QNAP’s VioStor range of NVRs are now available from our webshop.

QNAP are a well known ‘Quality Network Appliance Provider’.

Their award winning range of Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices are very well known and respected in the IT world.

They now have a great range of Network Video Recorder (NVR) devices, specifically designed and built as an optimised network appliance to record CCTV from IP cameras on your network.

We have added the following NVR models:

• QNAP NVR-104P – up to 4 IP cameras recording to a single hard disc unit of up to 1 Terabyte capacity
• QNAP NVR-104V – as above. The only difference is the mix of compatible camera manufacturers (essentially P for Panasonic, V for Vivotek).
• QNAP VioStor VS-2008 – up to 8 IP cameras recording to two HDDs to max total capacity of 4TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-2012 – up to 12 IP cameras recording to two HDDs to max total capacity of 4TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-5012 – up to 12 IP cameras recording to five HDDs to max total capacity of 10TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-5020 – up to 20 IP cameras recording to five HDDs to max total capacity of 10TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-8024 – up to 24 IP cameras recording to eight HDDs to max total capacity of 16TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-8032 – up to 32 IP cameras recording to eight HDDs to max total capacity of 16TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-8040 – up to 40 IP cameras recording to eight HDDs to max total capacity of 16TB

All of the units are supplied without hard discs. You can very simply fit your own – see the series of unboxing photos for the VS-2008 to understand how simply the drives are fitted or replaced.

You can purchase your drives from us or any supplier of your choice – they use standard 3.5″ SATA HDDs.

Anyone who has ever had a drive fail inside a traditional Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and been told by the manufacturer that “replacing drives is a specialist job and that’ll be £500 please” feel free to exclaim your delight in the comments below.

QNAP have a great website dedicated to their NVRs at www.QNAPsecurity.com with loads of information and useful resources.

They are compatible with a wide range of IP cameras – you can check for the latest list of proven cameras here.

Finally, just in case there is any doubt, these units are supplied with CCTV recording software to record your IP cameras. They’ve just released a free firmware upgrade to further enhance the feature set of their built-in NVR software, but more on that in a later post …

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Hard disc drives continue to get larger all the time, especially when you need them to record megapixel CCTV cameras 24hrs per day.

As unlikely as it seems, we are now headed towards 2 TeraBytes on an SD card!

We’ve covered this topic of MegaBytes, GigaBytes, TeraBytes and PetaBytes before, but we realise that it still confuses people, so we just thought it might be worthwhile mentioning Google’s inbuilt converter and calculation functions for those that aren’t already aware of them.

If you want to know exactly how MegaBytes compares to GigaBytes (or whatever), just type your query into Google’s search box in the following format:

500MB in GB

Google’s first ’search result’ will be:

500 megabytes = 0.48828125 gigabytes

You can use this for any conversion using:

KB = KiloBytes

MB = MegaBytes

GB = GigaBytes

TB = TeraBytes

PB = PetaBytes

It also works for other conversions:

4 pounds in kilos

4 pounds = 1.81436948 kilograms

2 feet in cm

2 feet = 60.96 centimeters

Google will also tell you the current time in most World Cities:

time Brisbane

10:18am Wednesday (EST) – Time in Brisbane, Queensland

Hope that’s handy to know?

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Two TeraBytes on an SD card!

That’s incredible.

Spotted over at ZDnet as just another new gadget announcement from the CES show in Las Vegas this week.

The SD Association have announced a new SD XC format which will be capable of storing up to 2 TB (a TeraByte is 1,000 Gigabytes).

What’s more, read/write speeds of up to 300 Mbits/second are on the product roadmap.

From the SD Association website:

A 2 TB SDXC memory card can store 100 HD movies, 480 hours of HD recording or 136,000 fine-grade photos. Faster bus speeds will enable professional-level recording in compact consumer camcorders and increase the number of frames shot in a second with SDXC cameras.

Put one of these in the back of a surveillance camera and you’ve got yourself a built-in 20-day HD Digital Video Recorder!

There’s a good write-up over at the CES Show site.

We shall have to wait and see how long before any manufacturer actually releases a product that can live up to the potential in this new specification – product being; either SDXC cards with the above capability OR devices able to utilise it …

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The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opens tomorrow in Las Vegas.

It’s the annual show where all the big boys showcase their new toys.

Take a look at this early news of a new wireless N router from D-Link featured over at engadget.

This router is the ideal solution for the consumer who wants to be the first on his or her block with the ultimate ‘all-in-one’ networking device.

Says Daniel Kelley, senior director of marketing for D-Link Systems.

Of course, it is a state-of-the-art wireless N router, but take note of the ‘STORAGE ROUTER’ badge – it allows you to connect and share USB hard drives as if they were network attached storage (NAS).

Some network cameras, such as Mobotix, are already able to store their surveillance video to network attached storage directly (without the need for any PC or server to be running video recording software) – ideal for those who would rather not run a PC 24/7 for surveillance at their home, office, holiday home, etc.

There’s a wide selection of NAS drives available, but what makes this router option attractive is that standard USB external hard drives are a good deal cheaper than NAS drives, and this router will make a USB drive behave like an NAS drive.

The CES show opens tomorrow.

engadget have a great micro site featuring all the latest CES News – worth a visit for any Tech Geek!!

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NVR Professional and NVR Enterprise video recording software from ACTi are both free to use with their cameras.

ACTi NVR Professional free video recording software

ACTi NVR Enterprise free video recording software

The Professional version is shipped on a CD in the box with every camera purchased and can manage up to 64 cameras on any single site.

The Enterprise version can be downloaded from ACTi’s website free of charge. This version can be used for multi-site solutions where there are up to 16 cameras at each site. For camera counts greater than 16 on multiple sites ACTi NVR Enterprise can manage up to 64 cameras but, they charge for licences for 32, 48, and 64 camera versions – please contact us if you need any further details on this software.

Currently, this free video recording software only manages ACTi products, but you can mix their video inputs from their megapixel network cameras, standard IP video cameras and analogue CCTV to IP Video servers.

Their offer of free video software makes this perhaps the ideal migration route for owners of existing analogue CCTV cameras. Simply convert those CCTV cameras into IP video feeds by use of an ACTi video server. Then install their free recording software onto a suitable PC. Then add megapixel network cameras for better resolution IP CCTV into the future …

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