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Hi all, VCA seems to be more reliable than Motion Detection - my unit can support all channel VCA (with Enhanced VCA mode enabled). Is there any drawbacks to disabling motion detection and solely relying on VCA?

This is something I've been looking for ... but it's discontinued

Without an NVR, it will be harder to search your video files as there will be nothing to categorize / log events. But you maybe fine with a combination of in camera notifications and/or viewing the files manually on the NAS.

If all the boxes are local, you can use a HDMI / VGA quad multi-viewer. See here for example: Otherwise if the boxes are remote, you'll need to use CMS/network streams, but with several DVRs / channels it can be a lot of bandwidth and/or require a powerful PC to process all the channels.

Hi all, Is anyone familiar with Swann's AHD 3MP True Detect Cameras? http://www.swann.com/us/swpro-3mpmsdpk2 These new cameras have a PIR sensor built in for better detection. I have a HikVision AHD compatible recorder, but I think only at 1080P. Does anyone know if AHD has backwards compatibility for lower resolutions - i.e. can I use a 3MP AHD camera w/ a 1080P AHD recorder? Thanks.

Hi all, Anyone use UTC Coaxitron control for TVI cameras? I noticed that a couple of my cameras stopped responding to PTZ menu commands with a particular 12V 5A power supply I was using. Incidentally the AC/DC adapter had a 3-prong grounded cable. All my other AD/DC power supplies are 2 prong only and UTC PTZ control works fine. Replacing the 3-pronged power supply with a 2 prong one resolved the issue. Very odd - anyone have this problem with UTC control? Picture is fine - it's only remote OSD control that was affected by the PSU.

1. Setup No-IP configuration settings on the DVR. 2. Static port forward the services ports listed on the Ports screen on your Router to your DVR. If you don't know how to port forward, HikVision DVRs also support uPNP mapping which will automatically update your router with the appropriate ports, but I find this to be unreliable as the DVR may not detect a dropped uPNP mapping (i.e. you've rebooted your router).

Hi all, I recently purchased a HikVision DS-7216HUHI-F2/N Turbo HD DVR and I find that it is lacking many basic functions: 1. I can configure the multi-screen output, but I cannot keep a camera static. i.e. in 7+1 output, I like to keep the "main door" camera static in the top right big box. The DVR seems to only allow the camera to exist on 1 page only? 2. When HDMI is enabled, the Main CVBS output layout cannot be configured? 3. Web Interface event searching is very limited - this seems to be a known issue and somewhat fixed in the 3.81 firmware... but still lacking in comparison to the cheap OEM DVRs I used to use! Anyone know if there is a workaround for 1 and 2? Thanks!

Hello Everyone, I recently had a set of HD-TVI cameras upgraded, but the image quality on a few of them is awful... there are diagonal lines across the picture. Attached is a small snippet of the video - but you can clearly see the lines. Is this a problem with the camera, interference, or a ground loop problem? Has anyone seen a similar issue with TVI cameras? Thanks.

Hello Everyone, I'm getting some cameras upgraded, it seems that the new Matrix Turrent Cameras are much better than older dome cameras - is there any reason to choose a dome over a Matrix camera anymore? These cameras will be outdoors, in a residential setting, and must withstand the Canadian Winter / Summers. Based on all things equal, which would you choose? Thanks.

Hello Everyone, I hoping someone will recognize this unit. I recently purchased at 16CH 480X480FPS H.264 DVR. It is a N-Patrol branded DVR. However, the included firmware has a couple issues and I would like to get updated firmware. The most major is that the web GUI does not work correct in IE on Windows 7 64-bit; it crashes... The unit is currently running the following firmware: DVR Model : 16CH / 480FPS WEB Version : WEB_v1.74_1.2.1.1_101020 This unit seems to be quite common, it is branded under multiple names: N-Patrol DX-1612, OTM-1638, Hunt HSR-T16M. Derivatives of the unit seem to be made by Digimerge (DHU600 OMNI), iDVR Pro, Vitek EH Series, Honeyell, Samsung and several other manufacturers. A couple common features of this unit are: DVR Ports: HTTP: 8080 / RTSP: 554 Username: ADMIN Password: 1234 Anyone recognize the unit? Does anyone know where I can get firmware for my unit? The Web GUI looks like this:

Turns out my problem was VirtualBox, the video driver doesn't have video overlay support and therefore caused the ActiveX control to crash. But nevertheless, N-Patrol hasn't responded to my e-mail. So much for customer satisfaction and support as stated on their site.

Great idea, this unit could use better, bug free firmware. I did find a couple interesting things: Bugzilla site for the developer of the firmware Developer FTP site Let me know if you want these details.

The new Bubo Bubo app is much better than ScDVR: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bubo-bubo/id405224089?mt=8 In the future, check this thread for software updates for your DVR: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22086

New DVR viewing application: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/bubo-bubo/id405224089?mt=8 Much better than ScDVR.

Green, Blue, and Black drives are only rated for RAID 0/1 and work equally as well. Were you having trouble with a Green drive? For enterprise RAID, WD only supports their RE line... which are much more expensive and supposedly more reliable.

Green drives are plenty fast and give off less heat (about 20% cooler) making them more suited for the confined spaces of a DVR. However, Black Drives do have a 5 year limited warranty vs 3 years for the Green drives. In the end, I think it's just the luck of the draw

Turns out the casing wasn't tight enough against the camera.

Hi all, One of my cameras have a "port hole" effect (notice the vignetting on the sides of the photo). Is this due to the lens being the wrong size for the camera? The camera is a dome type with a 1/3" Sony CCD. Will any M12 type lens fit into the camera or are cameras fussy about the size of the lens? Thanks.

I noticed that too - I have the same unit as above in the screen shot and it seems to be sold by 30 - 40 different vendors, all with different prices. Some vendors include iCatch, Rayvision, AmbeaTech, iTechView, SecuSafe, ArcVision, KPF, etc. All units share the same firmware! Only difference is the case layout, number of hard drives, and outputs.

Anyone have a problem with an iCatch / Rayvision x11 recorder that stops recording randomly? I mean this is a DVR - it's supposed to record reliably right? I'm running the x11b92 firmware.

Replaced the Seagate drive with a Western Digital Caviar Blue, now the unit works great.

Hi all, Just got an iCatch x11 DVR; most of the features seem to work great except for e-mail notification. I can't seem to get the unit to send out an e-mail even though I've configured all the settings. In fact, I've put a sniffer on the LAN port and it does not seem to send out e-mails when motion is triggered. So how do I get e-mail notification to work? Do e-mails get sent out immediately, or are they processed at a later time? I've also upgraded to the b92 firmware but it has not resolved the issue. Thanks.

Thanks Roula, I really appreciate how you post the firmware on US Security Solution's website - it's good to see a company support its customers.

With port 465. the DVR is still sending email messages without the TO address set. Are you guys sending alerts to a different e-mail than the one listed as sender? I have 4 notifications addresses setup, but none are getting notified (except the sender address). Here is the exact e-mail to Google: Return-Path: <john.doe@gmail.com> Received: from localhost (CPE000000000000-CM000000000000.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id l13sm3376045qck.19.2010.10.02.18.02.52 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Sat, 02 Oct 2010 18:02:52 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4ca7d63c.8d4ee50a.59c8.7f97@mx.google.com> Subject: message from H264 DVR Richmond Hill From: john.doe@gmail.com Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2010 01:02:51 +0000 X-Mailer: @(#) mailsend v1.15b5 (Unix) X-Copyright: GNU GPL. It is illegal to use this software for Spamming Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="/nA+P3CRl4zdOofv" Mime-version: 1.0 --/nA+P3CRl4zdOofv Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline DVR IP: http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx [2010/10/02 21:02:40]admin login from 192.168.1.114 --/nA+P3CRl4zdOofv--