Avermedia Digital Video Surveillance System NV3000

by AVerMedia

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9 x 3 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0009HQC42
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: NVDNV3000
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,073 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 22, 2003

Product Description

Video Capture - PCI - NTSC, PAL - Video Capture Card

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent home security, July 22, 2007

By 

Jeremy Rodgers "gadgeteer" (Madison, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Avermedia Digital Video Surveillance System NV3000 (Personal Computers)

The card is as easy to install as any other. I run it under XP Pro on an old AMD AthlonXP and everything works just fine. The pack-in software is an incredible value--I wasn't expecting something as mature and polished. The software might be worth the purchase price of the card. I replaced a Lorex Time-Lapse VCR with this for less than the cost to repair the Lorex, and haven't looked back. I retain a month's worth of video at better quality than the VCR with no tape-juggling. Also, being able to keep an eye on my house from work with a browser is a very nice upgrade.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 30 FPS? How about 3 FPS., July 9, 2011

By 

Mr. Isotope - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Avermedia Digital Video Surveillance System NV3000 (Personal Computers)

If you are looking to build your very first security DVR, this might make a good choice as long as you are willing to accept some rather significant limitations. I have built several DVR security systems using low-end DVR cards, and my review here is based on comparison to similar cards. First, the pros:

- The video signal from this card is better than other cheap cards I have tried (such as the Aposonic). In other words, your cameras with this card will look better with this card than with other cheap cards. I had trouble with too much contrast with other cards - during the day, the shadows were too dark and the sunlight areas were too bright. With this card, I don't have that trouble so much. I also have better stability with night images with this card than others.

- The software seems pretty well put together and has a lot of features for things beyond what this card can support.

Now, the cons:

- By far the biggest problem of this card is the refresh rate. It is advertised as 30 fps. But, you have to read between the lines to realize what that means. That 30fps is split four ways, so the best that you can get on a single channel is 7fps, EVEN IF YOU ONLY HAVE ONE CAMERA CONNECTED TO THE SYSTEM. It is normal for DVR cards to pool their resources such that 30fps is split among the available channels, but with this card you cannot get 30fps on a single camera no matter what. But even more disappointing is that in order to get the 7fps per channel, you have to set it at a resolution of 320X240. This might be OK for....someone....but for most of us dealing with security cameras, that resolution is useless. At that resolution, spending any money on a quality camera is pointless. What if, say, you would like a 740X480 image? Or even a 640X480 image? This card can only do 3 FPS at those settings, and again - even if you are only running one camera! It does NOT depend on the speed of your computer but is an inherent limitation of the card. This is not to say that 3fps is totally useless for some people. In fact, in a lot of surveillance DVR situations, 3fps may be fine. But if you are trying to catch something moving fast (like a car passing by), 3fp just isn't going to cut it.

- There are significant limitations on the hardware. You basically need to stick with older Pentium computers with Intel chipsets. Won't work with VIA chipsets, so most everything that AMD has made is out the window. It will not work with my new Sandy Bridge setup either, so you can't run it on anything too new. The listed hardware that works with this card is mostly quite dated, with the newest chipsets being concurrent with the first generation of Pentium dual cores. You must disable hyperthreading also.

- The software, while having a lot of features, still has its share of bugs and shortcomings. You can't mirror the data another backup drive, but instead you have to schedule backups. There is no way to adjust the noise filtering except for on/off. Other software in this price range lets you do these things. To be fair, this software does other things that the cheaper products do not.

- The website for this product is terrible. If you don't believe me, try this simple test. Go to avermedia's web site, and type in this product name (NV3000) in their search box. I'll save you the trip: it brings back ZERO RESULTS. OK, maybe its a search engine problem. Instead, go through the "products" or "support" links and try to find the product that way. After a half hour of searching around, I still didn't find it. Maybe it is there somewhere, but they sure make it hard to find.

Ultimately I sent the card back. I find it a little frustrating that the true refresh rate is not more clearly stated in the product description. Instead of '30fps' it should be clear under what conditions you will achieve this frame rate. That and the terrible web support made me send it back.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love these Cards!, June 9, 2011

By 

Cereal_Spilller - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Avermedia Digital Video Surveillance System NV3000 (Personal Computers)

These cards are great for the price. I am running 2 of these and may get a 3rd. I am using Windows 7 64Bit, but the trick is to download the NV5000 drivers from Avermedia's website. Once the card is detected everything else is just plug n play. There are more options than I can use at this point, but my favorite is the ability to view my cameras on my iOS devices using Avermedia's free apps and also being able to view the cameras using Internet explorer on any pc on my network. The only bad part of easily adding cameras is I have become a little addicted.