Customer Reviews:
 Terrible product!! Avoid this August 25, 2008
First, I bought this product primarily because I wanted something that I could access over the internet. That was it's first strike. Not only was it NOT web based access (it was a VERY poorly written windows applications) but the windows app was the ONLY way you could interact with this machine from another computer. If they had made it so I could have access these video files via a simple website, FTP, Windows Share, anything I would have simply shucked their app and access the videos directly and viewed in my video player of choice (Windows Media, VLC anything). To make matters worse, try as I might, while I was able to view the live feeds in the windows apps, I was never able to download any recordings. I'm still baffled why they didn't at the very least enable an FTP connection to it??
Second, the motion detection was terrible. First, let me preface by saying the particular camera I was testing this with had a field-of vision of about 50 feet, it was mounted up high and pointing down, so it's not like I was pointing it out into a field. So, set to medium, it took a car driving by to trigger it, nothing else, people, dogs would cause the motion to go off. If I set it to the next level up, it recorded 24x7, never stopped, every leaf blowing in the wind caused it to continuously trigger. This happened with all 3 cameras I had (one of them I might add was a q-see camera).
finally, it locked up me a number of times. Not all the time, but enough for me not to trust it, which is paramount with unattended surveillance
 Very basic low-end system November 26, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I chose this Q-See QSNDVR4R for 2 reasons 1) it has a network jack for internet connectivity/monitoring 2) price. It works most of the time but has some serious shortcomings.
The software to monitor over the internet is terrible. You are severely limited as to what you can do when playing back events and I've found that the software will actually crash (the DVR!) if you are unlucky enough like I have been with it. It will also allow only one machine to connect and so if you leave it connected from one machine and then need to get to it from another you are out of luck as there is no way to disconnect the first machine remotely. Occasionally when you disconnect properly it does not exit cleanly and then you need to reboot the unit to get back into it. There is also not a graceful way to shut down the unit so you just have to pull the plug and hope your data does not get corrupted
Running in 24x7 record mode it works like a champ, and seems like this is what it was really designed to do. However, if you want it to monitor motion-triggered events and then play that over the internet (or your local network) it really doesn't work well, and sometimes not at all. It has no means of contacting you (via email or text message, for example, when it sees motion where its shouldn't be), which would be nice, and you have to use the proprietary software instead of a web browser which would really make it more versatile when you aren't at a machine where you have the special software loaded (a friends house or work, perhaps).
Unless you are in the market for a bargain basement unit that you don't plan on actually needing to monitor very often remotely I would look elsewhere. This *is* a cheap unit and clearly a case of "you get what you pay for". I'll be selling mine for cheap and will do some more research on a better unit for my replacement purchase.
Q-See Quality November 19, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Q See Quality?????
I purchased the Q-See QSNDVR4R as part of a security system complete with four cameras. While performing an initial parts count and visual inspection, the following discrepancies use found:
1) The instruction manual was written in French.
2) On the DVR: All camera input BNC connectors retaining (4) nuts are missing.
3) On the DVR: Both video output connectors are protruding at approximately 85 degree from the case instead on the normal 90 degree? Is this stressing the circuit board? Only one had a retaining nut installed. Where was Quality Control?
Bench check
Initial setup was uneventful. After running the system overnight, I shut it down for a few hours. After power up, one camera failed to produce an image. Resetting power corrected the problem. What happens during a power interruption?
The DVR noise lever is much higher than I expected. I'm using the system in a private residence.
 Decent product, but a tad misleading August 5, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
The main reason this gets 4 stars is that this unit does NOT ship with a harddrive. The Amazon description makes it sound like it will record out of the box, but you have to buy a hard drive separately if you want the unit to record anything.
Second problem is that the directions are terrible, and clearly not written by a native English speaker. For example this nugget, "Insert the removeable hard disk case to the end and lock it up. (turn right the hard disk lock; connect the power, the machine start to work." Or this one -"turn off the machine when the system shut down.. especially not to turn off the machine while recording. Push recording button to stop recording or push playing or exit from system menu then turn off the power."
One more thing to note is that this unit only works with Windows. The security software wil not work on a Mac, unless you have one of the new Macs that run Windows.
Having said that, if you can muddle through the directions, (or if you think directions are for chumps) the unit is pretty nice. We bought it to monitor a neighborhood pool that has been broken into and vandalized several times and once we figured out how to set it up the unit worked as promised.
It can handle 4 cameras. It has audio input recording for one of those cameras, and it has an RJ45 jack on the back that can be plugged into a router for remote monitoring on the web. You can call up recorded events on your laptop and burn off a disk showing specific events, or remove the harddrive to give to police as evidence of a crime. The unit puts a watermark on recorded video to ensure that it will be admissable in court and prove that there has been no tampering with the video, or breaks or time lapses in coverage.
The video quality is surprisingly good, but only as good as the cameras you install. We tried 2 different kinds with night vision and the cameras from Swann or Sony night vision seemed to work best.
Again, it is a nice little system if you are technically savvy and know what you are doing.
Hope this helps.
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