Mine (the 8 channel, 8 cam moofi) arrived on Thursday. There was a giant flap missing on the shipping box but it was fully taped. Everything was inside and all those little screws were in a small sealed manilla envelope. I hooked it all up to test, worked great so far. 50' cables aren't great with 9' ceilings. I'm about 1' shy of nearest run. Cannot connect the 25' (worthless) to the 50' to extend it. No one stocks BNC extension adapters or the CCTV cables locally. I guess I'll be buying the baluns and 1000' of CAT5 before I get this project moving again.

Edit: FYI same brand of power baluns and video Cat5/BNC can be had on Amazon for $24 shipped.

Hope its not too late to ask my fellow wooters.
But does anyone know the recording hour capacities for the following internal hard drives; 500GB, 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB, if the DVR is running 24 hours continuously with 4 cameras? And what is a good name brand (Seagate Barracuda, Western Digital Cavier, Hitachi Deskstar)?
I appreciate any info. Thanks!

johnhatchett wrote:Mine just arrived but it seems to be missing some bits and pieces to attach the hard drive and secure the lid. I suspect there is a bag of rubber washers and screws that got left out at packing.

Any ideas on how to get these dispatched asap?

Just received mine, and also missing the hardware for the HDD and the lid.

Curious about image quality: I realize these aren't well shielded cables nor uber quality cameras, but is anybody else seeing a very faint 'rainbow' vertical scan line rolling across the screen (more noticible in multi-channel view mode)? I'm thinking it could just be some crosstalk / interference being introduced, but want to make sure I'm not the only one seeing this.

hollywood wrote:Hope its not too late to ask my fellow wooters.
But does anyone know the recording hour capacities for the following internal hard drives; 500GB, 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB, if the DVR is running 24 hours continuously with 4 cameras? And what is a good name brand (Seagate Barracuda, Western Digital Cavier, Hitachi Deskstar)?
I appreciate any info. Thanks!

It seems there are a few variables that will affect this (recording quality, constant vs motion detection trigger recording.

Page 22 of the manual shows the formulas:

http://www.zmodo.com/media/downloader/516/ZMD-DD-SBN4%20SBN8.pdf

There is also a calculator on the Zmodo site: http://www.zmodo.com/tools/dvr_storage_calculator/dvr-storage-calculator.htm

Personally, I'm partial to Seagate ES2 drives, never had a failure(but I did on a couple occasions with WD Caviar). If you can spare a few extra bucks, get yourself a business quality drive, which can put up with the 24/7 cycle much better than entry level consumer drives.

eraie wrote:Just received mine, and also missing the hardware for the HDD and the lid.

I got mine yesterday, and was lucky to find the tiny clear bag with eight screws in it hidden inside the brown paper packing material. Search through that if you haven't tossed it already. They may be in there!

shelby46 wrote:I got mine yesterday, and was lucky to find the tiny clear bag with eight screws in it hidden inside the brown paper packing material. Search through that if you haven't tossed it already. They may be in there!

You even got brown paper packing material as well? Geez, I'm missing even more than I thought! :-) Nada...I think I just ended up with the sucky loot bag.

mmirrotto wrote:I just got an email from Woot saying the missing screws are on the way. And I am getting a free bag o crap for my trouble! - just kidding about the bag o crap, but the screws are on the way

What did you do to get them to send the bag of parts? I have not received a reply from zmodo and it has been a few days.

eraie wrote:It seems there are a few variables that will affect this (recording quality, constant vs motion detection trigger recording.

Page 22 of the manual shows the formulas:

http://www.zmodo.com/media/downloader/516/ZMD-DD-SBN4%20SBN8.pdf

There is also a calculator on the Zmodo site: http://www.zmodo.com/tools/dvr_storage_calculator/dvr-storage-calculator.htm

Personally, I'm partial to Seagate ES2 drives, never had a failure(but I did on a couple occasions with WD Caviar). If you can spare a few extra bucks, get yourself a business quality drive, which can put up with the 24/7 cycle much better than entry level consumer drives.

Thnx for the info! Apreciate it.

johnhatchett wrote:What did you do to get them to send the bag of parts? I have not received a reply from zmodo and it has been a few days.

Just got off the phone with Zmodo (also advised via email), and they apparently were packing & mailing out a load of these hardware baggies to all customers who were affected. They realized just a bit after the fact that some of these units ended up being shipped without the hardware baggie. I'll give them a big clap for being responsible enough to quickly right the wrong.

Does anyone know the right PTV setting? I cant get my dome camera to move....

Zmodo just sent an envelope with screws with a note saying that Wooters were missing parts and that they were sorry. I had mine but that was a nice sign of customer service quality.

Also, I don't believe your dome camera is PTZ...just fixed.

rgreulich9419 wrote:Does anyone know the right PTV setting? I cant get my dome camera to move....

The cameras that came with this are all set to point how you install them. They are not capable of being moved via software.

I'm pretty sure this was mentioned in a previous post.

I had a 4 channel system from Jan that I upgraded to this one. The 250GB 7200rpm drive that I used in it was getting terribly hot.
I would try use a 5400rpm drive if possible because of the heat factor. PC cases have plenty of room and are usually designed to have good airflow around the drives. This DVR is nothing like that, minimum ventilation holes. Because of the dimensions of this thing you cannot use any decent size of fan without leaving the top off.
Anyway, I am running this with the top cover off and a big 120mm quiet fan right on top of the drive. There is a 2 pin connector on the board for the fan, I would have preferred the 3 pin as most fans use that. You want to pick a lower rpm, quiet fan, or get a potentiometer to regulate the speed and noise
If you care for the drive inside this provide some cooling for it. Heat is the biggest reason for drive failures in external enclosures.

Had a lot of problems in mine, not sure how to deal with them.

1) missing power to the cameras, no cords provided whatsoever. Got two power cords to the DVR though.

2)Plugged in power to the DVR, cant do anything with it, only RED light shows up when back power switch is turned, but NO on screen display pops up and can't manipulate power from teh front panel or remote. When plugged in, alarm sounds initially, nothing else happens.

eraie wrote:Just got off the phone with Zmodo (also advised via email), and they apparently were packing & mailing out a load of these hardware baggies to all customers who were affected. They realized just a bit after the fact that some of these units ended up being shipped without the hardware baggie. I'll give them a big clap for being responsible enough to quickly right the wrong.

my bag-o-screws arrived.

Now if I could just get the thing working with WinXP web browser.

ghwest30 wrote:Had a lot of problems in mine, not sure how to deal with them.

1) missing power to the cameras, no cords provided whatsoever. Got two power cords to the DVR though.

2)Plugged in power to the DVR, cant do anything with it, only RED light shows up when back power switch is turned, but NO on screen display pops up and can't manipulate power from teh front panel or remote. When plugged in, alarm sounds initially, nothing else happens.

Can't help you with #1...but geezyou're actually missing all 4 camera video/power cables? Contact Zmodo!

#2: the alarm will sound at power up to indicate no hard drive, and the red light is normal. When you press power on the panel or the remote, you're prompted to enter the admin password to power down...but since you can't see anything, hard to know this. Try double checking that your tv or monitor connections are ok, and press the tv/vga button (remote or panel)...the system defaults to a vga monitor output - so if you're using an rca cable to a tv, you'll have to press the button to cycle through the video output choices.

I bought a 4 channel Zmodo unit last year. Out of the box, the picture quality was terrible. I eventually figured out that the 12 volt power supply for the cameras had very noisy output. I replaced it with a higher quality wall wart with better filtering and the picture improved greatly. The picture quality on this unit is not as bad, but I think I will replace the power supply anyway to see if it improves.

Are there any forums for tech support? I think mine is going to be RMA'd either way, but want to see if there are any tricks I can do, mine quit about 15 seconds after I hooked it up .

gothmog1065 wrote:Are there any forums for tech support? I think mine is going to be RMA'd either way, but want to see if there are any tricks I can do, mine quit about 15 seconds after I hooked it up .

Their forums don't appear to online yet...but you'd most likely find some 3rd party info on other forums.
Just call or email Zmodo...in my experience, they were pretty helpful on the phone, and responded to emails within a day.

I can't get the thing to accept the hard drive. Its a seagate 500gb. It'll recognize it and format it but then it starts running extremely slow. It eventually goes back to saying invalid file needs format. Would it be better to format it on the computer and install it? If so what format file system does it use? Thanks for any help someone can give

IAreIsMe wrote:I can't get the thing to accept the hard drive. Its a seagate 500gb. It'll recognize it and format it but then it starts running extremely slow. It eventually goes back to saying invalid file needs format. Would it be better to format it on the computer and install it? If so what format file system does it use? Thanks for any help someone can give

I still haven't installed my drive, but being a linux based DVR, I'd imagine it formats to a ext2/ext3 file system, like most linux based devices use.

You can use free apps like EXT2FSD / EXT2IFS or GParted to manage ext file systems in a Windows environment.

There is a FAQ @ Zmodo concerning hdd installation & formatting...supposedly you need a minimum 500gb hdd...so it is possible you had more than 1 (maybe hidden) partition, and the dvr's format utility is seeing it as <500? If you use the Windows apps, you'd get a better picture of what is on that drive. G'luck!

http://kb.zmodo.com/article.php?id=98

eraie wrote:I still haven't installed my drive, but being a linux based DVR, I'd imagine it formats to a ext2/ext3 file system, like most linux based devices use.

You can use free apps like EXT2FSD / EXT2IFS or GParted to manage ext file systems in a Windows environment.

There is a FAQ @ Zmodo concerning hdd installation & formatting...supposedly you need a minimum 500gb hdd...so it is possible you had more than 1 (maybe hidden) partition, and the dvr's format utility is seeing it as <500? If you use the Windows apps, you'd get a better picture of what is on that drive. G'luck!

http://kb.zmodo.com/article.php?id=98

Hmm. It does say there is only 486GBs or so(don't remember exact number) so maybe thats the problem. I'll try one of those programs when I get a chance. Thanks

The dome cameras are NOT outdoor cameras according to ZModo's service department. Only the bullet cameras in this set are for outdoor use. So be warned. I've asked Woot to address the issue since it was advertised as "weatherproof indoor/outdoor". . . and only half of the cameras in the set are.

jjpeters1100 wrote:Out of the 2 pairs of cameras supplied is there one that would work better indoors or outdoors?

Just FYI... the dome cameras aren't for outdoor use according to ZModo. The dome cameras are indoor only. The bullet cameras are outdoor. I've asked for spec sheets from Zmodo so that I can sent them to Woot to see why the system was advertised as "weatherproof" when half of the cameras are not.

acgwoot wrote:Just FYI... the dome cameras aren't for outdoor use according to ZModo. The dome cameras are indoor only. The bullet cameras are outdoor. I've asked for spec sheets from Zmodo so that I can sent them to Woot to see why the system was advertised as "weatherproof" when half of the cameras are not.

I'm interested in what Woot may do for us for the mix up in advertising, since I was hoping to use all 4 camera's outside.

dbaxterwoot wrote:I'm interested in what Woot may do for us for the mix up in advertising, since I was hoping to use all 4 camera's outside.

acgwoot wrote:Just FYI... the dome cameras aren't for outdoor use according to ZModo. The dome cameras are indoor only. The bullet cameras are outdoor. I've asked for spec sheets from Zmodo so that I can sent them to Woot to see why the system was advertised as "weatherproof" when half of the cameras are not.

We have addressed this with Zmodo and have been informed that their Tech support was giving out incorrect information. Here is their direct response regarding this:
We have two different type of Dome cameras, mental housing and plastic housing, the ones woot sold are metal housing which are weatherproof cameras. (The plastic ones are not)

If you did not receive metal dome cameras, please let us know - service@woot.com.

Yes, resolution choices are D1, Half D1 and CIF.

curlyroger wrote:Can anyone confirm this can record D1? It is not mentioned on Frame Rate but is listed in Resolution:

Recording Frame Rate NTSC: 240 fps @ CIF / PAL: 200 fps @ CIF

Record Resolution Selectable: NTSC: D1(704 x 480); HD1(704 x 240); CIF (352 x 240) / PAL: D1(704 x 576); HD1

FYI, I finally had time to run CAT5 and connect first cam that way. Wow super easy by comparison to cables that came with it.

Instructions within the cam's interface and web interface do suffer a bit from broken English, but I managed to get local web browser viewing (IE-only due to ActiveX) as well as iPhone app working. The APlayer they suggest was very spotty. I ended up using ASeePro, also Free. It works great so far. Live viewing works like a charm and easy to cycle between cams. I don't think it supports accessing recorded video on the cams. Local web viewing or sitting down in front of monitor hooked to DVR would be required for that.