Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Very satisfied with SENTINEL 1 system July 30, 2008
B Mosher (St. Catharines, ON)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
I installed the system myself on April 12 and it has been working great. The quality of the images is very good and it gives me peace of mind to know that everything that goes on around the house is being recorded. The DDNS is a plus!! I'm constantly monitoring the system over the internet.
We have an alarm system that calls my cell phone when it goes off and before purchasing this system I had no idea as to what set the alarm off. Now I simply write down the time of the call and when I get home I simply search the video for that time period.
I purchased and additional 60ft. cable in case I need to move one of the cameras further.
Thanks for bringing this great unit at such an affordable price. I did quite a bit of research and this system was above the rest.
Excellent value, basic features November 9, 2009
Justin A. Parr (Dallas)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
For the price, this package is an excellent value.
This system comes with 4, wired cameras, but I bought a wireless camera so that I could start using the system right away, without having to run cable.
The camera quality of the wired cameras is pretty good -- nothing spectacular -- but they are slightly higher resolution than normal, which allows you to zoom in slightly on the DVR.
The included cable has a proprietary connection at one end that has both video and power in one connection, and splits out power and video signals on the DVR side. Each camera connects to the DVR via a BNC (twist-lock) connector, but comes with six total RCA-to-BNC connectors (two with the DVR, one with each camera). If you were to upgrade the camera later, or custom cut the camera cables to length, you would need to re-terminate either the proprietary camera end (might be tricky) or the DVR end (might be slightly easier), or just run a new cable.
The DVR comes with a remote, but most of the functions (such as search by percentage) only provide "single-click" functionality, meaning: to search to 98% of the DVR's memory, you have to click the remote 98 times, rather than having the convenience of just typing "9" then "8" on the remote. There are similar problems entering date / time and other attributes.
The PC connection functionality comes in three pieces: There is a dedicated "client" application that has all the basic DVR functionality, but is VERY unstable. The program doesn't crash, but it loses connection to the DVR quite often, even on a PC with a wired network connection. The second piece, a dedicated "backup viewer" program, only works on backup (archive) files that have been copied from the DVR's "backup" function or from the web backup client.
The third piece of PC functionality is a web client, that you can only get to by "registering" your DVR on their website -- good luck 3 years from now when they take the website down. The website has two main pieces: A real-time viewer (can't view the DVR, just what is happening RIGHT NOW), and a backup utility. The website provides a "Dynamic DNS" (DDNS) service, so that you can connect to your home network without knowing your public IP address, and the manual has fairly thorough instructions for setting up a variety of the most popular routers, including Linksys, Netgear, and D-Link. You have to set the DVR to a static IP on your home network, and configure your router for port redirection so that incoming requests from the web client on a particular port go straight to the DVR. Remote viewing is SLOW, at about 7fps even at LAN speeds.
The backup utility is MUCH more convenient for making backup files, suitable for the backup viewer program, since backup files are about 100 meg per 5 minutes of video (the DVR only supports MJPEG, which is old and crappy video compression), which means that the included memory stick can only hold about 25 minutes of video.
To back up 6 hours of video, it took me nearly 1 full day using the web backup utility, and just over 7 gigs of storage. The web backup utility crashed 3 times, but it was still much better than using the memory stick. SUPPOSEDLY, this unit can support a USB hard drive for backups, but I haven't tried it yet -- that would probably be the best option.
If you use these cameras outdoors, the motion detection feature is going to be worthless, so don't even bother. Regardless of how you tweak the sensitivity and masking, there are always going to be situations where the picture varies enough to trigger the motion detection. If the sun goes behind a cloud or the wind blows, it's going to trigger the motion sensor. The motion detection feature might be nice to use in an indoor, enclosed area, like your garage, where the picture will be relatively static unless something happens.
The motion detection can trigger the cameras as well as an alarm contact and a "pop" monitor. The alarm contacts let you specify "Normally Open" or "Normally Closed", and can be used to interface with an alarm system. Likewise, I *think* you can have your alarm system's motion sensor trigger the cameras to record, but I haven't figured this out yet. The "pop" monitor is normally off (blue-screen) unless a motion event is triggered, which then displays the camera on which motion occurred. This allows you to use two monitors: One that can remain on "quad view" all the time, while the other shows you motion events as they occur, without having to switch back and forth all the time.
Despite a few shortcomings, this is a great deal on an entry-level DVR / camera package suitable for home security.
Great basic CCTV for your home April 23, 2009
J. Salvatore (Las Vegas, NV USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I purchased this system mainly because of the integrated monitor and its small size. I absolutely love that it's literally a plug-and-play system. Install the cameras, plug them into the main unit, plug it in and it's working. The set-up instructions are good and easy to follow. I also like the being able to either use the included mouse or remote to control the various functions. I had a hard time when I tried to saving a specific event to the USB drive, but without reading the instructions (I'm a man for crying out loud) I figured it out in about 20 minutes. Fortunately, I have Windows dual-booted on my iMac so I can take advantage of the USB drive... otherwise, I would be stuck. Please make software for Mac OS X, it kills me to boot Windows! Anyway, this is a great product for the average person who wants a basic CCTV system. Two draw backs are the it isn't expandable and it's pretty loud. Other than that, no buyers remorse here.
Works great, very quick to set up... September 26, 2009
Justin Mitchell (Bullfrog, UT)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've had this system for about four months. It was very simple to install and set the recording options up. You have to play with the motion sensor sensitivity settings and the sensor range quite a bit to get it perfect, but once you get it right it will record well when a person trips the motion sensor. We have the main unit mounted on a beam by our skylights, and have an rca cable connecting it to our 52" inch tv in our bedroom. The internet viewing works well. You register your unit with the company's site, and then they give you a login for that site. When you want to view your cameras in a web browser, you just go to there site and login. If you are using the client software that comes with it to connect remotely, it gets a slightly better frame rate than the web browser. You cannot view the web based version through a proxy server, (at least not Squid or Freeproxy). I even set our proxy's port to the same port that the website uses to connect you to your system and it didn't work. So if you are planning on viewing your system through a proxy from your workplace, you might want to get your IT to open up the firewall for your computer and bypass the proxy, or find a system that works through proxies. Overall, I really like this system. I have used the archived video several times to find out who threw garbage in the back of my truck, who's toilet papering the neighbors, and who the annoying person is that always leaves flyers at the door whenever I'm not home.
Great Product!! March 9, 2010
Daniel Lopez Murrieta (Cananea, Mexico)
Very easy to use, very practical and it's good quality, the price seems good to me, cause I think it worth it... good customer service too..
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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