Up close you are able to get a good look at the face. I may not be able to make out the person's face from far away but if you're using it to alarm you by email when motion is detected that someone is creeping around your back yard this works well. Once I tested it somewhere else I was able to see much further. I realized that the column on the front porch was capturing the light and not allowing me to see anything past that. Post up some nighttime pictures, lets see what good image quality looks like.ĮDIT- I was testing the camera by putting it in a chair and pointing it out of my window. Use better quality cameras and the resulting video may surprise you. The point I'm getting at is that you can get one of the inexpensive DVRs, but forget about the cheap bundled cameras. I placed one camera above the register and the denominations of the bills can be seen. I ended up swapping out all the cameras and now he can actually get a good description of someone if an incident happens. I had a CNB DFL-20S camera in my car and as a test I replaced one of the bullet cams. I reviewed day and night video - both were terrible. I tried fixing it with brightness & contrast settings, but no luck. I was wearing a blue shirt which appeared purple on video and was washed out, like the brightness was too high. The colors on live and recorded video were way off. It was some sort of no name DVR with inexpensive cameras - they looked the same as the QSee and Night Owl bullet cameras bundled with their cheap packages, but without any markings and the DVR had the same firmware as the QSee systems I purchased. Recently I was fixing a point of sale computer in a small restaurant and happened to look at the DVR. The DVR itself is sorely lacking in features, but the recorded video quality is actually very good. I went ahead and picked up a couple of $100 4 channel QSee DVRs, installed a hard drive and connected CNB DFL-20S cameras. I figured anything was better than the VCRs. There was very little budget for DVR and camera equipment, but the VCRs had to be replaced. Now, I'd just like to give a couple examples on my experiences with these cheap DVRs.Ī couple years ago a client had some time lapse VCRs in a couple locations. I haven't seen Swann or Lorex though, so I can't comment on those. I can't prove it, just a feeling when I see the same firmware in different wrappings. I always thought of them as marketing companies that buy equipment from the same manufacturer and package it differently. I've seen QSee and Night Owl DVRs with the same firmware. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of stuff is the same gear by the same manufacturers sold under different names. Rather than a bundle of underperforming pieces, you'd be better off to put more toward a good recorder and one or two decent cameras, and then add more cameras as budget allows. They cool to play with, but without a live operator, they don't give you a lot of benefit. Why do you want PTZ controls - do you have a PTZ now? If not, and you're planning to get one, you'd be better off to put that money toward a better DVR and save the PTZ for somewhere down the road. You may not want to hear it, but the fact is, yes, they're ALL bottom of the barrel, which is why they all cost about the same. On that scale, Lorex would be a blue bike, Swann would be a red bike, Night Owl is a white bike, and the Q-See at least still has both wheels. I usually say that if CCTV equipment runs the range from a Kia to a Ferrari, Lorex would be a broken, rusty bicycle, missing one wheel, left to rot in a ditch. I just need to understand how they compare to each other. Please don't say they're all trash, as those are the only ones on the shelf at my budget. Now the question is, how are the following brands ranked for quality or reliability or performance? I suppose it's mostly about the DVR. Ideally I can connect two displays to the DVR. They all boast H.264 compression, remote monitoring via mobile device, motion-detect recording, support for PTZ controls and roughly a 500GB hard drive. So these systems are all basically a bundled DVR, 4 IR outdoors cams and associated wiring. I already have two existing installed cams and a dedicated flatscreen display (one cam is not connected). I'm looking at purchasing a low-end 4-cam bundled surveillance system that's expandable to 8 cams. I've also browsed a few discussions here not finding the info. There seems no other place with the info or reviews I need.
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