Smart2 Dvr Screen Splitting

[Steevo25]

Hi All,

I was wondering if someone could answer a question for me. I am just about to purchase a Smart2 8 Channel DVR but I have a simple question. Will this DVR show just 6 cameras on the screen. I presently have 6 cameras and I hate it when you get a screen that has 2 blank camera positions, it just wastes screen space.

The review on here says that it screen splits to 4/6/8/9/13/16 cameras ( obviously higher than 8 you need the 16 channel version ). But when I look on the dealer websites they only show 4/8/9/13/16 on the specifications.

I would really appreciate it if someone who has one could confirm to me whether 6 is a valid option before I go ahead and purchase.

Many Thanks.

Steve.

[MILLWALLFC]

I've just brought a 4 channel version. On looking at my remote control it has a screen split, 4,8,16. However there are other settings in the menu. I can read the manual when i get home tongiht to see if there is anything there that you can setup.

[Steevo25]

I've just brought a 4 channel version. On looking at my remote control it has a screen split, 4,8,16. However there are other settings in the menu. I can read the manual when i get home tongiht to see if there is anything there that you can setup.

Many thanks for that.

[MILLWALLFC]

Hi just took a look at the manaul and im afraid you can only watch a split screen of 4, 8 or 16 by the looks of it.

[Steevo25]

Many thanks for having a look. I think I will probably buy one anyway as the reviews seem very good and it has all the features I need. The specifications seem very confusing regarding the screen splitting, unless they are referring to the remote view facility.

Hi just took a look at the manaul and im afraid you can only watch a split screen of 4, 8 or 16 by the looks of it.

[MILLWALLFC]

Many thanks for having a look. I think I will probably buy one anyway as the reviews seem very good and it has all the features I need. The specifications seem very confusing regarding the screen splitting, unless they are referring to the remote view facility.

Cool, if you get one you have to let everyone know how you get on with it. Im still trying to improve my cameras so i can get better quality picture images.

[Service Engineer]

Not sure about the 8ch version but the 16ch one has options for 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 13 & 16 Camera viewing.

In 6 ch mode you get a large picture top left, and the 5 smaller pictures surrounding it..

If you imagine the screen split into 9 equal sections, the large picture uses the top left and top middle and the 2 below them, so taking up the equivalent of 4 cameras. The other 5 cams are then located around it (3 cams accross the bottom, and 2 cams to the right)...

[Steevo25]

Well hopefully that means the 8 channel version can do 1, 4, 6, 8. I guess I will find out in a couple of days, it is supposed to be delivered on Friday.

Not sure about the 8ch version but the 16ch one has options for 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 13 & 16 Camera viewing.

In 6 ch mode you get a large picture top left, and the 5 smaller pictures surrounding it..

If you imagine the screen split into 9 equal sections, the large picture uses the top left and top middle and the 2 below them, so taking up the equivalent of 4 cameras. The other 5 cams are then located around it (3 cams accross the bottom, and 2 cams to the right)...

[Steevo25]

Ok, it is all installed and running and has been for 24 hours now.

MILLWALLFC asked me to let you know what I thought of it. So far, my first impressions have not been very good I'm afraid. Unless I am doing something wrong my first thoughts are disappointing. Having said that, I can only compare this with my other DVR which was an el-cheapo budget one. The reason I am upgrading to this is because my previous one only has 4 camera inputs and I now need 6 and maybe going to 8. The model of my old one if anyone is interested was an Avtech AVC760 with a single 500GB drive fitted.

Firstly the things I did like. The quality of the recorded image is good. Its a little bit clearer than my previous MPEG4 DVR. I wouldn't go so far to say that you should buy this one because of the quality, because although better it is not that much better than my old one. I also liked the fact that you can fit 2 big hard drives inside it ( I have 2 x Seagate 750GB drives in it ). Other than these 2 things I am going to struggle to say anything nice about it. As I said, unless I am doing something wrong which someone who has one of these can help me with then I am extremely disappointed with a lot of what it does.

The first thing I noticed that I really dislike is that when you press the 'Menu' button it stops recording. Even if you don't actually enter your password and go into the menu it still stops recording until you come out of it. This makes it really easy for anyone to stop it recording ( like my children ) if they were to press the 'Menu' button either on the remote or on the front panel. My old one recorded even whilst you were in the menu, and that was still password protected. To stop my old one recording short of unplugging it from the power, you had to know the password. The second thing is that it is quite noisy, at least compared to my old one which was almost silent in operation.

Now the problems I am having. Although I have a microphone plugged into audio input 1, I have no audio on 'Live' play. It seems that it only records the audio that you can play back later, you can not actually listen to it in real time. I have also since found that it is not actually recording the audio either. I know the microphone works because if I plug it into my hi-fi its as clear as a bell and works perfectly on my old one. I have enabled the audio in the configuration for Record and Playback. Next, it doesn't seem to playback correctly. I played back some footage and it seems to take 4 seconds to play 1 second of footage. All the video seems to be in slow motion and no matter what I try it will not playback in realtime, and then sometimes it jumps a couple of seconds. The playback screen shows a speed of 1X when playing back so I know its the correct setting. Even when I burnt the image to DVD, the timeline was not consistent all the way through and the Media Player said I had 30 seconds of footage but only 18 seconds of video actually counted up but took 30 seconds to play. This is probably why I can't hear any audio. My old cheapo DVR played back perfectly in realtime with perfect audio sync.

Whenever you do anything ( like going into the 'Menu' ), the screen split reverts back to a default value and you have to change it all again with the remote. This also happens if the unit it powered off and on again. My old one used to remember its settings.

The remote view software is extremely basic and badly written. You can only view the unit remotely using this software, you cannot use an internet browser of any type. My old one had its own remote view software that even allowed you to change configuration as well, so if you were out somewhere and had forgotten something you could change it remotely. Also, my old one had proper passwords that could be letters, numbers and symbols making the password much more secure. This one is a bit like a PIN number to login. Also, my old one I could view the images and playback, download etc using any internet browser and I could also use my mobile phone to view and control the system ( just needed to be a JAVA enabled phone ). When you have done a backup to DVD/CD and then play it, the backup viewer program that is put on the DVD is very badly written. There are dates that have the ends chopped off because they don't fit on the screen properly. Also, through the remote view software trying to set a date/time you want to start playback from is difficult with the silly calendar and timeline slider. You can never get the time you want and end up having to wait 30 seconds or so to let the playback get to the time that you actually want to be at. On the old one you could type in the time to the exact second you wanted to start from.

I run my system through an RF Modulator so the images can be viewed through any television in the house and it was a crystal clear image on my old one. On this one there is noticeable interference in the picture.

All-in-all, I am not very happy with it at all. If I could get the playback and audio problems resolved then I could probably live with it but if this a feature rather than a fault or a setting then I don't think I will be hanging onto it.

Certainly in features and ease of use my old el-cheapo one was much better. Its just a shame that it did not have the number of camera inputs that I required or the flexibility to expand the disk space. The only things I have gained on this new one is an in-built DVD writer, 4 extra camera inputs and more disk space. But even the extra disk space has not been a benefit because this uses far more disk space than my old one did. But on the flip side, I have lost a lot of functionality to get that.

This is only after 24 hours of me almost constantly using it. I dread to think what I will find when I have had it a week. Hopefully someone will give me a magic cure for these problems and I will grow to like it.

[MILLWALLFC]

The first thing I noticed that I really dislike is that when you press the 'Menu' button it stops recording. Even if you don't actually enter your password and go into the menu it still stops recording until you come out of it. This makes it really easy for anyone to stop it recording ( like my children ) if they were to press the 'Menu' button either on the remote or on the front panel. My old one recorded even whilst you were in the menu, and that was still password protected. To stop my old one recording short of unplugging it from the power, you had to know the password. The second thing is that it is quite noisy, at least compared to my old one which was almost silent in operation.

Hi

When i was in menu mine also recorded however there is a way to get it to record but at a lower resolution whilst in the menu.

I think if you go into Menu

Record Configuration

and set to TRIPLEX and not DUPLEX it says it records during search but the frame rate is reduced by 50%

Not sure if it will still record whilst in Menu.