Customer Reviews

Defender SN500-4CH-002 Feature-rich 4 Channel H.264 DVR Security System with Smart Phone Access and 4 Indoor/Outdoor Hi-Res CCD Night Vision Cameras

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I setup the 4 cams and used my tv as the monitor, had it up and running in about 30 min. Mounting the cams and getting the view I wanted and installing the cords to where they were hidden took me 2-3 hrs. Daylight images are pretty good quality. The cams are not waterproof and as other said over 20 ft details get fuzzy. I have cam 1 overlooking the driveway set under the eaves above garage, cam 2 in mudroom overlooking main entrance and garage (cam1), cam 3 inside looking at back sliding glass door, cam 4 inside living room looking at main entrance. I installed the outdoor wire through a 25 ft long 3/4" diameter plastic conduit to prevent someone cutting it (use a lubed up electician's fish wire tool helps).
-1/2 star for during the night mode the LEDs cause too much reflection to have the cam setup to record vid through a window even with an antiglare shield. I recommend when you get the cam angle you like, use a bit of lock tight on the clamp screw (the temporary kind, not the permanent) I can see the clamp getting loose during natural cold and heat cycles.
The settings I use are best quality recording and only on Alarm mode (movement). The motion detector is fine during the day, a bit buggy during the night mode (-1/2 star). car lights shining will activate the recording, moths and bugs also are attracted to the IR light during night mode even with the sensitivity turned down. During the night mode also there is about a 1-2 second delay from detection to start of recording... the suggested setting is 24/7 record on low quality unless Alarm or movement mode activates a higher quality record setting, but this will eat up a lot of HD space and you end up with a lot of nothing video.
I use about 1% of HD space a day on Alarm only record mode on Best quality so it will possibly record up to 100 days before rewriting, which is pretty darn good.
-1 star is converting the vid (H.264 format) you want to web friendly or any computer viewable (AVI format) requires a few steps and you end up with a pretty large file (the option to convert to MP4 or other format can be done with a secondary converter, will give you a smaller file with decent quality). You can use USB thumb drive or an alternative you can have another external HD and dump your vid there, then use a PC and the provided AVI converter. You can only convert the one cam vid at a time, so if you have 20 some events on different cam views it will take a while to convert. Practice this step a few times just in case you need to do it for an incident where you have to submit video as evidence to police.
The remote control is very cheaply made and if you have a fat thumb like me it was a bit cumbersome to use... I only use the remote because it has the easiest to find PB button (playback) compared to going through the menus manually. I mainly use the provided mouse to navigate otherwise.
If you want better night vid, there are other better quality waterproof outdoor cams available (any brand with a Sony CCD is good or Panasonic).

Length:: 5:15 Mins

***Updated in the comments section 1 year into owning the system*** (K.H.)

This is a video review of SN500-4CH-002 which is Defender's feature-rich 4 Channel H.264 DVR Security System with Smart Phone Access and 4 Indoor/Outdoor Hi-Res CCD Night Vision Surveillance Cameras.

This all-in-one system contains everything you need to setup and record a 4 camera surveillance system in your home or business.

For my installation, I did not need to buy anything extra or subscribe to any monthly service to use the system. I can now access the system through any computer in the world as long as it has internet access. I can also access footage by using my smart-phone when I am on the go.

I really do recommend the Defender SN500-4CH-002 system for anyone looking for an affordable 4ch DVR security system with web and smartphone access.

This is a great system as a beginner system goes. It is limited to 4 cameras which is the only drawback, really making it applicable for home or small business use.

I installed this on the outside of my home.

The system came well packed, directions were detailed and a snap. It took just over 2 hours to get it all set up. I would say that I am expert at handy man type jobs, so if you aren't comfortable on a ladder, with a makita drill and spade bit, better leave installation to an expert.

Picking the location of the cameras was the toughest part, as I wanted them to have the best views and yet somewhat un-obtrusive. We have had 3 friends come over since I installed the system and none of them had any clue there were cameras around.

I have not tried the web set up yet, but will soon.

The software allows you to fast fwd at an 8x speed so you can search easily. The night vision is awesome as well. The cameras work well in ambient lighting, so no issues there either.

I have a friend who is a police officer take a look at the video quality and he said if anything ever happened, the quality is good enough for law enforcement as well.

Bottom line: If you can drill and route wires, you can install this. Maybe the best $500 I have ever spent.

After 3 years of researching for a system to place in my home and with my needs of Web/Smartphone ability this company is highly recommended. My line of work allows me to see alot of professional DVR security systems in Corp. and private retail industry. I truely believe in camera security over just an audile alarm for homes. More crimes are solved with a picture over an audible alarm which is monitored. I bought the system due to the cost and features. Once received it was out of the box and running in 10 minutes (No camera's mounted or internet connection at this time). Internet connection took me about 45 minutes (Now I could do it in 5 minutes if I did it over). When it comes to setting up the router read carefully I have Linksey G wireless and everything works using DHCP IP address mode. I also use a first generation iPhone which does allow me to see the cameras in real time. This unit has capabilities to record on different days, hours and or an area of motion can be set within the cameras view to activate. The system does have a notification setup for emails which sends a still photograph if the camera is activated (Would be nice if updated software was to add notifications to phone numbers). Added features in the back of the DVR allow setup of an audile alarm. For around $500 one time fee with no monthly service to monitor or cost to maintain, who can beat this product. Four cameras with IR are very well made with metal bodies and 60ft of cable. Video quality is great, clean and crisp.

We ordered an SN-500 to use in an outdoor application, to monitor a calving barn. This unit was a great value for the money and is working extremely well for this application. It was easy and quick to install, but took me some time to understand how to make the unit accessible via the internet. Once it was up an running, we have had no problems. It works o.k. with a dynamic DNS service, but does not update the DNS address when it changes, only on a set schedule. This makes the unit go off-line for a few hours before the update occurs if your service provider changes your DNS address on occassion. This is my only complaint and I can live with it. The cameras have worked well in sub-zero temperatures with clear pictures during daytime hours. Night vision also works well and by adding a little light, the picture quality improves greatly. I would highly recommend this unit for the price.

Two days after the easy installation one camera went to a orange tint. Two days later another camera went to an orange tint. It is something with the infered because it will not function in the dark. I sent one camera back and never heard from my RMA no. or another mailed in its place. The other camera has a wire problem so we have to keep unpluging it and pluging it back in. Its been over a month and I need my cameras. This system has no on-off switch. Not a good camera to use for any small shop. Customer service is no real help since they dont have replacements.

I purchased this system back in January and finally had a chance to put it in. The install was easy and straight forward. The hardest part was setting up the web interface. I'm somewhat computer savvy so I was able to get it. However, your grand-dad would not. But it gave me a nice sense of security while I'm at work to be able to check on why my alarm went off. It works great on my iphone but it could use a better software interface. I couldn't get it to work on my wife's blackberry though. I believe this has something to do with her service. The only problem I've had is that one of camera's has failed already and I'm waiting on a replacement. Hopefully this thing lasts.

I had to return this product...

The IR remote control only worked intermittantly: I checked the battery with a volt meter. It was new, 3.1volts.
I talked to tech support who had me watch the remote through the video camera because the you can see the blinking output on the monitor, so I know the remote was putting out IR. (Cool). Problem must be in DVR. The tech told me that was not unusual for the remote have problems.

The DVR networking features also had at least one problem: The DVR would not accept an IP address from my router when both were set to DHCP.

With 2 strikes against it, and tech support not surprised, and all the time I wasted... I just sent it back.
I dont have time to waste like that. Too bad to... I really wanted to like it!

Installation could not have been easier. All features are as stated. I was dissapointed with the I.R camera performance.

I purchased it for trying to catch someone sneaking into my home. I thought the Motion Sensor settings would do the trick. They do capture most motion relitively well. I did have to play around with the sensitivity a few times to eliminate false motion.

The problem that almost renders this system useless for me is it's unfriendly interface when attempting to review the motion triggered events. It takes 4 to 5 steps to review each event. It freezes about 50% of the time requiring another 5 steps. On average it takes about 10 minutes to reveiw a few events because of it's setup.

I was also disapointed with the customer care I received. The unit randomely advances 12 hours maybe every week or two. When I contacted customer service they told me to send it back so they could bench test it. They would not send me a replacement. This unit is less then 30 days old! I couldn't return the whole unit because all the wires were fished through my walls etc.

Overall I'm just so-so on the unit.

Below, I am only writing about the aspects of this system that have caused me problems and would make me not want to purchase this system. As far as I know, set-up was easy enough and the picture quality to me looks fine and I can see fine in the night shots, but my husband says it is subpar and grainy, and even at the lowest quality setting does not record even 6 weeks (4 cameras) worth of video (claiming to record up to 2 years on this one 500 hard drive).

BACK SYSTEM: ARCHAIC
When we got to the point of backing it up we discovered the back-up software is very archaic and per the tech support person is only meant to allow backup of 2-3 minutes for "event backup." In the backup menu, you can only use the wheel on the mouse to change start and stop dates and times and it takes forever for it to recognize and change the numbers, requiring a lot of spinning that mouse wheel to get the numbers to move. It had an issue with calculating backup capacity if we tried to change the start and stop TIMES of the backup, allowing only a small portion of the USB drive to be used for backup, essentially saying there wasn't enough room on the USB drive. The default start and stop times are the first and last dates and times the system recorded information. Ours was approximately 0600 start time and 1733 stop time by the defaults and if we only changed the DATE to the same date start/stop it would back up that approximately 12 hours worth of recording, however if we tried to change the start and stop TIMES it was variable on whether it would backup at all, giving a message that there was not enough capacity on the USB drive with no real obvious pattern of calculating the backup capacity (sometimes it would backup only 30 minutes, sometimes 2 hours, one time got it to back up 6 hours). When I spoke with technical support the rep said that he was surprised I could back up more than a few minutes, as it is only intended to back up 2-3 minutes at a time, and asked me if I could view the files that backed up hours worth of recording (yes, I can). He said I shouldn't be able to view the recordings if they were that large and, again, the system is only made to back up 2-3 minutes at a time. (I corrected him saying 2-3 hours, thinking 2-3 minutes could not be right, but he assured me it was 2-3 MINUTES was all that the software was made to backup at one time).

REMOTE: DID NOT WORK MOST OF THE TIME, BUT DID OCCASIONALLY AFTER PUSHING A BUTTON REPEATEDLY (MAYBE UP TO 20-30 TIMES)
I tried 1-5 feet away from the device when trying to use the remote, so there was no problem with too much distance between the remote and the device.