DVR Security System Review

CPcam have developed the CPD561 security DVR, the system uses MPEG4 and MJPEG video compression and is compatible with both PAL and NTSC video signals. The DVR can be set to record continuously for considerable time as it has a hard drive capacity of 500 gigabytes, this gives you the means to leave the device recording for months if necessary. You can attach a maximum of 4 surveillance cameras to the DVR and it has a multi lingual user interface.

You can swap the hard drive if necessary and replace it with one that has a larger capacity, at maximum it can accommodate IDE ATA66 hard drives with up to 750 gigabytes of storage space. As mentioned you can set the system to record continually or you can attach external alarms to the system, the system has four alarm inputs and one alarm output. If an alarm attached to one the DVR’s four alarm inputs is activated it will begin recording camera footage.

The single alarm output can be used to alert you when the camera detects motion so you can use it to let you know when someone walks into a room. There is also an 8 megabyte alarm buffer that enables you to view camera footage recorded just before an alarm is activated. You can record audio with the DVR as it has an audio input and audio output you can use to set up a two way audio system, the drawback here is the system can’t record the audio stream from four surveillance cameras simultaneously.

At maximum the DVR can record video at a speed of 120 frames per second, there are also a number of CIF resolution modes you can select. The maximum recording resolution for the CPcam DVR is 720*480 in NTSC mode, in PAL mode it can record at a resolution of 720*576. There are also four preset image quality settings you can select, these range from basic, normal, high and best. Selecting the higher image quality settings improves the picture drastically but recording at this quality also uses hard drive space more quickly.

You can schedule specific times that determine when the DVR will start and stop recording, it also has a USB port that can be used for a flash drive. The DVR also includes software that you can use to monitor cameras attached to it while you are away from your premises. Each camera attached to the DVR can be identified easily as you have the option to give each of them a specific title enabling you to tell what feed you are monitoring at a glance.

Check the latest price on the CPcam DVR CPD561 4 Channel Security Recorder