This Zmodo Surveillance System works well for my needs and is also a great deal at $200 and Prime shipping (at the time of this review). To be perfectly clear, this is not a high-end system with high definition cameras, but it isn't priced like a high-end system either. This is a budget system that exceeded my expectations for what you get and how well it works. Here are my observations:Our Use We recently bought an old but very large building for my wife's business and needed a way to monitor the six exits and the retail shop space.
Included:
* Main Control Unit this is a fairly small unit (smaller than most DVD players) that is has button access for most functions
* 8-Cameras these are also fairly small, good physical quality and include mounting hardware
* USB Mouse connects to Control Unit
* Remote Control gives access to all menu functions (batteries included)
* Required Cables 60' Video/Power cables
* Power Supplies one for the Control Unit and two for the cameras (uses splitters to distribute the power between the cameras)
* Instruction Manual
* Software CD
* Hard Drive Mounting Screws (Hard Drive not included)
Features:
+ Camera; IR Illumination for night vision
+ User configurable Options; Privacy Zones (blackout areas in the display), Motion Zones (areas where motion triggers an alarm)
+ Network Access; Can be viewed on local network using Internet Explorer (required allowing ActiveX and would not work with Firefox) and remotely via a DDNS service (often an extra expense for a reliable service)
+ Alarm Notification; Audible alert and E-Mail capability
+ Display Options; Includes a VGA monitor connection and BNC/video out for TV viewing (we use Q-See QSRCBN6 6 Pack RCA-BNC Connectors)
+ Remote Control; Really makes it easy to quickly access features
Pros:
+ Setup; Basic configuration is surprisingly easy
+ Image Quality; Good enough for basic security needs in both bright and dark settings (but see "Cons" below)
+ Value; Lots of cameras and features at a reasonable cost
+ Options; Can be made to do everything we need it to do
Cons:
No Hard Drive; Can use external USB drive or add your own Hard Drive to add recording capabilities (we installed Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD5000AAKX in less than ten minutes)
Washed Out Colors; Colors are somewhat muted, but can be individually adjusted in the controls to get the best possible picture for the lighting conditions
Night Vision; Limited range, less than 20'
Hints/Notes:
* With the Hard Drive installed, Alarmed Events can be recorded and searched on later
* A 500GB Hard Drive can record 168 hours of video (according to the manual)
* Placing a camera too close to a window will cause the IR to reflect and blind the camera when it shifts into night vision mode
* Display can be set to show 1, 4, or 8 video feeds at a time
This system covered my needs very well and provides a lot of advanced features that were unexpected in a budget system.
Highly Recommended!
CFH
You get 8 cameras. Daytime range and color is good. IR range at night is pretty limited, maybe 20 feet. If you are just covering a door or hallway it works pretty well. I have one in the garage and you couldn't see much of anything at night without an extra illuminator and a couple more outside for the driveway and yard area and they are completely useless at night. Probably need to supplement with a motion light or some other means.
The DVR comes without a HD. I added a 500GB, which was a simple task. The user interface is adequate and simple enough to figure out. There are two BNC type video outputs. I got some adapter plugs from Monoprice to convert to a RCA type plug so I could plug into a TV input. It also comes with software that you can install on your computer to monitor the DVR remotely over your home network. That works really nice and lets you make all the adjustments to the DVR settings from any networked computer without having to be connected directly to the DVR (except for the first time setup of course). Not much for instructions on how to use the s/w though, so you have to wing it on your own.
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Purchased this system DVR works great easy to set up, cameras are poor quailty, colors are way off If you expect correct color get different cameras. green looks pink. Called their customer support after 15 minutes on hold I was told this model camera is a texture and not color they are what you get Was told if I want better color I need to upgrade cameras.I own five Zmodo units working in different buildings for 2+ years, so after one of my evicted tenants decided to steal it, this was the best price I could find. After we tried to install two different hard drives (WD and Seagate, both 500GB), we discovered that this particular DVR model (D9108BH) has one fatal flaw: it doesn't recognize a hard drive after a hard restart. Apparently, when a power is lost during HDD writing operations, the file system is messed up to such a degree that the operating system is incapable of dealing with this mess. Power goes down every week in S. Florida, so we cannot afford to dismantle the unit and reformat the hard drive in a computer every time it happens. We returned it.Some thoughts to share with those who may consider purchasing a similar system:
1) As far as my experience with other, older units is concerned: they need to be connected via a surge protector because otherwise they die very quickly, being very sensitive to voltage fluctuations. We have them all hooked via UPS, so a thief wouldn't benefit from a simple act of switching the power off.
2) Cameras have a random short life, and the quality of picture deteriorates significantly in the first two months (which you discover when you replace those which died, and compare pictures from new and old cameras). We have to replace 10% of cameras every year.
3) Cables are of poor quality, they need to be tested before installation and treated like a rotten egg during installation. Make sure you install them in the right direction check the power plugs before you install, they are different on two sides! Don't cover them until the system is tested, because at the end there is always at least one cable that doesn't work and needs to be re-wired. The connectors are prone to corrosion, and they loose electrical connection in a matter of months, so most service calls boil down to cleaning the cable connections.
4) The setup of the DVR unit is as counter-intuitive as it gets. What we normally need is a silent system that would record video for several seconds from those cameras which detected motion, while watching all the time. Sounds simple? You won't find it in the manual, and it's not the default configuration in most of these units. Some settings overlap in different menus of the setup, and you never know which one overrides the other.
5) Manuals are seldom pertinent to the model they came with, and they don't address the normal setup issues we normally see.
6) Sound. We hide the DVRs in inaccessible locations, to prevent stealing them by thieves, so one more inherent flaw of all of them is the buzzer which goes off whenever anything happens: a camera was disconnected, power was connected, etc. The only way to silence the buzzer is to physically destroy it with pliers I am not kidding, we have already tried all menu options with Zmodo support. The buzzer is sometimes well-hidden inside the front panel mainboard.
7) Hard drives tend to overheat in those units which do not have fans.
8) Most units come without hard drives; however, you may have a hard time finding any disclosure of the fact prior to the purchase.
9) Once something happens, you would probably need to convert the video files i.e. in the convenient AVI format. With the software Zmodo provided, It takes half a day to convert these video files into any common format, and it is very inflexible, and doesn't support batching files.
We overcome all the technical difficulties, because we have boxes full of replacement cameras and cables from several units which died, and we spent enough time with the Zmodo tech support (average waiting time 20-30 minutes nice folks), to learn how to set it up.
One major advantage of having a surveillance system is recording criminal activity, which is quite common in Liberty City, where they are installed. The video is not of good quality but it can tell you, what items the perpetrators touched, so the fingerprints theoretically could be taken from these items in order to identify the thieves, (if the police ever cared to take the fingerprints). I.e. in our case, we had half-an-hour footage of the theft of the AC unit, where one of the thieves unscrewed a light bulb in front of one of the cameras. The trouble was, the police (NW Miami Dade) took two weeks to arrive to collect fingerprints (which were gone by then) and they disregarded the video, which we converted for them into the convenient AVI format (this is another issue it takes half a day to convert these video files into any common format with the software Zmodo provided). The police officer in charge of the case did not know how (or did not want?) to open AVI video files, so they have never even tried to use them to solve the case. We printed and posted fliers containing the best still pictures (surprisingly good, including tatoos on the bodies) captured from these videos, and one of our neighbors recognized the perps, but was too afraid to speak up, so we only learned about it one year later. No surprise given the quality and speed of the Miami-Dade police.
These systems are useless in rain, so when the next time the house was burglarized in the middle of a rainy night, we didn't get any footage. Generally, in the night, the video quality of these cameras deteriorates very badly, so we learned to install them paired with motion spot lamps (the cheap solar ones from Harbor Freight). Also, they cover a very narrow field of vision (approximately 20 degrees regardless of the claims written in specs) and the resolution is good up to approximately 20-30 feet in a bright day, so you need at least 8 of them to cover an average small house, and it takes a lot of design to place them right.
Update: We returned these and ordered two Zmodo units from Newegg instead. Newegg sent us the same model D9108BH, which exhibited the same flaw: after the power was turned down and up, the hard drive was not recognized any more, not even available for formatting.
One more update: Another disadvantage came up to my attention when one of my systems recorded a murder next door. Police detective made me dig the DVR out from the attics, and rented the unit for one month, and months later I got a subpoena to the court, which is extremely inconvenient for someone who is abroad every week, and who has not really witnessed anything.
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I bought this unit to upgrade the security around my house. I love the eight cameras and had everything up and running in a few minutes. My tech friend suggested I temporary install it all and just leave the wires laying on the floor and experiment with placement, etc. So I did this over several weeks. I put mine in a secure location and connected the video out on the DVR to my big screen in the family room for faster checks of the live video using a 150 ft video/pwr/aud cord off of Amazon for $15. The instruction book is translated from chinese and of course has broken english and jargon lost in the translation, but its not as bad as other reviewers have noted. It came with the default of recording 24 hours a day but I changed this to just recording motion, which makes a search so much faster. It took two weeks to get a feel for it. I learned more from reading the reviews on Amazon then in the manual. Never had to call tech support yet, but they seem good if you get the domestic staff (from the reviews).The unit first arrived without the 500 GB hard drive in the DVR, but Amazon replaced the whole system in a timely fashion.
PRO: Great eight camera unit for the price. It works fine, the IR works to spec's. I combine the IR Cams with an extra IR Spot Lite, from Amazon for less than ten dollars to increase visiability I'm still experimenting with it but other reviewers had good luck with it. The second box of 4 cameras has a spare 12 volt power unit that I am using for the lights.
CON: Wish I had the 16 camera unit now.
Modification: I will combine the whole unit to a UPS which should keep it going during power failures for some time since the normal monitor attached to the VGA output is turned off and on an outlet not connected to the UPS. Now that "cloud storage is readily available", off site storage is easier. I may also ad a few false cameras to give it a beefer look.
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