ANNKECCTV Camera Systems 8 Channel 3K Lite H.265+ AI DVR with 1 TB HDD, Human/Vehicle Detection, (8) HD 1920TVL 1080p CCTV Dome Cameras, Instant Email and App Alerts with Snapshots

The images attached show the same camera facing my shed in daylight, zoomed to a sprinkler in the same image, and the night view of the feed. There's two showing the webpage and direct DVR access camera options, and the error the webserver starts to throw when it needs to be rebooted.****Cameras****The cameras are fixed focal range/zoom. They're listed as I think a 82° field of view. That's about right. The digital zoom the DVR does is not going to go full CSI Miami and just enhance enhance enhance until you can read license plates on the street. A picture showing the zoom of an area from the same daytime image is attached. It works, but resolution matters- and these cameras are not 4k resolution. They are 2k (1080p).Night VisionThe cameras themselves do night vision via a ring of IR LEDs around the lens. They do not provide useful illumination at night for anything beyond close objects. The pictures show my fence line ~40 ft from the camera. Daytime images are fine. At night, the IR LEDs light up an area like a flashlight, but the detail of the image means any small critters that come under the fence are smears at best, and generally don't show in the image. My hedge line near the camera it lit up great, and I can see every leaf's detail. There's lights in the property behind me that illuminate my yard enough that I can see details these cameras do not pick up. They really are effective during daytime only.Motion DetectionThe DVR tries to mark events for motion. These event recordings are not exposed in the webpage. You have to be using the DVR directly. Unfortunately, every bug that flies close enough across the camera's field of view is "motion," so most of my events are a wasp or moth flying by. You can adjust the motion detection area of the image, but there's no turning down the sensitivity- you just include/exclude areas from detection on a grid.****DVR****The DVR has direct keyboard/mouse/display access. It also will do network access via it's built-in web server. I normally use the web page to access recording and live viewing. I get "Network Abnormal" errors on it randomly. Once it gets in that condition, the webpage basically breaks (no recordings available, can't view live cameras, config page blanks), and trying to log back in fails with the same error. It clears after some number of hours, but the quickest way to clear the issue is to reboot the DVR. So I have to climb up to where I have the DVR installed and do it physically. The cameras that came with my 8cam/1TB DVR kit are supposedly 1080p30. The DVR only records them at up to 15 FPS.The HDMI and VGA ports are not useable simultaneously. I wanted to hook a display up via HDMI and a KVM using the VGA port. The connected HDMI display works, but the KVM doesn't get a video signal.The software is a Hikvision lookalike. Maybe with different cameras, more adjustments are exposed. With the included ones, the only adjustments available in the web page are the Image Adjustment settings. Nothing for the IR brightness is exposed in the webpage- that setting is only available when using the DVR directly with keyboard/mouse. No exposure/white balance/color temp setting is available at all, so one of my cameras has a very blue tint to the image that I can't tweak to correct. Not mission critical, but it's annoying that my other cameras more accurately capture colors and this one does not.With 8 cameras and a 1TB hard drive installed, I'm getting rolloff of recordings at about 2 weeks with continuous recording and H.265+ encoding. So a 2TB drive should probably be used for a month's recording retention.****Network Camera Streams****The 8 analog camera streams are available as RTSP feeds at rtsp://USER:PASSWORD@ipaddress/Streaming/Unicast/channels/XXXwhere XXX is the channel main or sub-stream in the form of 101 (ch 1 main) or 102 (ch 1 sub-stream), 201/202, 301/302, etc. I've never found a jpg snapshot URL on this DVR to get still frame images from. VNC works to view the streams. I have them in my Home app thanks to a Homebridge plugin on a raspberry pi (live viewing only, no recordings or camera control).The DVR firmware allows remote access camera viewing through the Annke Vision app. I don't use this since I wouldn't control the end-to-end connection. The cameras and DVR are accessible over a local network. In my case, I have a VPN connection back to my home router that allows my phone or other devices to connect and view the cameras while I'm not home.****Worth the Purchase?****I bought this based on price alone (it was an Amazon Warehouse item marked way down from the New pricing). I don't know that it's worth it without a decent coupon available, or an open box unit available cheaply. If I add cameras and add another DVR or upgrade to a 16 channel unit, I will make sure the cameras I get allow at least a small amount of optical zoom/focus to better capture what I want to see.

This system is very worthy and the cameras are small 2 megapixell and are great.

This is my first system, so i really have nothing to compare it to. So far this has been a really good system with no issues. The picture quality is really good, but I feel the zoom quality could be better. Motion detection sometimes is slow to react , but i have not finished messing with all the settings. It is easy to set up and use. I have not used the phone/Internet to monitor when I am not home so I do not know if it works or has good quality. I have not used tech support either. Overall I am very pleased with this system.

Nice affordable set, looks nice on tv, nice resolution, and cameras are relatively small so they look professional. The only letdown was the app, the app itself is nice which you can do playback and take live shots or live videos then email them. However the signal to phone is unreliable which means i may not see the cameras when most needed. 90% of the time they are out. Other people on the itunes store had the same problem so it is most likely not my router signal or phone signal (got att lte btw).

So far working as expected. Took a little while to learn how to navigate, but after a couple of times it's super easy. Customer service was a little hard to communicate with, but their information was spot in. They helped me set it up for live feed in one shot. Recording is clean and clear. Lots of user settings to play with making it very tailorable. Night vision is very well. On high sensitive setting it will record a bug flying in front of camera - after some adjusting adjusting its perfect.

Easy to install set up etc. I put one star for tech support as I have not used them. With an eight camera set up it would have been nice to have some cables longer!

I bought open box for $280 worth every penny but the motion detection does pick up bugs and I have had to find workarounds for phantom motion triggers the cameras during day r clear at night I would recommended a higher quality camera if u want to see defining characteristics

Cameras are crystal clear and easy to set up. Will be buying more soon!