What good is a surveillance system the consistently misses events and fails to record when it’s supposed to? Testing has been done under a wide variety of lighting situations to rule out shadows or glare as interfering with the proper recording of the scene. THE UGLY: The most disconcerting of all these issues is #1. If there is an event triggered by an animal, say, on one side of the house that triggers recording, the DVR can miss the burglar breaking in on another camera, on the other side of the house. I HAVE noticed occasional overlap of two camera's recording at the same time, but it is rare, and usually only for a few seconds at the beginning or end of a scene. This is problematic when more than one camera has coverage of the same scene from different angles. It also makes this system nearly worthless as a surveillance system.Ģ) The DVR (for the most part) is only recording from one camera at a time. The single worst problem with this system is that it misses events happening right in front of the camera. I have repeatedly tested and witnessed this with all eight cameras. Even with motion detection unmasked for full screen coverage, it often starts motion-detected recordings late, partially records an event, or completely misses the triggered event all together. They are RANDOM and will end recording pre-maturely, despite continued motion by vehicles, people or animals directly in the field of view. The much larger problems are listed below:ġ) There are distinct "holes" in the recorded coverage by the DVR. You will fare best just playing with the controls to understand what they do and how to use them. The included instructions are not much help with operational details, though there are instructions online, at the Night Owl website that are a bit better. THE BAD: The interface takes some getting used to, and not very intuitive. The android app works fairly well with reasonable latency. Great flexibility in setup for full-time recording, motion-activated recording, length of recording, masking of field of view areas for motion that you do not want to set off recording (traffic on a street for example). Display of camera picture can be viewed individually (full screen), 4 at a time, 8 at a time with one enlarged (your choice), or 8 at a time (all the same size), or slide show sequenced. Wide field of view, but not too wide to miss smaller details. THE GOOD: Excellent quality clear picture from all 8 wired cameras. Sadly, it only solved the rebooting issue, not the rest noted below. Night Owl replaced it, and I had high expectations that would solve several critical issues. My first DVR was defective and kept re-booting at random times. Keep in mind that of my eight cameras, five have over-lapping fields of view with at least one other camera. After living with the system for about three months, these are MY personal observations. Excellent in theory, but very poor execution.
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