My main gripe with this unit is that configuration settings are not retained when power is lost. The product brochure is misleading as is says that "recording continues if interrupted by a power loss", but it fails to mention that all settings will revert to the default values (record continuously, "normal" video quality, default frame rate, record from all 4 inputs, motion sensor disabled, default 24-hour recording schedule, etc.) Other than the recordings stored on the hard disk, the only setting preserved across power cycles was the time of day. I suppose I could have added a UPS to prevent power loss, but it seems to me that Swann should have found a few bytes on the 320GB hard disk (or added a 10-cent I2C NVRAM device) to save the configuration settings. I found no firmware upgrade on the Swann website to rectify this issue.Secondly, the process to archive a video to a USB drive was unfriendly; archiving can be performed one video clip at a time, and copying occurs at the slow real-time playback rate (copying a 1-hour segment to USB will require 1 hour to copy).
Playback also defaults to showing all 4 inputs on the screen at once (even if the other 3 inputs were disabled when recorded), so if you only have one camera you must keep pressing the "camera 1" button the remote or otherwise your video playback only occupies 1/4 of the screen.
For a security DVR, I found the recording quality to be acceptable at the highest setting when viewing on a small monitor, but I would not recommend using it with a monitor larger than 25".
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