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raiderxx

Completely new to this: Just got a camera, do I need a DVR?

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Hi everyone! So the past few weeks I have been playing around with using two old cell phones as IP cameras. I have been able to access them from my cell phone and I have really had fun setting them up.

 

But I just found a Q-See QD28414 at a garage sale and grabbed it. Now, my question is, do I NEED to attach it to a $200+ DVR? Is there any adapter I can use to attach it directly to my pc via video card or TV tuner? I am just trying to avoid buying an expensive box if I can attach this camera somehow else.

 

My overall goal is to somehow get this connected to the internet so I can view it with my two cell phone IP cameras.

 

Thanks for any help or advice!

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A DVR is just needed if you want to record what it being seen through the camera. If the output is composite through a BNC you can just get an BNC to RCA adapter and hook it up to your TV and have a picture to the TV but it will only be live video feed since nothing is being recorded.

 

A cheap D1 DVR by itself is not much. At Microcenter you can purchase a 4 channel DVR for about $70 and add in a hard drive to store the video feed for about another $50 for a 500GB drive which could store over a month's worth of video from a single camera. I bet they are even cheaper online considering I see a whole kit with DVR and 4 Cameras with all the wiring for about $120 on eBay and a hard drive is just another $50 or so depending on how much storage you want.

 

Most of the newer DVR's will also allow motion detection features and network connected features to view over the internet.

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A DVR is just needed if you want to record what it being seen through the camera. If the output is composite through a BNC you can just get an BNC to RCA adapter and hook it up to your TV and have a picture to the TV but it will only be live video feed since nothing is being recorded.

 

A cheap D1 DVR by itself is not much. At Microcenter you can purchase a 4 channel DVR for about $70 and add in a hard drive to store the video feed for about another $50 for a 500GB drive which could store over a month's worth of video from a single camera. I bet they are even cheaper online considering I see a whole kit with DVR and 4 Cameras with all the wiring for about $120 on eBay and a hard drive is just another $50 or so depending on how much storage you want.

 

Most of the newer DVR's will also allow motion detection features and network connected features to view over the internet.

 

I've got a VCR and some tapes I can let go cheap. I still have a few complete systems stashed I can through in cameras and all for free.

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A DVR is just needed if you want to record what it being seen through the camera. If the output is composite through a BNC you can just get an BNC to RCA adapter and hook it up to your TV and have a picture to the TV but it will only be live video feed since nothing is being recorded.

 

A cheap D1 DVR by itself is not much. At Microcenter you can purchase a 4 channel DVR for about $70 and add in a hard drive to store the video feed for about another $50 for a 500GB drive which could store over a month's worth of video from a single camera. I bet they are even cheaper online considering I see a whole kit with DVR and 4 Cameras with all the wiring for about $120 on eBay and a hard drive is just another $50 or so depending on how much storage you want.

 

Most of the newer DVR's will also allow motion detection features and network connected features to view over the internet.

 

Thanks! That answered my question. I went out and grabbed a BNC to RCA adapter (part of my problem was that I didn't know what the connector (BNC) was called at the time..

 

I also have a TV card for my pc that has an RCA input as well. I wonder if there is software that can record from that? I'm sure there is. Thanks for help!

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The internal tv tuner cards usually come with recording option. The external tv tuners dont. If your tv tuner is inside the cpu, most probably it has a built in record function.

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