Re: What Brand / Model DVRs ??

["E DAWSON" <raymond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Bob La Londe" <none@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:mm9vr6$vr3$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>I was a hard corp Dedicated Micros fan for a long time.  Many years.
>Unfortunately they have priced themselves out of the market.  In general I
>had pretty good luck with their units, but the price was just too high.
>When they came out with their ECO units I thought that was a nice answer.
>Slimmed down feature set at only a little over the average price for other
>name brand units being installed.  Sadly they had issues.  I had to send
>units in for repair in relatively short life spans.  Some I sent in more
>than once, because they came back unfixed.  (I know Moore's in a separate
>company, but they are the official repair center for DM.)
>
> I decided to give Digital Watchdog a try.  For the first couple years they
> were great.  Competitive price, decent feature set, and seemed to just
> work. Lately I've had multiple problems with very low usage.  A couple
> months to a year.  When I called tech support today I was hung up on three
> times.  I said please, and thank you and I never raised my voice.  I know.
> Seems unusual for me.  They seemed to have a chip on their shoulder from
> the moment they answered the phone.  Then they proceeded to lecture me on
> my lack of professionalism even when I asked, can we please just address
> the problem.  A DVR with no video output on the HDMI ouput.  Last week
> video failed.  I had to hard power cycle the unit to get video back.  It
> dropped HDMI video out again on Saturday.  They finally on the third (or
> maybe it was the 4th) call gave me a list of things to try.  All of which
> I tried when I was there on Friday.
>
> So, I am off to the customer site to repeat the things I did on Friday,
> and then call them back and say , "ok I tried them again."
>
> When I get back I plan to start shopping.  Any suggestions?

Hi Bob,

Forget the "trusted" brands with their so-so tech support. It's all made in
China and other fareaway places.
The latest stuff is from overseas. We buy either directly overseas or with
overseas companies that have stateside locations usually on the east and
west coast. Where do you think ADI and all others get their stuff from? It's
all bought overseas and they think up these great sounding BRAND Names that
will stimulate people's minds to believe it must be a great product. Arecont
cameras are stealthily made to look like they are american made, no, just
Assembled in the Usa. They buy the parts overseas.

The only time I have seen faulty equipment was due to surges coming in on
the system either because there was no UPS power supply protecting the dvr,
hard drives, or cameras; or, the building was prone to close lightning
strikes and there was no surge protection installed because the customer did
not want to pay for it up front.

With HDMI output problems, sometimes it's just the cable. Sometimes the
customer jammed the crap out of the dvr against the wall and the input on
the dvr has been compromised also. They just don't go blink, "I am going to
stop working now". Of course, the customer is not going to say anything, nor
his employees. The tv monitor that is showing the HDMI output of the cams
may have been plugged just straight into the wall without a UPS protection.
I remember a new system of 10 cams a few years ago that had problems with 3
cams and the tv monitor just a few months after installation. I ask a lot of
questions to first investigate how this might have happened. The customer
finally says, "Oh yeah, the electrician was doing work on our main panel
right at that time and he shorted something ..." He bought himself a new tv
and he paid for new cameras, end of story. Rarely do I find that equipment
just blinks out all by itself.

If you want some leads about where to go for quality affordable equipment,
you will have to contact me directly. I will not post publicly this
information.

Hope this helps you somehow.