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Operating your DVR Locally

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

This is a video demonstration of the local interface of all of our DVRs.  All of our DVRs share the same interface and the same GUI or Graphical User Interface.  So, basically if you know how to use one, you know how to use all.  You will find there are different features available on one and not available on the other based on the type of DVR you get from us.

There are several ways to connect to our DVRs.  The first method is locally.  Local connection can be done using a mouse which is included with the DVR, with a remote control which is also included wit the DVR, or using the buttons on the interface of the faceplate.  So those are the three methods of local configuration of the DVRs.  The other method is remotely or through the network.  Now this can be done from anywhere in the world that you have an Internet or data connection.  And it can be done by just about any computer and any mobile device. Basically you can use Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google chrome, Safari, and some of the other browsers out there as long as they accept the Internet explorer plug-in.  We also have our free applications for iPhones, iPads, Androids, Blackberries Windows Mobile, and Nokia.  Additionally we have our video management software which is enterprise level software and it will allow you to connect to many different DVRs and control them all at one time.  You can create groupings of cameras and other useful functions and features.

So, in this video I’m going to demonstrate the local interface and it is very easy to use and intuitive and I am using a mouse connected to the USB port.  All you have to do is double click on any screen and that will take you to full screen.  Additionally you can right click and choose different views.

Here’s a 4 camera view:

an 8 camera view:

a 9 camera view:

And a 16 camera view:

Also you can digitally zoom in on live video, so if there is something you are looking at and you want to get a little more detail, keep in mind this is a digital zoom, then you can go ahead and choose the area you want to see more detail in and you can blow that up digitally.

Also as you go through this we can go ahead and control your PTZ or Pan Tilt Zoom cameras that are connected to the DVR.  You can do this remotely or locally from the DVR itself.  All you have to do is click Pan Tilt Zoom:

and the Pan Tilt Zoom controller will appear:

And you can just use this to move around zoom in and to zoom out.  Very easy.  But our DVR has an extra feature when it comes to Pan Tilt Zooms.  And that’s the PTZ trace feature.  And this is a unique feature to our DVRs/PTZs.   Once you click PTZ trace, all you have to do is move your mouse around and the camera will follow wherever you go; to zoom in and zoom out just use the wheel on the mouse.  It makes it really easy to interface with the PTZ and it’s a feature that our customers absolutely love.

Now we’ll take a look at color settings:

 

This is another great feature.  Each individual camera can have its own color settings. This is really handy at night when you need a little extra brightness or maybe the saturation goes down or the white level goes up, etc.   This is a unique feature.  You can fine tune every camera individually at the DVR.  When you do this it affects the live view and recording both.

The next feature we’ll take a look at is our search feature:

 

Now our DVR really blows away the competition and this new firmware is not available in the economy series, at least not yet, but all of our other DVRs have this feature available.  So Searching for your footage could not be easier.  All you do is click the date (blue colored days indicate there are recordings available for those days):

Then go down to the 24 hour timeline at the bottom of the screen, now you can look at 4 cameras, 8 cameras, or 16 cameras all at the same time.  Very few DVRs can playback 16 cameras at the same time but ours can.   By the way I have this checked for synchronize which means all the cameras are playing back at the same point in time.

Unsynchronized motions will probably not play in synch and will not show motion but in the next time there is motion.

Let’s go ahead and pick a time zone let’s go 9:30ish.  Right now we’re playing back all the cameras that have motion going at the same time.

Here’s a feature that blows our competition away.  Let’s say someone pulled in and hit something and I want to know what time they actually pulled in.  I can do a smart search–I just select a box over the area where the car is:

and the DVR will immediately take you to video where motion occurred in that box.

And I can see that at 9:19AM this car pulled UP.  That is a tremendous feature and a time saving feature when it comes to looking for specific events that occur.

Additionally while you are playing back you can actually zoom in and get a closer look at specific areas just by creating a box and then a magnifying glass shows up, just click this and it enlarges the area.   Of course you fast forward, rewind, and listen to audio also.  Will go into the technical aspects of our DVRs in other videos.

So now we’ll take a look at our main menu.

You’ll see search, info, hard drives if connected.  By the way our DVRs will hold between, depending on the unit will hold from 1 hard drive up to 3 TB to 8 hard drives internally.  But even greater than that, see this eSATA here this means that you can connect an eSATA to this particular DVR (which we do sell these devices):

Our eSATA devices will allow you to add another 4 hardrives for storage.   Additionally you can assign your hard drives into groups and you can assign specific cameras to specific hard drives.

Now this works really good with eSATA.  Because you could have the DVR record, let’s say your cash register camera to an eSATA device only, and those four hard drives will give you a year of storage for that one camera and you can store that long term on your eSATA device.

Additionally you can see the bit rates that each of your cameras are consuming, you can see the log that will show every event that has occurred in your DVR and you can see what user did caused the event.   So make sure you assign usernames to every person that has access to the DVRS so you can see who did what.  Also you can see who is remotely logged in and you can block them or disconnect them.

Then you have your settings.  You have the general settings  like time and date, what to do when your hard drive is full whether you want it to continue writing , first in first out, or whether you want it to stop recording and send you a e-mail or ring a buzzer or some other method.

Then you can choose how long you want people to stay logged in before they are automatically logged out.  And your snapshots.

Your next setting is your Encode setting.

Now this setting will allow you to configure each camera individually for your resolution your bit rate, and your sub stream.  Now the sub stream is a very important feature.  Most DVRS have one single stream for recording, the problem with that it, you often are not able to set up the DVR at the highest available quality settings because when you remote in from outside your network, there is not enough bandwidth to support all of the cameras at the time you do so.  And that forces the reduction of quality of all the recordings.   And the whole Idea behind recording your cameras is to have the highest quality recording possible  Our cameras have the sub stream and what this means is that you can set up the main stream at the highest quality possible, and then your sub stream will be used for remote access from other devices, other computers, your iPhone, iPad, Android, etc.  You can set up the sub stream at a lower bit rate lower resolution and lower frame rate so that it will allow you to access all of your cameras at one time.  This is a great feature.

Additionally here you would select whether you wanted to monitor audio from outside or not.

Now will take a look at your schedule.  Here you can set up a schedule for each individual camera.  You can tell it what you want it to do; motion recording, regular recordings, what times of the day and what days of the week you want it to do so.  Also our DVRs can do both regular recording and motion recording at the same time.   So you could set up 24 hour a day seven day recording at let’s say a lower resolution at 1 or 2 frames per second and then when motion occurs you could have it record at the highest resolution and at a higher frame rate and that will help to conserve storage on your hard drive.

So there are some really neat settings here.  Then you have your network settings.  This is where you enter you IP address, your port numbers, etc.

Now one of the new features available on all but our Economy series DVRs, is UPnP.  Basically this will allow for automatic port forwarding if you have a UPnP capable device.  Most of the new routers out there are now UPnP capable.  So if your not sure about how to forward ports and open ports and so on, you can have it doe it automatically for you.

It will also set up your e-mail server here, because this DVR will email you if you so desire, when events occur.

It can email you with a snapshot or without a snapshot.  So you could be out and someone could walk in your front door and if you have it configured for motion detection it could than email you a snapshot of the person who walked in your front door to your cell phone or computer.  Also it can email you when there are problems with the unit, like when your hard drive is full or when other events occur.

Your alarm settings.   You have alarm inputs and alarm outputs on your DVR.  You can use this to control all kinds of devices and to set off all kinds of devices.  For example you could hook up a buzzer alarm access control door to your DVR.  You can have it on the alarm input that it will automatically trigger a PTZ,, Pan Tilt Zoom camera, to swing in and cover the door to give you extra detail.   Or you could set it up to when there is motion at a specific motion detector that is connected to your DVR that it will email you a snapshot of that motion event.  There are so many different uses for this we’ve had so many conversations with customers of all the different ways they have used these alarm inputs and alarm outputs.

Your Pan Tilt Zoom settings.  Our DVRs will work with almost any PTZ on the market.  As you can see here these are all the different protocols that our DVR will accept.

Then you have your display settings.  Now our DVRs, except for the Economy version, have HDMI video output that you can connect to a HDMI monitor and that’s 1080p video, then you have your VGA output which will connect with any VGA monitor, and than you have a BNC output could be used to connect let’s a say a TV.  All three of these can be used at the same times so you can have three separate main monitors connected to your DVR all active at the same time.   In addition to that we have a matrix.  Now the matrix is a really neat setting because the matrix will allow you to set up a spot monitor let’s say a monitor in your ware house that monitors the front door and the parking lot it will sequence out those cameras designated for the matrix.

Back to the main menu advanced settings.  You could manage all of your hard drives here.  Again we accept eSATA devices.  Really great features here.  Abnormality; you can have the DVR email you or set off an alarm or do different alarm outputs for you when there is a disk error, no space, or the Internet disconnects, a conflicted IP address or MAC address problem.

Moving on you have your alarm output controls. These can be used for any device to use as normally open and normally closed.  There are thousands of devices out there that this can be connected to.

Then you have your account set up.  Here you can set up multiple users.  As many users as you want with their own user name and passwords with access rights to different cameras and different configurations.  Some could be allowed to control PTZs other won’t.  Some can have access to certain cameras and others not.  Your maintenance will allow you to reboot your DVR on a regular basis.  We normally recommend rebooting it at least once a week.  And you can tell it whether you want to delete old files on your hard drive or not.  And you can customize, you could say I want 30 days worth of storage than I want to erase all the data and start fresh.

Our full size units, the Elites, the Ultimates , and our Hybrids have the ability to connect with your POS system.  What this means is that you can actually have your POS overlaid text on our video so that you can actually search for video based on events that happen on your Point of Sale device.   You can search by credit card numbers, by transaction times, by SKU number.  So again a lot of great features here that discuss all of this in detail.

Then you have your backup allowing you to back up to different devices.  So that’s a brief overview of our DVRs I hope you found it informational as you can see our DVRs are truly the most advance DVRs in the market place today and on top of that our tech support is truly topnotch.  We have English and Spanish speaking tech support agents here to help you.  And we offer full tech support during business ours Monday through Friday.  Thank you for watching I hope you found this to be informational.

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Video Management Software Settings

Friday, October 28th, 2011

This is video demonstration of our video management software and I’m going to be showing you how to install the software, how to connect to your DVRs, how to playback your cameras and so on.  So to install the software is very straightforward you will see these two files and you will choose the “Setup” to initiate the software to install the software on your computer, that’s basically it ; pretty straightforward.

 


Click Next:

 

and now you can put some information about your name and organization:

Click Next and you’ll actually have the privilege to choose where you want to install the software or if you want all of your users on your computer to use this software…

In my case I have a secondary hard drive where I store all my stuff so I’m going to change the path.  I’ll click next:

next to install.

This software allows you to connect to up to 20 DVRs and you can basically manage your DVRs set up features, set up matrix and so on.  Its a very powerful software; it is a brand new version of PSS it supports up to 3 screens so you can have your main screen and then 2 monitors as I do on my computer.  You can put certain cameras on certain monitors so you can monitor a lot of DVRs at one time.    So once this is complete you click close.

Then you can go to your start menu and open PSS.

And here you will see that you have to provide a username and password.  The default is admin and admin.   On some of the configurations of PSS you can remove this screen.  It will open up the software without asking you the user and the password.   So click Login and this is the software interface.

You will see here on your right side you have all of the configurations, such as PTZ directions, you can move PTZ cameras you have the device list in this section you will be able to see all the DVRs you have connected through PSS.  Also you will have the option to set up pre-sets to move the camera and so on.  Some of the tools that this software has, this software allows you to record or set up a schedule on your software and allows you to record based on day and time and allows you to store on your computer footage from the particular DVR that you want.  For example if you have 3 DVRs and you want to store all of the footage from that particular DVR you can set up a record plan and you will setup basically which camera you want to back up to your computer, then based on a schedule, PSS software will start recording all the footage contained on that particular DVR to your computer.  You can set up color configurations, I’m not going to go into detail with this; the software has tons and tons of features that you can set.   I am just going to talk about the more important features.

Also you will see the settings manager this is where you setup everything on the software itself.  A scheme task which is a setting you will set to open three different cameras at once.  Also you can see by default the software is going to open up in 4 window view.   You can change it here.  This software supports up to 64 cameras simultaneously.   We recommend for you to have a powerful computer if you are planning to stream 64 cameras, because it requires a lot of video resources.  My configuration on my computer I have three monitors, it’s an i5 computer, so it’s a strong computer, a powerful computer.  Also you will see this HD button.  While you’re viewing a camera you can change the quality of a camera.  This is only for viewing and not for recording.  Its showing here low quality and you can click high quality and the picture will improve.

Here you can change the real-time fluid level, how fluid it will be.  Here you have a full screen for a particular channel for the lay out that you have.  For example if you have 64 cameras the screen will enlarge slightly by temporarily moving things on the screen.

The Escape button returns the screen to normal.

 

Also you will see here this is the button that you will click that will start the task you created for all the DVRs.

 

Also you can pause it there too.  You have alarm configurations and playback.

 

Here when you click playback you have all of the DVRs that you have set with PSS.  Here you will choose the channels that you want from that particular DVR.  If you wanted to play multiple channels, and this binding option is to synchronize all of the footage, if the DVR has footage at that particular time it will synchronize the footage of up to four cameras simultaneously.

Here you will see some more tabs.  The local record to see if you have any local recording on your computer.  You can back up on the fly to your hard drive on your computer.  The downloads I have here will show you the files.   The files are AVIs.  Once you click in there and once you choose your file, the software will then convert the .vav extension which is the proprietary file for our DVRs that gets converted to an AVI so it can be played on just about any computer.

So let’s start by adding some DVRs; for this demonstration I’m going to add 2 DVRs.  To start, go to settings manage and click that little icon there:

 

go to device manage and here is the interface for you to add the DVRs.

 

In this version we add the search device; this will search for any DVR or network device(s) on your network.  In this case it will be DVR’s only.  I’m going to click there, and there you go. On my network right now there are two DVRs that I can connect to.  It’s very straight forward to connect to the DVRs.  It is very easy; just basically click or check the little box right there.

 

You’re basically telling the software that these are the two devices that I want to add to my device list.   It’s going to say do you really want to add those devices?  You click OK then click OK again.

Now from here you can change the title of the DVR so you can identify the DVR.  The way to do this is like this:  Check one of the DVRs or one of the units and click update, this menu will be highlighted then you change the name, you can put, in this case I’m going to put bench DVR, the description can be what ever you want to put in there and automatically PSS knows that it is a DVR if it was an IP camera PSS would know that.  You can see we put a username and password (admin by default but you can use what you want) and then you just click save.

Now I’m going to do the other one and change its name to main DVR then I can click save and then click ok.

 

Right here it says my configuration have been saved successfully.

 

So right now if I go to my device list you’ll see my two DVRs that I just added.  Right now they are not logged in by themselves; they are off.  So you can right click on it and login or you can just double click on the name and it will log in.

 

Here you see these two plus signs.  When you click on it, it will show you all the cameras that DVR has.  Here are your alarm outputs.  You can double click on each of the cameras or drag them to the windows and they will open up and play on that window.  Another thing you can do is, I’m going to be adding two cameras from this DVR and the other DVR so I’m going to change the layout to let’s say a 9 channel view.  And I’m going to add some cameras from each DVR.   The coolest thing with this software is you can connect with this software internally or you can connect to a DVR internally on your network or remotely.  So if you have a DVR and you know its location when you are away from your network you can put it in and connect.  You cannot use the search device but you can put in the DVR’s address manually.

I’m going to start by adding a couple of cameras if you right click on each camera you will see they have a sub menu.  Here you can play back you can open the camera using the mainstream configurations or the extra stream configuration.   We recommend you use the extra stream because once you start adding all these cameras with PSS, bandwidth is going to decrease, because that’s the stream of video that you are pulling from your network.  Internally it’s ok, so I’m going to choose mainstream.  Double click on the window and double click on the camera that you want and it will open up in that window.

 

I’m going to add more cameras from the other DVR. You see every time that you add a camera; the software will automatically jump to the next window.   So if you are doing a series of cameras you don’t have to select each window every time you want to add a camera.  So I’m going to keep adding cameras.

I can change the view if I want to for example a 6 window view.  From here I can drag any camera I want to a different location by dragging (left click held down while moving the mouse) with the mouse to whatever location I want.  As you can see its very simple and even fun to use.

Each window has menus.  Here you can go ahead and look for record, it will start recording.  Here for example this particular camera has audio.  So as you see here each window has menus here and here you can go ahead and start a local report.  Basically it’s going to start recording this particular footage into your drive that is the hard drive or C: drive on your computer.  Right now it is activated and it will continue to record until I deactivate this.  I can also select a particular area and maximize it.

 

Here you will see that it will go full screen and if I click it again it will go back to the original screen,

Here I can take a snapshot if I want to.  Normally everything is stored on the root drive or the C: drive called PSS.  Right here is the snapshot I just took a few seconds ago.  It’s very cool this software.  Also right here is where I activated the DVR to start recording.  This file can be played from PSS or on our player which is available at support.techprosecurity.com and it’s also included on the DVD or CD that comes with the DVR.

As you can see here I have a Pan Tilt Zoom camera and I can control the camera. Here I can move the camera up and down, I can change the speed of how fast the camera moves.  I can zoom in if I want or zoom out.  Focus and Iris is dependent on the camera and this particular camera does not support it, but there are some that do.

Let’s go back to the six view window.  As I said before you can take snapshots and you can listen to audio.  Let’s go back to this camera to show you some audio (if there is any present).  Every time you click one of these features on the right they turn green which means they have been turned on.

 

Double click again to turn off.

Let’s go back to the original 6 screen layout.  Double click the screen to return to the main screen.  Here I will show you the HD Video or the HD button.  Right now this is the channel that is selected.  Right now it is on low quality but when I switch it to High quality it makes things sharper.

Let’s say I want to open this camera based on the task that I make.  I can create a task from here.  Let’s say these are the cameras that are important to me and I want them to open automatically or based on the task that I make.  That’s very easy to do.   Go to the settings manage, go to scheme task and configuration, and this main window will open and then click New.  Put whatever name is intuitive to you . I can put DVRtestscheme.  The window option is going to be the amount of cameras that task is going to have or basically the number of camera you have in this particular view.  In this demonstration I have 6 so I am gonna choose 6 window view.  Next is the stream type.  This is very important because that’s how the cameras are going to the live preview or stream of the camera that are playing live right now.  As you remember I opened these cameras using the mainstream because I just double clicked on it.  If I right click on the camera and I open the camera in the extra stream and I configure the stream task, you will see a notification right here.  It will pop up when you execute the scheme.  It’s going to say that the main frame has changed.  And the reason why is because you opened the camera here by right clicking the camera you choose extra stream which is a lower stream basically, and you’re setting your scheme task using the main stream.  That’s going to make this software change its stream because the way you put the cameras here.  Because I originally used mainstream I’m going to leave it like that. So I click ok and then I click OK again and it says scheme task configuration successful and as you go here you will see the scheme task right there but if I click on it nothing is going to show up because I haven’t added these cameras to the task.  Once you have your cameras you right click on each of the windows it doesn’t matter which window and it will say add all windows to a task.  If you try this without having at least one task nothing will show up.  Now I’m going to close this by clicking the X on each window.  Then I’m going to execute the task I just created.  If I change this to four channel view and I click the task, it will automatically change the layout to put all 6 cameras here.  Then later I can change it to whatever I want.

If you click an “x” to close out a camera it will come back.  Why? Because the task is running.  You cannot close a camera that is part of a task without having it come back eventually.

Another great feature that you will find here in this software is let’s say I wanted to stop the task and play back a particular camera.  Basically I just choose the camera I want and right click and it plays back .  This window will standout with the area around it grayed out.  The rest of the configurations options are not enabled because we are doing this with a single camera.  Let’s say I want to choose from 9 AM to 10 AM and then just click search.   You see will find this footage, here you can choose what channel this will be playing on. From here I can zoom in if I want to, I just have to make sure i click the local zoom.  You click and drag the mouse to zoom in.  To return to original just click the local zoom.  When I make a local zoom with a small square the zoom is going to be much bigger.  If I make the square larger the zoom is going to be less.  So from here I can basically convert to AVI and so on.   I’m going to stop it and then convert to AVI.

You’ll need to choose a file and by default it will download the file to the C: drive.

To finalize this video I am going to show you something that is going to be very important to you if you want the software to basically work by itself or log into your cameras by itself and all that.  By default this is the setting for the options of the software.  I’m not going to go over every single one because there are too many but I am going to go over the important ones.

Log-in all the devices--this will log in all the devices as soon as you turn it on.  Also you will see auto pop up–alarm information dialog, here it will show you any popups about alarms or issues such as the hard drive is full, etc.

Auto logging PSS – If you check the option, PSS will not ask you for a username and password when you open it for the first time.  Verify password-when you close PSS it’s going to ask you for a password.  If you uncheck that option, when you close the program it will still show a field for a password but PSS fills it automatically.

Auto start with a record plan – Every time PSS opens it will start that record plan automatically.   This option is good if you want PSS to run every time the computer boots up.

You see that I have this 6 channel view and I want it to save the last monitors status.  When you click on it, it will start the computer the way you left it the last time (for example you had a 64 camera view and other configurations).

I hope this has been informative; thank you for watching.

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3 Megapixel IP Box Security Camera

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

In this video I will show you our brand new IPBC-EL3MP box camera.

This camera is a 3 megapixel camera; it is capable of recording locally at the camera when you put an SD card up to 32 gigabytes in the camera.

It’s a dual voltage camera so it supports 24VAC or 12VDC.  It has the same computer interface as our DVRs.  It’s a very good looking camera, it’s a persistent camera.  Here you can put the SD card to record at the camera itself, it has the LAN port and it supports audio in and out so if you have a microphone you can put that it.  It comes without a lens; you will need to purchase a separate lens for it.

But it is our brand new 3 megapixel camera, box format.  Basically you will find the quick start guide, the “C” mount, and you’ll find the 12VDC 2 amp adaptor that comes with it.  It’s very easy to configure it has the same interface as our DVRs and I will be making some more videos showing the features of the camera itself

I hope this has been informative for you and I thank you for viewing this video.

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3 Megapixel IP Dome Security Camera

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

In this video I’m going to show you our brand new vandal dome model number IPVD-ELMPIR.

This is a vandal dome 3 megapixel camera that just arrived.  It’s very good, it has an amazing picture and I’m going to show you how to open it and show you what you’ll see inside the camera when you do open it.

First you will notice that the camera has three screws and it has an Allen key that is provided in the package so you just basically unscrew the three screws right here.

This comes off:

and here is the inside of the camera:

It has the IRs, the sensor, it has a lens, a 4.5 to 10mm varifocal lens.  It has a heater/blower inside and it is capable of recording directly at the camera.  It has a slot for a micro SD card up to 32 gigs and the SD card will look something like this:

You can just insert it there and put it on your network, configure some of the features and you will be good to go in no time.   The camera has a pigtail which includes the RJ435 connecter or the Ethernet port where you are going to connect it into your router.

It is capable of PoE power over the Ethernet, meaning that you don’t need a power supply so you can just power on the camera if you have a PoE switch.  You can also plug it in to a regular 12 VDC or 24VAC power adaptor, i. e. it’s a dual voltage camera.  This camera is capable of having audio recording but you have to put a microphone in.  It’s able to plug into a regular DVR through the BNC but you won’t really get the 3 megapixel resolution.  And this pigtail over here this connector has more features this is the other end of the cable you can connect an RS45,

you can connect alarms, like you know it has alarm inputs and outputs.  Also it comes with the pattern for installation if you want to mount it.  It’s a very, very good camera good quality, vandal proof, its capable of recording at 3 megapixel or 1080p which is 2 megapixel.  You can use this camera on our brand new Hybrid DVR.  Our Hybrid DVR is capable of handling this camera up to 1080 p resolution.  This camera is a tri-ax camera meaning it can move in three different planes.  I will be making some more videos showing the configurations and how to plug it into the network and how to configure it.  I hope this has been informative for you and I would like to thank you for viewing.

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DVR Main stream and Sub Stream

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Difference Between The DVR Main stream and Sub Stream

In this video I will show you the difference between main stream and extra stream or sub stream on your DVRs for IP cameras.  So for this demonstration I will use a 16 channel mini-HD this unit has pretty much the same interface for DVR Main stream and Sub Stream as all of our DVRs and our IP cameras.

So I am going to log into it and go to “Config;”

and on this left column menu go to “Encode.”

This is the interface where you are going to configure how the DVR is going to be recording, the resolution, the frames per second, and the bit rate and how much bandwidth each camera is going to be pulling from your network.

Other options include enabling audio (if you are going to use a camera with audio this is where you enable it), you can add a watermark so that no one can tamper with your footage, color setting to adjust the color.  In the upper right corner is a field called Channel Name, this is where you can name your camera anything you want, and to begin this demonstration I am going to explain the main stream.

This option is mainly how the DVR is going to be recording, what resolution it’s going to be recording at, how many frames per second, and what bit rate or bandwidth it’s going to be pulling from your network.

By default, the DVR will come configured as you see here.  For the main stream, you are going to be configured at CIF, 30 fps, and the bit rate type will be CBR (which is Constant Bit Rate), and the bit rate is going to be about 640 kilobits per second.

The resolution, CIF, is acceptable but the DVR can be configured for D1 on channel 1 or channel 9 at 30fps.  The Ultimate series DVRs and the new Hybrid DVR are able to record at D1 on all of their channels.  The Hybrid DVR can suport 20 cameras; 16 that are analog and 4 that are digital.  The four that are digital can support 1080p resolution.  The remaining 16 analog channels can all be configured for D1 recording at 30 fps simultaneously.

We recommend that for our other DVRs you can configure them at D1 on every channel as well but they can’t support that resolution with a frame rate of 30 fps.  So we recommend that if you want D1 on all of those channels that you change the frame rate to 7 fps. At this rate the footage will not be as fluid as D1 at 30 fps but it is still a decent recording.  Remember that the Ultimate series and the Hybrid DVR can record D1 at 30 fps on all channels.

For the bit rate setting, we recommend CBR and the reason why is because it’s Constant Bit Rate, it’s always going to allocate the amount of bandwidth you have set under the Bit Rate.  If you configure this as VBR or Variable Bit Rate,

the DVR will allocate more bandwidth to any objects that are moving.  When it notices something is moving it will zoom in on the object and this will allow the DVR to allocate more bandwidth, which ultimately will degrade the other camera’s pictures.  You always want a constant good quality picture so that is why we recommend a constant bit rate.  Speaking of bit rate, this should be set as 1024 because the greater the bandwidth the camera is allocated the better the quality of the video.  If you have lower resolution or bandwidth on your network and you want to watch the videos on the main stream (which is not recommended), you can do it but it is not recommended.  You are going to have to lower this down, if you don’t have a strong network; especially when you try to view the cameras remotely.  For example AT&T DSL is not as fast as cable so you will probably have to lower down the bit rate.  But remember, the lower down the bit rate the lower the resolution (and quality) of the picture.  So we always recommend the main stream settings to be:  1.) D1; 2.) 7fps; 3.) CBR bit rate type; and, 4.)1024 bit rate for this particular DVR.

This is your sub stream:

This is what you’ll use to view your cameras using your iPhone or other smart phones; you will use this configuration.  One thing you have to make sure you have setup correctly is the resolution.  Right now it is at QCIF and I need to change it to CIF.  QCIF will yield a poor quality video; it will be pixilated when you view it on your smartphone.  We recommend a Frame Rate of 7, which you cannot go higher than because this is the sub stream.  Again the bit rate type should be CBR, but you can lower the bit rate to 96.

Remember this is not going to lower your resolution because the main stream is for recording and the sub stream is for viewing.

You can copy this to all channels, click “OK,” and click “Save:”

Now if you want to configure something like the Color Setting this is a per camera basis.

Let’s say you want to increase the brightness of just camera number 1.  You’ll have to go to Channel 1 then under Color Settings click “Set”:

and the Color Setting menu will pop up

You can then increase the brightness by typing in a higher number in the brightness field.  That will affect just that particular channel and not all the cameras.  Even if you copy and paste it will only affect that channel.

Another thing you can do here is the time display.  You can move the time display to anywhere you want on your screen.

Here the cover area, you can cover some of your video image with a mask.  Let’s say you have a door in your picture that you do not want people to see, you can cover that area so it won’t be seen when viewed on the DVR.  Once you click “Set” you will be able to click and drag a shape where ever you want on the channel screen here which also will pop up.

Let me show you.  I have a camera plugged in on channel 15.  I will demonstrate by going to Cover Area, monitor, Set.  Here for example suppose I have a place here that I don’t want anyone to see.  You just click and drag with the mouse and this will be masked at the DVR, but the video image that is being saved will not be affected; it will contain the full, unmasked image.  If you want to get rid of the cover or mask, on the monitor image click “Clear” and it will be removed.  Now I’ll save my configurations.

So you see, on channel 15, the DVR is recording at D1, 7 fps, CBR, and 1024 bit rate.  If you look at my Camera 15 in the very upper left hand corner the values are changing.  If you see here, it is going to be increasing.  As I said before, it depends how the network is, it’s not going to go below or above it.

Now if you look at the resolution it is decent.  Now if go over to Channel 15 and click on the little drop-down arrow to the right you will see Main Stream and Extra Streams.  Click on Extra stream and you will see the resolution that I set which was CIF at 7.  You’ll notice that this picture is not as high quality as the one before; it looks a little bit fuzzy and the reason why is because of the resolution I set.

If I change the sub stream to QCIF it will be a very bad image, very pixilated and somewhat blurry. So remember that the Ultimate and Hybrid DVRs can record at D1 and 30 fps and the other DVRs can record D1 at 30 fps on channels 1 and 9.  We recommend that you use D1 and 7 fps for those DVRs that cannot record D1 and 30 fps on all channels and that the sub stream be set to CIF and 7 fps.

I hope this has been informative for you and I would like to thank you for viewing it.

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