man ready to pull the trigger been looking at systems for 6 months but just not sure if I only had a coupon...lol

deamon wrote:Got the 4 camera version when it was on Woot.
..
Got a bad cable with mine (in Nov) and have been trying to get in touch with support to get a replacement, so far they haven't responded.

I bought two systems from Woot a few months earlier.. One cable was crappy, one camera was shot. I sent several E-Mails and there was no answer.

Video quality is pretty terrible.. It might be good for a baby monitor..

robswife2006 wrote:Exactly what I said about the one I bought last time! I was sooooo mad! To which I got the reply it said it on WOOT, no, it said it was a DVR, and DVR's record! That was just a bunch of cameras that served no purpose.

You can monitor everything without the hard drive, but you can't record (save) anything. A 1TB hard drive costs about $60-70. its reeally easy to install.

A lot of people (judging from comments) bought the last one without realizing it had no hard drive. It's really hard to get useful information out of the little writing exercises that, I guess, take the place of product descriptions. I have ADD and it drives me nuts. yeah OK, it's a short drive, but still... anyway where was I? oh yeah, checking my email..HOW did I get here?

mavherzog wrote:What iPhone app works for this? I got my buddy working with his Android, but have yet to find a suitable iPhone app.

(Internet Explorer works fine for remote view as well)

If I can get this working with the iPhone, I'll pull the trigger on one for myself.

There are a bunch of Apps out there, but after working with ZModo support, they had me download "Naway" from the AppStore (FREE). I have both an IPad and an ITouch, obviously it looks a lot better on the IPad.

Is there a way to conceal these cameras? I would like to install them in my business, however I want to do it to keep an eye on my employees specifically to catch a thief. Could I mount them in the false overhead to look through a hole in the tile? Or can I hook up a third party camera? Thanks.

Is paranoia.woot next?

rom wrote:as always, I will have to ask if this would run on 220v?

Actually 12V dc with a converter. if it's the same as the the Zmodo 4-cam

adammconway wrote:I have to say, this is the first time I have seen a spec that says 480 lines HORIZONTAL, usually they talk about vertical lines - Seems like a nice fake way to boost specs - I would assume it is 320 Veritical

The common standards today are 1080, 720, 480 and 320. Those are all talking about horizontal lines, not vertical.

mrfixr wrote:You can monitor everything without the hard drive, but you can't record (save) anything. A 1TB hard drive costs about $60-70. its reeally easy to install.

A lot of people (judging from comments) bought the last one without realizing it had no hard drive. It's really hard to get useful information out of the little writing exercises that, I guess, take the place of product descriptions. I have ADD and it drives me nuts. yeah OK, it's a short drive, but still... anyway where was I? oh yeah, checking my email..HOW did I get here?

Then a lot of people are complete foolish with their money. I bought the last one and it could not have been more obvious that it had no drive. That was the selling point for me because I have a bunch of 750GB drives lying around and I didn't want to pay the jacked-up price for an included one.

Brad47 wrote:Too bad the Zmodo website doesn't have pdf files of manuals to install and operate their products.

I picked up the operation manual for the DVR in PDF when I bought the 4-cam model before. If you can't figure out how to install something like this you should just pay a kindergartener $100 to install it for you. Most will have no problem.

so I live in CT, and currently the temps are in the low 20'sF. Would this not work properly with the cold temps?

What are the actual problems with the cameras in cold temps?

Im about to pull the trigger on this, but Im worried about it crapping out in the cold.

I'd be ok if it doesn't work when its real cold, as long as it comes back when it warms up.

frank

jamesbottomtooth wrote:is BNC video signal same as RCA video?

BNC and RCA are types of connectors. the signal strength depends on the length and gauge of the cable and how well it's shielded.

BNC is a type of connector used on coax video cable, standard in the pro video world. looks similar to the standard TV cable screw-on "F" connector, but has a twist-lock connector instead of screw threads.

RCA is a type of connector used on audio and some consumer video cable. You can get adapters at radio shack or online

xaviernut wrote:How is the night vision quality? Will these be sufficient for a small warehouse?

Infra-red light on these falls off at around 10-15 feet. but you can make really good IR flashlights with old TV remotes.

the "night vision" on an IR camera is only as good as its source of IR light

HD install is super easy. A few screws to remove top cover then 2 plugs. SATA 1TB is about 1 year of storage so you could save some money on a smaller drive. I think you can add an external drive but haven't researched it. It might be a good idea because as is, the whole unit could be easily stolen.

My unit came with a mouse. Just goto menu for format instructions. Very easy.

Get the biggest screen you can afford! They section it into nine screens ? so each camera view is tiny. Mine is 27" and I wish I had a larger one.

The ends on the cables aren't crimped on very well so be careful when pulling them through!

Their night vision range is pretty optimistic. If you want that kind of range, expect to add some exterior IR lights.

FalseProphecy wrote:I can't be the only one that's getting kind of tired of seeing surveillance systems on Woot, right? I don't remember seeing this many this regularly in the past.

The last one was Nov 8 during a wootoff unless my eyes deceive me. Doesn't seem too crazy to me.

RE: reading license plates
I have a similar quality unit, a LOREX Edge, 4 camera. Just went outside and did some distance tests.
Full daylight 9AM (not direct sunlight), 21" PLANAR monitor, a license plate (blue letters on white) is just barely readable at 17' from the camera. You can read the digits, but not the state.
At 13 feet, the digits are quite clear.

If I did not already have a setup, I'd get this one.

How long are the wires for hookup?

I installed a similar 8-cameria system this summer. The main problem is that the resolution of the cameras are too low to pick up the license plate numbers of vehicles in the driveway or to recognize faces from a distance. You need to be able to give the cops the tag number of the truck the burglars were driving. I'm hoping to find a couple of higher res cameras to add in. I also recommend hiding the DVR unit in a closet so the next time the bastards break in they don't steal it.

i got the 4 camera version from woot a few months back. I put in a 250gig sata drive. Some notes.
1.HD has to be SATA , old PATA drives dont work.
i even tried a PATA to SATA converted but it wouldnt recognize it.

2. Cameras are a bit on the narrow side. Wish it came with 2 wide angle cams and 2 narrow. i have one on my driveway and i can only see 1/4 of 1 car because the camera is so narrow.

3. The webpage only works on IE. I have a macbook pro and cannot view the cams from afar on it without booting to a VM and using IE.

4. Blackberry apps are available but i couldnt get any to work for me. Iphone apps, naway and aplayer seem to work fine.

5. Quality is what you get for 100$ dont expect to read license plates.

6. Cables are very thin and cheaply made, i broke one installing and had to resplice it manually. The hole you have to drill has to fit an RCA jack. In other words if you are drilling through a wall you have to use a 5/8 or 1/2 bit even though the actual cable is very thin. I had to go around and caulk a bunch of 5/8 holes in the house.

7. 60 ft. doesnt go as far as you think !

8. I live in ohio, its gotten down to the 20's this year but no real snow , heavy rain. I have my cams outside, 1 covered completely. 3 mounted under the eaves of the house and none are malfunctioning at the moment.

Overall if you dont need 8 cams, find a 4 cam version for cheaper if you get 8 cams you may need to get extra long cables otherwise you may have alot of overlap.

good luck.

I'd buy this, but I don't think I need an 8 camera setup in my small 1 bedroom apartment.

My current security setup: nunchucks

customer support is horrible at Zmodo. I have the 4 channel set up. The camera's are mediocre, and the dvr never worked right, I ended up getting a differnt DVR. You get what you pay for.

I'm so tempted to buy one of these. I've been thinking of getting one for a while...

Installing the hard drive is super easy. I bought the 4 channel model a few weeks ago from woot. You just remove the DVR's cover, install the hard drive with 4 screws directly to the base of the unit, and connect to power and sata cables (Included).

Side note: After 2 weeks of operation the internal cooling fan went out. Replaced it for 5 bucks from local tech store.

I use Asee+ (free) on my iPhone, works just fine.

mavherzog wrote:What iPhone app works for this? I got my buddy working with his Android, but have yet to find a suitable iPhone app.

I bought the 4-channel model here a few months ago. No issues to date. It's an OK setup, but the cameras are mediocre. Looks good on the monitor at full-screen live, but once that mediocre signal is compressed at the best quality setting on the DVR, the resulting playback is damn near useless.

We have a camera mounted at the top of a window next to our front door, looking down at about 30 degrees from 8' up and about 8' away from someone standing on the porch, and if it's someone you know, you'll recognize them, but if it's a stranger it's just another face. We have night-vision video of a kid kicking the crap out of our front door but it's not good enough for the police to use to ID him, though the officer that came out said he looked familiar.

I have another camera mounted out back strapped to a tree trunk (plenty of rain on it no problem!) looking over our fence at the community basketball court about 30 yards away, and we caught footage of some kids setting a plastic trash can on fire. The video was actually useful, as some of the kids present/involved returned to the scene after the FD had left and were playing ball, and I was able to ID the clothing of one of the kids and follow him when he left to another neighborhood and had the police on the phone who showed up and nabbed him off the street. Kid admitted he was present but I don't know if they ever came up with an actual culprit.

I think this system would be much better with some upgraded cameras. Get some CCD-based cameras instead of CMOS and you'll get MUCH better image quality, and presumably that will translate when compressed and recorded as well.

I just bought one. I keep hearing about too many thefts. Thankfully not in my neighborhood, but better be safe than sorry. I just hope it works.

Does anyone know what the guy in the video review ment by "it calls you"? Did he mean that the camera system can be set to call your phone or alert by email or something?

I own the 4-channel version of this kit. It actually captured someone breaking into my car in my driveway. Here's my thoughts on the system.

Very easy installation. Pretty straight forward. Mount the cameras. Run the wires to the recorder. Plug them in.

Actual video clarity is pretty decent during the day. Far and above better than anything you see on World's Wildest Police Videos or anything like that. Certain colors are a little pale for whatever reason, but overall I was a little surprised by the video clarity. But at night, everything changes. There is zero color (I assume because it's using IR lighting) and the clarity really takes a pretty big hit. Without any external light source, you're not going to be able to make out anybody's face even at close range. When my car was broken into, the Police came to my house, watched the video, and said there's really nothing they can do with it. Which I totally understood. The criminal was wearing jeans and long sleeves, so we couldn't even tell if he was black or white. Let alone make out his face. Field of view is allow pretty narrow. I can only ballpark it at about 20 degrees. I have one on each corner of my two car garage and can't capture my entire two car driveway. In order to see both edges, I'd miss the center. Just to give you some idea...

Hard drive installation is very easy. Simply unscrew the cover for the case, screw the hard drive in place, plug in the SATA power and data cables and screw the cover back on. Takes 2 minutes. A 500GB hard drive gives me about ~15 days of 24-hour 4-channel highest quality video recording. Let's face it. You're not going to check the footage until something happens. So you only need enough time to cover any vacations you may take. If you come back after a 10 day vacation and see your house has been robbed, you can hop on and review the footage. DVR playback is pretty user friendly. You can select the the date and then choose from 30 minute increments to pull up the video. Then you can fast forward or rewind up to 16X through the footage. You can make one camera full screen or watch all 4 at once. (Again, I only have the 4-channel version) The unit easily saves videos to a USB thumb drive, but they're in a weird proprietary video format. You must use the little program it comes with to convert it to .AVI on your PC.

All in all, I'm happy with what I got for what I spent. I may upgrade the cameras I have in key places at some point. They're regular BNC connections. Should be no problem.

Oh and this may sound obvious, but people still do it. Don't install the recorder right next to your computer or home electronics. Or any other place the thieves can find it. If they notice they've be caught on camera, they may spend the next 30 minutes tearing your house apart looking for the recorder. Don't make it obvious.

chrisfromiowa wrote:OK but is this setup good enough to monitor groups of zombies milling around the bunker? I dont want any surprises when I go out foraging for canned goods and gasoline. Will the night vision work on the cold blooded undead? Just askin.

Well, yes and no.

You probably know from watching documentaries like Dawn of the Dead that a video surveillance system is good for showing you zombies when they're aimlessly milling around in the places you expect them to be, but there is always a critical unseen area - a "dead spot," so to speak - that allows zombies to eventually infiltrate your secure zone, unnoticed until it is too late. This may be a technical flaw with security camera setups, or just a characteristic of zombie infestations, but either way it seems pretty much universal.

Still, it's probably good to have the system in place, if only for the entertainment value of watching the zombies on the screen while you wait for the inevitable breach and overrun. There won't be anything else on TV.

nintwala wrote:
Does anyone know what the guy in the video review ment by "it calls you"? Did he mean that the camera system can be set to call your phone or alert by email or something?

It can be set up to e-mail when an alert is triggered, be it a full hard drive, motion detection, etc. I've not used any of the notification features.

Speaking of motion detection, it's slightly counter-intuitive. You mask off the area you WANT detection to function in, the un-selected area will not trigger detection.
Also note that motion detection isn't super useful. The system (at least as I have set it up) records all the time, the only thing motion detection does is set a separate playback window on the recording so you can go directly to activity instead of having to play through an entire 15 minute (or larger as set) recording slice, and of course it allows for the live display to snap to the activity full-screen from the multi-channel display mode.

I got one of the 4 channel ones last time it was here, and at the same time my business bought their 8 channel unit direct from zmodo. I learned quite a bit from the experience:

1) the stock cameras are low res. They're 1/3" CMOS, and are low resolution and noisy. I was expecting this though for the price, these are $25 cameras. When I was discussing the 8 camera unit with their rep, she did say they were lower quality and recommended going for the better cameras, but for our use they were sufficient. You may need to replace one or two of them with better quality in key locations.

2) The cables for the cameras are generously long, we had no problem placing them everywhere we needed, and was a MASSIVE improvement over our previous surveillance system.

3) the mounting posts for the cameras are aggravatingly difficult to aim. They are on a ball joint that doesn't turn in all directions, with a metal-on-metal thumbscrew that is difficult to tighten and slips easily. Once aimed, we had to go around with a pliers to get them to stop slipping.

4) WINDOWS ONLY for remote (internet) viewing, unless you want to use an ipod/ipad/iphone. The network connection uses active-x and will only function on internet explorer on windows. We are a mac shop, so this really sucked to find out the hard way. I'm sure the windows users are saying "so what's the problem?" but the rest of us are saying "spank you very much".

5) "all weather" MY ASS. Zmodo doesn't consider "temperature" to be weather. (really??) Read the fine print on zmodo's web page, because they don't let you in on this little gem here, their cameras are only claimed good from about +5F to +120F. I live in iowa, and it's below that outdoors about 2 months of the year. The cameras start flipping and otherwise misbehaving at lower temps. They do offer cameras with heaters in them, but they're a great deal more expensive (6-8x) and require additional power.

6) out of the box, one of my four cameras worked for about 30 seconds and then never again. Zmodo quickly sent me a replacement camera without even requiring me to ship back the defective one. Then as winter approached, two of my four cameras started going flippy at 25 and 38 degrees in an indoor unheated area. Those I had to send back in, and used the opportunity to upgrade to a higher resolution.

7) customer support is good when you get it, but you can spend a very long time on hold. 15-45 min) They offer online chat support also with good hours, but despite having an option to speak with sales OR tech support, you will frequently get salesmen when you requested a tech, and they aren't too good with technical questions.

8) the DVR software is pretty good. It comes with a mouse, and you supply the VGA monitor. (don't need a keyboard) Boots up fast and appears reliable with good configurability, including motion triggered recording with definable zones within the image. The only issue I've ran into is some changes require a reboot, and a few of them don't TELL you this.

9) nighttime performance is good. Illumination range is good with the built-in IR lights, you can get cameras with longer range but these work great indoors in a dark showroom. The IR leds are highly visible to the naked eye when on, making a very noticeable ring of red little lights around the camera lens, which draws attention to the cameras. You could consider this a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view. They're NOT covert at night if you're concerned about vandalism or people trying to avoid being recorded.

So I'd summarize with "Worth it for the price, but make sure you know what limitations you're getting into."

Has anyone extended the 60' cables ??

mrfixr wrote:BNC and RCA are types of connectors. the signal strength depends on the length and gauge of the cable and how well it's shielded.

BNC is a type of connector used on coax video cable, standard in the pro video world. looks similar to the standard TV cable screw-on "F" connector, but has a twist-lock connector instead of screw threads.

RCA is a type of connector used on audio and some consumer video cable. You can get adapters at radio shack or online

Good info to know :-) Btw, Mrfixr, ummm, sir - - I desperately need you to hang around my house for a while...or at least long enough to impart your 'fixr' wisdom!

i bought this set 2-3 months ago (just 4 channel) for $125.. the value is really good.. but as saying goes, you get what you pay for.. installing a HD into DVR is painless, just unscrew the top lid, slip the HD in, boot up your DVR and it will ask you to format it, and you're good to go. What disappoints me, is the quality of cameras.. these are 6mm lens, which means, their view of field, if you will, is narrow.. during the day, they're decent, you can somewhat make out faces, but forget the licence plates..
during the night, after 2 months use, these are useless, it's pitch black on the screen, and if you go outside, you can see IRs are lit.
I ended up buying 2 different cameras on ebay (3.2mm lens) for the "closer" view.. my recommendation.. if you got $150 laying around, spend it just for the fun of it, otherwise, save up and get something worth the money.

Brad47 wrote:Too bad the Zmodo website doesn't have pdf files of manuals to install and operate their products.

But they do have flashing color circles and talk about themselves for a good long time.

having designed my own security system software and having had experience using different types of cameras I would not buy this for 4 reasons.

1. Not weather proof cameras, sure a lot of cameras for the prices but as soon as they start dropping like flies you are down to 2 or three in a matter of time.

2. Not cold weather rated. A sunny day purchase seems great but once the bitter cold sets in and cameras...start dropping like flies you are left with a bad deal.

3. Poor quality. If you ever saw those news stories where they say "police need your help identifying blah blah blah" and the picture is a fuzzy grainy image that is similar to photos done in the 1930s your picture would not help much.

4. "Stand alone DVR" means that it stands alone until the thieves see the cameras and and start looking around for the storage and decide to take the evidence with them.

I saw no remote storage capability for this which is why my program I wrote ( INETAlertView) sends images to a remote server.

My cam is only adequate but it was able to ID a thief's car a few years ago to get him apprehended months later.

I am currently holding out to find a cheap (40 pixel?) night vision cam to set up on my road to catch the beer can litterers. I need license plate recognition for that so if you know of any let me know.

Reading that this thing does NOT support the iPhone for streaming video and the app only supports up to iPhone IOS v3. Anyone know more about how this thing plays with IOS / OSX?

pupyluvr wrote:If these are to be used outdoors they should be white to match the trim of the average house Plus, I would rather have 720 or 1080 recording.

I was thinking I could spray paint them if I meticulously tape them off. A pain, but worth it? Probably so...

As many have said, this system is bottom-of-the-barrel. However, it would work decently as an indoor nanny cam system.

Check out www.cctvforum.com for your research needs.

Is this a good choice to record the "Delivery Person Package Toss Challenge"?

FalseProphecy wrote:I can't be the only one that's getting kind of tired of seeing surveillance systems on Woot, right? I don't remember seeing this many this regularly in the past.

Dunno, I'm tired of the steady stream of second-rate HP and Acer computers, but I always get downvoted when I point it out on deals.woot. But ultimately something we'll like better is only a day away, right?