Hello,
Brand new and 1st post here.
Wound up hastily installing a CCTV system around my house as primarily a visible theft deterrent after a rash of break-ins recently. 3 in the last month to be exact....
After my own house was witnessed being 'cased' last Friday, in a bit of a panicked rush, I went to BestBuy the next morning and picked up a Swann HD system with the DVR8-4500 and 8 SWPRO855 cameras and spent the day installing.
Images seem very clear and bright during daytime. Nighttime is... meh.. OK-ish I guess, I can make plenty stuff out, but the 100ft vis is grossly overstated.
The DVR software feels crude and clunky at best, but then again I'm not trying to keep tabs on a Vegas casino with it either so it is what it is.
In short it records video which I can view from my phone, and the ubiquitous white cameras around provide a visual deterrent.
So... now that everything is installed, I decided to do some after-the-fact homework searching for my buyer's remorse... But in spite of all the trashing the Swann name seems to get on this forum, I think I may have found a bright spot.
It would appear that the cameras that came with the system (Swann SWPROT855s) are actually re-branded Hikvision DS-2CE16D1T-IRs.
I don't know if that's a good or bad thing other than to say that Hikvision seems to be fairly well regarded (at least around here).
I just thought this was an interesting find.
Hopefully they'll last more than a year or two without the color washing out too bad...
Swann:
Hikvision:
-AdamInAZ
