PC Based DVR

["Bob La Londe" <nospam@xxxxxxxxx>]

I've not sold any.  I've been sticking with DM, but I lose a lot of business
to the PC based systems.  I have installed a few for clients who purchased
units themselves, but had no clue how to set them up.  My experience has
been that they are not that stable.  Atleast not Windows based units.  If
you put in a seven day auto reboot they work better, and some like Pelco's
units have it as part of their setup.  (I guess I have sold a windows PC
based DVR afterall.  Forgot about those.)

Still.  It seems to me that unless the customer can be trained to check the
unit regularly they run a very high risk of finding their recorder locked up
when they really need to review some video.  What do you do to prevent this?

Are Linux based machines any better?

How about building your own.  I'm sure some of you guys do that.  What do
you use for a PC so that you have a really good machine to stick your
card(s) in?

I've only played with a couple cards stuck in my own PC type applications,
and I was not totally thrilled with the performance.

With cheap PC based recorders it seems like the logical thing to do would be
to install two units for redundant recording, but when people see "cheap"
its awfully hard to get them to step back up and spend a little more money
to make up for the "cheap" part.