In fairness to the product, this is the very first review that I've re-written from scratch. Part of the reasoning is due to the fact that it's the first experience I've had with this type of product. Moreover, I've had a bit of time to utilize the item to give a better evaluation. Please note that my reviews are quite critical, so please accept that fact from this point forward.Being my very first Surveillance DVR, I found it difficult to review. Was it easier to utilize than others, or harder? Was it "better" in some way or worse? Without a baseline to compare against, it makes a review like this tough. However, my goal here is to aid future buyers, so I'll proceed the best I can.
The particular model I purchased is a "4 Channel", meaning that it can record up to 4 camera's at the same time. This is not good or bad, simply a purchasing choice. I'm certain I won't need more than 4 cameras, so it's a perfect selection for me. However you may need a higher-end model that supports 8 or more camera's...your mileage may vary.
Normally, I like the "pros" and "cons" type of review, but I'm finding it extremely difficult to list these attributes in such black and white, but I'll do my best. Here we go:
PROS:
Supports three (yea, read that right THREE) different outputs for your primary monitor; analog (A/V) RCA, RGB (computer monitor), HDMI (High Definition TV/Monitor). Honestly, this was a deal *maker* for me, because I wanted to connect it to my HDMI TV for quality viewing on all 4 camera's at one time. It was hard for me to find a comparable product.
Provides what the seller calls a "Spot Output", which is a separate analog (A/V) RCA output for a monitor to do as you wish; display a 'primary' camera, display a quad view, or sequence through all 4 cameras. Again, this was a selling point (admittedly after the fact) because I do indeed have a separate analog monitor on 24/7, and I want it to view only one specific camera. This product allowed me to do so perfectly.
This DVR proclaims (and in fact does) record all 4 channels simultaneously, which I can attest is accurate. I'm not sure what other DVR's do if they *don't* do this, but the seller's claim is accurate.
The ability to export either a frame or a specific time-span recorded to a USB device is quite nice (and really cool). I can export a snapshot of a frame to my USB-compatible cellphone and text or email the picture to someone. Whoa! That is *really* cool!
VERY GOOD CUSTOMER SUPPORT! You get to talk to a real person who generally is very knowledgeable about the product. I say "generally" because I asked one tech guy to tell me if there was a way to expand the timeline when playing back video recorded, and he said "no". He was wrong; you can click on the "24Hr" icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen and choose between a very nice set of expanded choices.
CONS:
The really lousy ability of this DVR to playback in reverse is astounding. It's hard to explain, but the best I can say is that it plays backwards at one-and-three-quarters-frames-per-second, meaning that when you hit rewind, it shows a jumpy image with large gaps that you can't freeze (and capture) until you play it forward at regular speed.
This purchased included a 500gb drive. Shame on the seller for not offering a terabyte drive like other sellers!
Though included, the remote control serves very well as a drink coaster or a paperweight; useless. Heck, why not throw in a keyring?
The user interface is kludgey and nonsensical. For example, if I need to take a screen snapshot of a frame of video that I'm watching, first I must pause, then expand to full-screen {very delicate double-click}, move my mouse down to the bottom so the pop-up menu shows, and then click on the camera icon. Why not just ask me to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time?
My system crashed in a horrible way just prior to this review. I had it set to "Motion Detect" with "Alarm" (i.e. internal beeper) when someone enters the property I live. When someone pulled in just a few minutes ago, the system started beeping and wouldn't stop. Had to unplug the unit which makes me VERY uncomfortable. NOTE: Have since tested this arrangement several times since this failure without problems.
Responds erratically to the same remote as your LG TV
Honestly? This system is really hard to gauge. The customer support is fantastic, and even the built-in software function to export video to a USB thumb drive includes a ASF player! On the other hand, one could argue that this is a negative, as one cannot say in every case they want a Window's executable stored on their hardware for every video dump. The best example of this is the ability to copy still images to your USB compatible cellphone (which I've tried and works fantastic). But I'm not willing to dump an ASF file to my phone, because I don't know what this DVR will do to the phone directory structure, particularly related to plopping down an EXE and some DLL's.
For the first time in all of my reviews, I'm going to leave this one open to a total re-write (as I've done here), so that the product can be assessed in the most accurate way it can be.
I find myself in a quandary as to the number of stars to give. It's nowhere near a one or two, because it's too damn nice. But it's not a five either, because of the cons I mentioned above. Maybe a four? Well, that's hard to sell (to me) because this DVR responds to the same infrared (IR) remote control signals as my LG 42" 3-D LED TV. What the heck? They can't choose another remote sequence that doesn't conflict with a modern TV??? It wouldn't be so bad except that there's no rhyme or reason between the TV function of "Up Channel" and the DVR response of "Quad View".
As of now, I'm keeping it mostly because of the HDMI output capability...but that's rather thin...
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