Good evening. John in Minnesota. Ok here we go. I just discovered from a Google hit on your site that some Amcrest products hardware data sheets, match some Dahua products data sheets. This is what made me register for a membership. I learned something new and useful!
This is what I've got going on.... and learned myself thru hardknocks......I got hired to be a maintenance mgr at a Condominium in 2017. For security, they had a Windows 7 Home 32bit PC covered in dust with a burnt out case fan, wailing away inside a locked cabinet. It had a 16 dongles hanging out the back from a PCI card, with 12 cameras in black and white @ 960TVL or less. To it's credit it was spinning an early WD purple 1TB GB drive that was dated 2014 or older, I think. it was taking some serious heat. The "office" had 4" boiler pipes and 2" hot water pipes running across the ceiling. it was 83F, in the room and musta been 100F in the cabinet. So i took a Sawzall and ripped a couple cross ventilation holes in the side of the cabinet
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Needless to say, when asked to review 2 "incidents", a felony Mail theft, and a car keying incident inside the undergound parking, they asked me to review footage. The images were so muddy, and the camera locations so inadequate, the " filmed with a potato" YouTube comment came true. I could not make out an ID of either perpetrator. The only thing I could tell the detective is, "he was wearing shorts, and mighta had white legs."
Knowing Jack$hit about the industry. I updated the system at work with a refurbished Nightowl 16 Ch 2Mp DVR supporting the 960 TVl but also CVI and AHD 1080P 2MP.
So I upgraded most of the Cameras. I have 1 Zosi bullet 1080P, 1 Amcrest 1080P 1920TVL Bullet, 1 Honic 2MP dome, and 5 Amcrest 1080P 2Mp domes. AND 1 off brand weird thing ( 1stPV 1080P 4in1 (TVI, AHD, CVI, CVBS) CCTV Dome Camera 2.8-12mm Varifocal Lens Sony 2.4 Megapixel STARVIS WDR. ) I've been adding a few cameras at work using Cat5e with Video Baluns, so that if/when we upgrade to NVR/IP cams I will have some infrastructure in place. In some cases I've reused the existing long runs of rg-59 (close to 300 ft.) that had good old Bell Telephone wire strung alongside it for the 12VDC power.
The other DVR I manage at work is the Amcrest 4k (AMDV8M8-H5) Ultra HD DVR with IP support for 2 IP cams, (no internet). And at Home I have a Nightowl 8ch THD501-88P device with 7 Camera's. Works ok. It's taken 2 App updates and 18 months to get finally get a reliable connection via 4g LTE or Wifi on the iOS App from Nightowl. Their first offering was buggy and largely unavailable unless you drove home and rebooted the system. And then well, your home. So whats the point of the mobile App.
I initially bought my first DVR ( Night Owl THd501-88p) 2 years ago at a Costco over a Lorex because I knew Jack$hit. My housemate was buying, and we balked at the cost of the Lorex. Looks like I shoulda gone Lorex in hindsight maybe? they have been acquired by Dahua. But as I am learning, It appears both DAHUA and HIKvision products have had security holes ( surprise surprise, is China spying?)
It looks like my Nightowl hardware might be made by Hikvision. The giveaway was the motherboard starts out in HIK-blahblahblah.
I recently bought a 4MP ultra HD Amcrest dome cam with resolution over 1080P . like 2560 x 1520 or something. It wouldn't work on the 2MP system so I brought it out to the remote Garage and connected it to the Amcrest. Wow what a nice picture.
So that's what I know at this point.
Thinking about replacing the Nightowl 16ch 2MP with an Amcrest Ultra HD 16 channel like the one out in the remote garage because that 2560 x1520ish camera is impressive. It can read some of the license plates in the parking lot at 40 or so feet. Thanks for reading my windy intro.....
This is what I've got going on.... and learned myself thru hardknocks......I got hired to be a maintenance mgr at a Condominium in 2017. For security, they had a Windows 7 Home 32bit PC covered in dust with a burnt out case fan, wailing away inside a locked cabinet. It had a 16 dongles hanging out the back from a PCI card, with 12 cameras in black and white @ 960TVL or less. To it's credit it was spinning an early WD purple 1TB GB drive that was dated 2014 or older, I think. it was taking some serious heat. The "office" had 4" boiler pipes and 2" hot water pipes running across the ceiling. it was 83F, in the room and musta been 100F in the cabinet. So i took a Sawzall and ripped a couple cross ventilation holes in the side of the cabinet
.Needless to say, when asked to review 2 "incidents", a felony Mail theft, and a car keying incident inside the undergound parking, they asked me to review footage. The images were so muddy, and the camera locations so inadequate, the " filmed with a potato" YouTube comment came true. I could not make out an ID of either perpetrator. The only thing I could tell the detective is, "he was wearing shorts, and mighta had white legs."
Knowing Jack$hit about the industry. I updated the system at work with a refurbished Nightowl 16 Ch 2Mp DVR supporting the 960 TVl but also CVI and AHD 1080P 2MP.
So I upgraded most of the Cameras. I have 1 Zosi bullet 1080P, 1 Amcrest 1080P 1920TVL Bullet, 1 Honic 2MP dome, and 5 Amcrest 1080P 2Mp domes. AND 1 off brand weird thing ( 1stPV 1080P 4in1 (TVI, AHD, CVI, CVBS) CCTV Dome Camera 2.8-12mm Varifocal Lens Sony 2.4 Megapixel STARVIS WDR. ) I've been adding a few cameras at work using Cat5e with Video Baluns, so that if/when we upgrade to NVR/IP cams I will have some infrastructure in place. In some cases I've reused the existing long runs of rg-59 (close to 300 ft.) that had good old Bell Telephone wire strung alongside it for the 12VDC power.
The other DVR I manage at work is the Amcrest 4k (AMDV8M8-H5) Ultra HD DVR with IP support for 2 IP cams, (no internet). And at Home I have a Nightowl 8ch THD501-88P device with 7 Camera's. Works ok. It's taken 2 App updates and 18 months to get finally get a reliable connection via 4g LTE or Wifi on the iOS App from Nightowl. Their first offering was buggy and largely unavailable unless you drove home and rebooted the system. And then well, your home.
So whats the point of the mobile App.I initially bought my first DVR ( Night Owl THd501-88p) 2 years ago at a Costco over a Lorex because I knew Jack$hit. My housemate was buying, and we balked at the cost of the Lorex. Looks like I shoulda gone Lorex in hindsight maybe? they have been acquired by Dahua. But as I am learning, It appears both DAHUA and HIKvision products have had security holes ( surprise surprise, is China spying?)
It looks like my Nightowl hardware might be made by Hikvision. The giveaway was the motherboard starts out in HIK-blahblahblah.
I recently bought a 4MP ultra HD Amcrest dome cam with resolution over 1080P . like 2560 x 1520 or something. It wouldn't work on the 2MP system so I brought it out to the remote Garage and connected it to the Amcrest. Wow what a nice picture.
So that's what I know at this point.
Thinking about replacing the Nightowl 16ch 2MP with an Amcrest Ultra HD 16 channel like the one out in the remote garage because that 2560 x1520ish camera is impressive. It can read some of the license plates in the parking lot at 40 or so feet. Thanks for reading my windy intro.....
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