to their website, their 1080P mini domes (comperable at least in specs to the Dahua 1080P mini dome), they sell the cameras for $230 each at list price, so not sure 4 + an NVR are worth $2k. They are not day/night cameras. They are a brand name that you may not have luck with using other NVR's or NVR software.

 

Also, they only sell one network camera, not many choices and very limited by not have a day/night camera or one with IR illuminators.

 

At that price, I would guess you can get a name brand system like fom ACTi or Vivotek.

buellwinkle

Thanks for the response I just wanted to share these 2 systems because everyone here seem to enjoy Costco's effortless return policy. I agree they do seem high priced and yes looks to be a fairly new company with limited camera selection.

Thank You

Chucky

8 Channel NVR: $1,500 @2TB..... But the cameras are $230 each lol

Recording Rate: 240ips @ 1080p, 720p, D1

Playback Rate: 60ips @ 1080p, 240ips @ 720p, 480ips @ D1

Does the playback rate mean you can have a split screen with each side doing 30fps but not show any other video?

What if you had 4 cameras up on a 55'' screen doing 1080p would they all be brought down to 15fps?

The price does seem a bit off doesn't it?

Does it seem off? I can get a comperable Dahua system with an 8 channel NVR and 4 1080P cameras for about $850 shipped. What advantages make this system worth $2,000?

That's been the problem with SDI cameras, the DVRs are way overpriced and can't compete with networked cameras and NVRs. If they get the price of the DVR's down to $200-300, then they may have a product.

$850 from Canada?

This is the first desktop NVR that I have seen that can do 240fps @ 1080p. The 60fps playback seems a bit on the low end.

The NVR price is ridiculous.

$850 from Canada?

I don't know any authorized Dahua resellers in Canada. I was referring to Dahua resellers in China and don't know what trade agreements exist between China and Canada. Between China and the U.S. we have free trade, there's no tarrifs, taxes, VAT or anything we have to pay outside what the seller in China is charging. I can send you contact info for a reseller in China if you want.

Thanx but I need a good warranty like Costco's lol

The 60ips playback has me stumped on this unit.

Galaxy rebrands some Dahua stuff for sale in Canada and is fairly commonly available, at least on my end of the universe. One local place was telling me that Galaxy was all Korean until I pointed out some of the Chinese stuff in their catalog. Apparently some of their other cams are some Korean flavour though.

The way the warranty works, if you have any trouble at all with your Dahua camera, any, you just throw it in the garbage and buy a new one, no questions asked.

Before anyone runs and buys that unit ......look at spec ......just not worth the money or even buying .........and yes it's a dauha

The Dahua mini-dome shape is different. I don't think it's Dahua

Looks like AvertX may be a Costco only brand.

The trademark was registered on November 13, 2012.

The domain was registered by godaddy in June 2012 (and only for 5 years!)

One question for current owners.

Can you use an alternate DDNS server if the Avertex server goes away?

Any further information on these? Did anyone buy one, if so I'd love a hands on review. I'm growing tired of the limitations of my Q-See QC-804 that Q-See's tech promised my could support 16 cameras with a PoE switch but really don't. While the $3000 price is a bit high, thinking about this with a built in 16 port PoE switch, good expansion capabilities, and 8 1080p cameras only takes it about $500 of the mark of what I'd expect to expend after all was said and done. Not too worried about the cameras not being IR as the locations I'm installing in have pretty good lighting as well as motion sensor lighting.

I was looking at these systems as well (emphasis on was). Here's some news:

"Abandonment Notice! On Wednesday, February 20, 2013, status on the AVERTX trademark changed to ABANDONED - AFTER PUBLICATION."

https://www.trademarkia.com/avertx-85724765.html

Interesting. That sure brings up a list of questions. Looks like they have the HDIP logo still (https://www.trademarkia.com/company-pc-open-inc-3560836-page-1-2), I wonder if they were a one shot product attempt at Costco, or if there is something else going on with them. I notice that with all the time they've been for sale on Costco's site, only one review for the 8 channel system. http://www.costco.com/AvertX-8-Channel-Professional-IP-HD-Security-System-with-2TB-Hard-Drive-and-4-1080p-IP-Cameras-.product.100021434.html#BVRRWidgetID

Someone suggested this was a Costco branded system, like a "Kirkland Security System" if you will.. But it doesn't look like "PC Open INC. company is anything tied to them. Notice the OpenEye logo on that link above? http://www.openeye.net/products/recorders/n-series

So the mystery is, was AvertX a temporary attempt at a product name, or did they just go in a different direction (or fail?)

First post here and by no means an expert at this stuff. I have an older analog D1 system and this is my first venture into an IP system. I'll do my best to provide my observations but I may not have all the terminology correct as I'm still learning.

I purchased the 16 channel system from Costco online and have set up the 8 cameras that are included in the system. Overall I'm satisfied with the system but it definitely has some room for improvement.

The look and feel of the NVR is nice and conveys the feel of a quality product with the exception of the network cable connection area. The metal feels a little loose and flimsy, similar to PC towers that sometimes have a flimsy insert for the usb/audio/etc. I have had no issues with it, but it doesn't seem quite as solid as it should be. The connections are straightforward and relatively easy to manage. I was a little concerned about noise when I saw 3 fans (2 side, 1 rear) but they are pretty quiet and provide decent airflow.

The included cameras are ideal for ceiling mounting, but not so good for mounting on a wall as you can't really tilt the view sideways without shimming the back of the dome. There are 2 tilt adjustments (up/down ~45* and side to side ~90*) that make ceiling mounting easy.

There is some conflicting info out there about audio on these cameras. On the AvertX site, the manual says it has one way audio. but my cameras do not have the 3 holes like the pics on the Avertx site and I can not get any audio to work.

I have 4 cameras inside the house (wife needs to monitor sick pets) 1 in the garage, and 3 outside (more on the way). The image quality is very good during the day and with any amount of usable interior lighting. Color is very good and the cam stays in color mode with much lower light than I expected. Low light performance is a bit more challenging since there is no IR projection from these cams. I mounted one near a very low wattage porch light and it does very well. The cams mounted in areas that get very dark have had some trouble and cycle between trying to let in more light and suddenly going very dark as it senses that it went too far. I'm playing with some IR illuminators and think that will resolve it.

The Web interface uses ActiveX so it looks like I'm stuck using I.E. (or Chrome with I.E. extensions). The interface works great but needs some more development. You can't re-order channels and move camera frames around at all. You have a 4 way, 9 way, and 16 way window to work with but no customization. The overall feel is that the live viewer is more of a beta product.

A couple of chats with Tech support have me impressed. While I didn't ask where they were based, it was obviously a US operation with clear understandable English speaking staff that didn't treat me like an idiot. I bought the system knowing that it was from a new company with a new product. I expected some issues and indeed there are a few to work out. Talking with support, I do believe that they are actively working on them and I'm ok with that.

Would I recommend this system? For commercial property with some lighting - Definitely. For home use I'm a little more reserved because of low light performance, but in fairness I'm not using their IR cameras either. AvertX says that they will be pushing out a 2-pack of their IR cameras to Costco and I'll be trying those out as soon as they do.

tl;dr Decent system that works well but needs a little development time.

Hey thanks for the well thought out and thorough review. If you can, take some pics of the various configuration screens and camera views and post them. Glad to see that it still sounds like the company (even with no protecting their trademark name?) is possibly going to stick around. The more competition for consumer grade IP cameras available via the bulk sellers like Costco the better IMO. I've got lots of clients and sites waiting for prices to drop on 8+ High Def IP camera systems and really hoping to see Q-See and others boost their total FPS processing capability so all the 1080p cameras can display at true 30FPS. Dividing 120FPS over 16 cameras is just lame.

From my posts I've made discussing the Q-See systems:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=33196

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=33075

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32554

You'll note that I am one of those users who doesn't much use the PC software/web browser to access some of my installs. I take the 1080p HDMI port on the NVR and feed it into a HDMI switch then feed it around to 32"+ monitors around the site for a good clean live feed. It really looks great that way and you don't have to have a PC or device burning thru CPU to decode the (slightly) delayed stream. For one install, I'm even working on taking the trigger alarm output to turn on the monitors at the location when there is activity.

Which brings me to one more feature request for all DVR's. It would be very cool if they used the ability of VGA/HDMI to go into sleep mode (like when your PC shuts off your monitor until you move the mouse) when there is no activity, then awake based on activity as well as day/night timers.

Hey thanks for the well thought out and thorough review. If you can, take some pics of the various configuration screens and camera views and post them.

It looks like I may have to get my post count up here a little before I can post pictures. I'm not sure as I did not see anything specific about it in the site rules, but I can't seem to find a way to upload here or make a link work (yet). I'll dig into it some more this weekend. Until then here is a little update.

I'm happy to see that the odd nighttime behavior is gone after a couple days of use. The cameras seem to have somehow adjusted themselves as I have not done anything different and they no longer pulse at all. This has helped my confidence in the system as I really wasn't sure that I could deal with the cycling light/dark/light constant adjustment.

So far my dealings with tech support have been responsive and show a true interest in my comments. I know that cleaning up the programming isn't going to happen overnight, but it does sound like like they are working on it.

The menus on the cameras are good and work well. There are also web based menus on the NVR that have some little bugs (i.e. sometimes registering a double click when just single clicking) but nothing that stopped me from getting the settings that I was looking for. Switching from page to page or cam screen to screen has a little lag that I was not used to with my analog system, but the higher res is definitely worth the 1/2 sec wait.

I played around with a couple $15 Amazon IR illuminators and found that the cameras picked up the IR lighting well, so dark spots will no longer be a problem for me. My biggest issue is still one that will likely be fixed soon.... I can't configure the 4/9/16 views at all beyond the default camera number order.

I'm interested in setting up the triggers as you mentioned, but need to do some more learning on what all I can do with them and how to actually do it.

I guess the "proof in the pudding" as they say, in regards to if AvertX will stick around and become a major player in the IP cam / NVR world is if we see firmware updates and decent response times to fixing bugs (even when they aren't reported). I hope they stick around and keep releasing interoperable product lines and the prices drop on Costco's site. I may give them some consideration in a year or so if they show to be a solid company and keep releasing software upgrades to not just the NVR, but also the PC/Android/iPhone apps.

Question for you Sloride: Does the web interface require a plugin? If so, do they have plugins for IE/Firefox/Chrome etc? Would be really cool if they adopted HTML5 so it was universal.

Tip to AvertX, assign an official representative to monitor forums such as this to answer questions. You'll likely get more sales showing a public response to these discussions.

(I'll email their support and tell them of this forum)

I guess the "proof in the pudding" as they say, in regards to if AvertX will stick around and become a major player in the IP cam / NVR world is if we see firmware updates and decent response times to fixing bugs (even when they aren't reported). I hope they stick around and keep releasing interoperable product lines and the prices drop on Costco's site. I may give them some consideration in a year or so if they show to be a solid company and keep releasing software upgrades to not just the NVR, but also the PC/Android/iPhone apps.

 

Question for you Sloride: Does the web interface require a plugin? If so, do they have plugins for IE/Firefox/Chrome etc? Would be really cool if they adopted HTML5 so it was universal.

 

Tip to AvertX, assign an official representative to monitor forums such as this to answer questions. You'll likely get more sales showing a public response to these discussions.

(I'll email their support and tell them of this forum)

The web interface requires an ActiveX plugin so it works natively with I.E. I use Chrome and with the Chrome I.E. extension it works fine.

I too hope that they succeed. To me, having a U.S. based company with real tech support is worth a few extra dollars and patience with some growing pains. Of course if the updates don't come along soon (as their material says it will), I can see that people will lose patience with the product at that price.

After doing some research, I believe AvertX is a new brand from PC Open. They have an existing brand OpenEye. They probably had to create a new brand because of their dealers. Wouldn't like knowing they are sell cheaper NVR's to Costco. Haven't heard a lot about OpenEye brands but they seem to be around for awhile so they must be doing good.

I use an openeye dvr at work. Good product. They actively support it with firmware updates. That's about all I know. I'm surprised they'd be behind anything that wasn't labeled onpeneye.

I really dont like vendors who try to build a dealer and distribution channel, then go and try to undercut them by creating a new brand with the same products and selling direct. Digiop does this with their online and catalog companies and now it looks like PC OPEN/ Open Eye is as well. I also find it funny that on the Avertx site you cant find a single address or phone #.

There is a right way and a wrong way to have a multichannel sales network and many vendors it looks like choose the wrong way with hopes of fast profit.