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(More customer reviews)I bought my first q-see DVR (digital video recorder) about 3 years ago right here on amazon.com. It was known as a "PENTAPLEX" which meant you could do 5 things at the same time - record live video from multiple channels, backup the hard disk, view video remotely over the internet, view video locally on a TV set, and search through recordings to find out who took your recycle bin full of cans. Pentaplex and Triplex are names given as to how many activities the unit can do simultaneously.
That unit is still running after driving the neighborhood drug dealers out of their rent free abandoned home (and having them arrested numerous times - it povided key evidence of license plate numbers, video of drug deals going down, spousal abuse -- you name it the police department got it. For that matter the PD could log in over the internet to check up on who was there if they wanted to)
I live on a 2 block long road full of modern quiet 4500 sq ft homes, and across from me was a 60 year old 931 sq ft original house that had become the neighborhood drug hangout - a place to go smoke a bowl, ride your motorcycle through the front door of the house and out the back, to hook up with the homies, etc. It definitely did not fit in - the crime rate rose - the house adjacent to the drug house was robbed 5 times in 3 months. Both me and my next door neighbor installed MONITORED alarms and we formed our own neighborhood watch. His was a .357 and mine was a 9mm.
The Q-see was instrumental in getting rid of the trash. It provided numerous photographic enlargements of license plates, video evidence used in court to convict the individual squatting there, and more 30 second drive by drug deals than I could count, happening every 3-5 minutes right in front of my house.
I installed 8 cameras covering every angle possible, 2 PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom - like the casino's use) domes that I could controll remotely over the internet to see what is going on if I was not home, and motion detectors, microphones - all of this was OVERT meaning it was blatant that you were on camera if you came nearby - I had to put up a sign because legally I could not record voice without notifying the people (video is OK) due to wiretapping laws that are outdated, so I put my sign on the 60 year old tree in front of my house warning people they were under video and audio surveilance. In 3 months we had the dealers out, the rightful owners back, they had to demolish the house because it was so badly damaged, and then they built a brand new 4500 sq ft home in keeping with the neighborhood.
About Q-see
Q-see brings the $12,000 DVR that the casinos use to catch card cheats down to the price a homeowner can afford. I recommend any home first install a MONITORED alarm system and make it BLATANT that one is in place (big bell box outside in a conspicuous place) - this will rid yourself of 90% of the crime because criminals know where to look for these and when they find them, they walk on to your neighbor's house to rob instead. After an alarm comes video evidence of WHO did WHAT and WHEN with PROOF. Q-see gives you this.
What do all the numbers mean? What is H.264?
When dealing with video (which is inherently analog) and you go to digitize it, you would normally find yourself swamped in data, because video is 30 pictures per second, each 740x480, full color (or b&W at night with IR vision cameras). Imagine a 1.3 megapixel camera taking 30 pictures per second - your memory card would be full in a couple minutes at the most.
The broadcast industry faced the same problem when the FCC mandated that they "go digital" recently - there was not enough room on a channel to put raw high definition television. So they did what we do on our PCs when we have a bunch of files - they compressed them. This process is known as coding and decoding and is abbreviated CODEC for those of us who dont like to type alot. MANY codecs exist - divx, h.264, h.263, mjpeg, etc. H.264 however crams the best quality picture into the smallest amount of disk space. It's used by the satellite providers to give you more channels than they could without it. Best of all, it's free. No royalties to pay.
You're going to hear alot about frames per second. 1 video channel is 30 frames per second. That's for one camera. If you have 8 cameras, then it 8 times 30 or 240 frames per second that your 8 camera DVR must record (if you want smooth free flowing video like you are accustomed to on TV) - now you don't need free flowing video - you can cut from 30 to 15 frames per second and still get reasonably smooth video. The point is that any DVR has a limit as to how many FPS (Frames per Second) it can record. You get to decide which cameras get the best picture, and which ones only take 2 pictures per second (as an example) if you do not have 240 frames per second.
The second number to throw at you is resolution. VGA is 640x480 and is about VHS quality. HD is 1920x1080 and will blow your mind after being accustomed to VGA quality video (blu ray is done in HD as an example) In the world of surveilance video - the more pixels you choose to record, the less time you can record on a disk. So they invented QVGA - which stands for quarter vga - they divide a VGA screen into 1/4ths and you are left with 320x240. That's cell phone size video - and when you see it blown up onto a big screen tv set it looks pretty bad. Another standard is CIF which is 352x288 pixels - better than qvga, but not as good as VGA (about VHS or the old video standard).
What I like about this product is you can configure how much quality you assign from the product's ability to record to each camera. That way the cameras for areas where people are standing (front door for example) take 3 frames per second of CIF or VGA quality video. The cameras that cover high speeed motion - the street with cars zooming by or the sidewalk with bicycles, they can record at 30 frames per second for smooth video. Again - for 8 channels you need 240 frames per second to record all 8 channels at full framerate (30 FPS).
The good news!
The 408 from q-see supports 240 frames per second, so every camera can have full motion video. Cameras 1 and 2 are special though, as they are sampled at a higher resolution called D1 or 702x408 pixels (sure beats CIF) while cameras 3-8 are recorded at CIF resolution. I've been getting by on JUST CIF for 3 years, so this is a step up!
Can I Install it? Is it legal?
I am not an attorney, so this is not legal advice, but from what I found on the net, you can record video of your property without giving notice. However, this product can also record audio. To do that you must put up a sign in a conspicuous place that tells passers by that video and audio surveilance is in use - then you are compliant with all the laws.
Can you install it - probably if you can wire an 8 track player into your 1977 buick. Here's what you need to know.
1 - everything you will need is on amazon.
2 - I've reviewed most of it so read my reviews
3 - my email is in my profile so if you get stuck email me
4 - every camera needs 2 things - a video connection and 12 volts to run the camera. x 8 cameras and you will want a 12 volt power panel like the one I reveiwed here: Q-See QS1018 12 Volt 12 AMP Power Distribution Panel Connects 18 Cameras
5 - should you decide to record audio, you will need 1 - a microphone for each channel (8 of them) 2 - a mic to line level amplifier (about $20) 3 - some microphone cable. This gets into recording gear - the sennheiser C2 is a good deal since you get 2 mics in a set, 4 sets would get you 8 mics, and they are very sensitive - able to hear a whisper at 100 feet. But they need preamps. ART Tube MP Microphone Preamp Here's just one example - it will only handle one microphone, and costs more than the mic, so you might look around for 8 channel preamps beause the microphone needs 48V to run itself, and it gives you a very low level output on a XLR connector (3pin pro stuff) - and you need to amplify that .007 volt signal to about .700 volts (100x or 20dB for those who speak dB) to run the line level inputs of the 408. Of course you could opt to just have 2 microphones.
6 - what's this I hear about night vision - it it that expensive military stuff? No. How night vision works is when the sun goes down a sensor tells the camera to turn on a whole bunch of IR LEDs (infrared light emitting diodes) - these look to have a dull red glow to you, but 36 of them shining into your front yard is like a 1000W light turned on. Best part is the subject walking through can't tell - the infrared spectrum is beyond what us humans can see - so it still looks dark, except on your camera, where although its black and white, it is fully detailed with facial recognition possible.
7 - How about motion detection - can these replace those alarm motion sensors. The answer is: it depends. Inside, I'd say yes, but outside, I'd say no. The reason is that IR is not visable to HUMANS, but BUGS love the stuff, especially spiders who spin webs over your camera lenses where it's nice and bright at night. And that spider will trigger any motion detector - even if you kill off all the spiders, the number of flying insects that love IR light is amazing. Every night I capture about 50-80 bugs flying through a motion capture zone.
8 - what is a motion capture zone? Your camera brings back a big area - as much as the lens lets it see - but you may not want to capture the entire area, just a sub...Read more›
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