DVR's or Digital Video Recorders are now the replacement for the time lapse video recorders and are cheaper and much more advanced and easy to use.  With the DVR's now on the market, both home and business video security has gotten so much more affordable to get.  Look around and see what is on the market now since it is always changing for the better every day.

 

Cost - very low, Kits start at $100 for a 4 channel kit that uses a standard PC and in most cases Windows XP, but I recommend the Stand-alone unit simply cause the over all cost and operation of one is much easier and cheaper. Stand-alone is a brand name that is getting to be very common and you will find it with other name tags on them also, but the insides are about all the same. A 4 channel unit will start at about $280 and the 16 channel unit  for about $700 with out a HDD. The Stand-alone brand will be much better on power and heat then a Windows PC, plus you will have less problems with viruses or works as you do with the Windows PC.

 

Storage - AVI, MPEG, MPEG4 H-463 files, you name it - you can put on lot on a drive and you can have it write over the old data once it is full with out user action.  In general, put it in and forget about it, until you need go back on check on something. At home, I figured by using it motion only format, I can store as much as 3 months worth of video before having to over write the old stuff using a 9 cameras on the street, and 4 others around the outside of the house with a 250GB of storage. 

 

Vendor - My vendor Best Computer USA Great to deal with ! (713) 690-7577

 

Viewer - Video Remote Viewer with unit. No a Web browser driven remote, some times good, some times not.

 

User Friendly - Most of them are really easy to figure out, almost like a normal VCR.

Why am I telling you all this? I am not selling any of it, I am an end user of it both my profession and hobbyist for many years and have been looking for something more affordable and simple for my own place. A commercial setup with a time-lapse VCR is now on the way out, VCR's are history, and it is now time for digital storage and computers. And as we all know, that is something that is getting more and more affordable every single day. With the age of computers coming to play, we now have many more options, less equipment required, less maintenance and better quality output. With this info, I hope that my friends will have all they need to know to put one in their own place and have a peace of mind known that they can always go back to see who was around doing what, when they where gone.

Allan Madar