DVR Security System Review

The Swann SW-R-DVR16 known as the ‘Digital Guardian’ and is a digital security recorder that can handle the input from 16 surveillance cameras. Although the DVR does not have an Ethernet port for connecting it to a network it has a number of clever features. An alarm is fitted to the DVR and it will sound if it detects a problem with cameras attached to it. The DVR is equipped with four audio inputs so you can hear as well as see the output recorded by the system for select cameras.

Two way audio is also possible so you can speak to people who are in the direct vicinity of your surveillance cameras. The drawback with this is that the DVR only has two RCA audio outputs so you can’t set up two way audio for 16 cameras. It would have been nice if two way audio was available for every camera attached to the DVR but it’s good to see that the feature is present.

Recording is activated when motion is detected by the DVR or you can set a schedule that will determine when the system will start and stop recording. You also have the option of setting the DVR to record continuously but this may consume a lot of storage space. The system has four levels of audio you can select so you can strike a balance between sound quality and hard drive space usage.

The DVR uses Wavelet video compression and this helps reduce pixelization when you zoom in on recorded scenes. When recording video in NTSC the DVR can record at a maximum of 25 fps. In PAL the DVR can record video at 18 FPS, video recorded by the DVR is stored on hard disk and you have to purchase one of these separately.

You can attach two up to two UDMA 66 IDE hard drives to the DVR and the system comes with a remote control. You can view the cameras attached to the security DVR on a monitor full screen or picture in picture. Events recorded by the system can be searched for by the date or time of the event or by the time the systems alarm was activated. The Swann DVR also has a password protection system and a picture zoom feature.

Check the latest price on the Swann 16 Channel DVR SW-R-DVR16