Customer Reviews

Defender STEALTH1 Covert MPEG4 DVR Recording System with Built-in Color Pinhole Surveillance Camera Hidden in a Motion Sensor

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This spy cam is so simple to use and it takes great videos on an SD memory card. You can put the camera anywhere or mount it on the wall and it will record video for over a month. The videos are in 30 second segments by date and time on the SD card. It connects to the TV with one simple cable (supplied) for viewing and you can fast forward and rewind like a VCR with buttons on the back. It can be used plugged in or can run on batteries. This would be a good nanny cam or in an area you need to monitor for security purposes. The only bad part is that it doesn't record video well in low light. So, this is a day time cam.

Pros: Discreet, Sensitive, Easy To Set Up, Accurate
Cons: Adapter Wire not white, Adapter Wire too short
Best Uses: Spying, Use your imagination
Describe Yourself:Do-It-Yourself

Overall... it's a great Device for Discreet spying and monitoring where you like. You can just pop in the SD card in to your card reader and the footages taken starts playing with Windows Media Player. I just wish it had sound as well, But I guess it would use double the memory, so I can see why they did not incorporate sound into it. The video Quality is Great. And for $250 it's a no brainier. If you are into gadgets and detective work This is definitely a must have. As I mentioned before the adapter wire is too short, though you can just cut the wire and extend it with another wire and use Electric tape to seal it.

The Defender recorder does a decent job as long as you plan to plug it in for power. Just don't plan on using battery power, or you will be changing them every two days. The only real functional quirk I've run into is that to check the video, I need to unplug it from the power (obvious) to take it over to the TV. But if it is turned off (or unplugged) while recording, the manual says some video can be corrupted. Yet as you approach it, it will turn on from motion detection (sort of an awkward catch 22). Anyway, I can live with that I think, just something to be aware of. What really sucked is that I paid for upgraded premium shipping, but the vendor (JUSTBUYITHERE) took two weeks to ship. I selected the vendor, because they were near by my Southern California location. I thought paying extra for priority shipping meant I would have it in two or three days, but I didn't receive the item for over two weeks. They did ship priority mail, just not for over a week! Some vendors get it and some just don't. All I can say is "JUSTBUYITHERE" just BLOWS! I won't be doing any further business with them, and I recommend you don't.

This little thing does crystal clear surveillance. The owner's manual barely covers the basics but it is well worth your time to experiment with it. One major omission from the manual - the unit must be connected to a monitor in order to set it up and aim it. I have a pocket TV with a video input that works perfectly for this - since these TV's will be obsolete in February, you can probably pick one up CHEAP and use with the camera. I love the motion detect feature - you can adjust the sensitivity and monitor only the "action" that you are looking for. Also love the playback from the unit or from computer.

I have been playing with this video camera for two weeks and I have some thoughts:

PROS- Good look from the front as far as being covert. Looks like a traditional motion detector to most people. Really good picture from about 3 feet away to 6 feet, then gets a little blury but still okay, not bad, still on the pro side of this story. Removeable card is handy if you do a permanent install. Has a mount on the back that I want to try soon.

CONS - Battery drain is quick! You will need to use the AC for recording. Batteries are just for when you are moving it around. Lights on the back cannont be disabled, I put white electrical tape over them. Need a large data card to get decent video storage, I guess this really depends on your application but the included card was too small for me.

Overall, I was satisfied for the $200 price.

Length:: 4:13 Mins

There is a lot to like about the Stealth DVR by Defender. It offers an affordable way to covertly capture and record the events of an area. While such a device may not discourage criminals it certainly may make it easier for them to get apprehended. The Stealth DVR looks like any other motion detector, except for the small pinhole camera located at the bottom. Once activated the camera will record (with pretty good image quality) for a set amount of time. This ideal for use in a nursery (nanny cam), an office building (are the cleaning people stealing the change out of your desk) or other areas where you have lingering suspicions.


Pros

- Good video quality (see the video portion of the review)
- Multi-position mounting bracket
- Lots of control on how and when you want the camera to record
- The main power source will likely be the AC adapter, but the camera can take 4 AA batteries as a back-up.
- Comes with a 2G memory card

Areas for improvement

- The reason for a 1/2 star reduction t is that it does take some time and patience to get the camera set-up correctly. The manual is helpful, but you may need to read through it a couple of times.
- As other mentioned - this is a camera for a well lit area - once you have a significant reduction in light you start to have issues.
A few others have mentioned that they are disappointed in the lack of sound. For me it is not that big of a deal. If you are going to use this camera the video capture is going to be far more useful than the sound emitted.
- The video format is not Mac compatible - I used the Elgato 10020840 Video Capture Device (White) to capture and transfer the video to my Mac.


Final Verdict - While the set-up can be a bit tricky the Stealth DVR provides impressive video quality. The Stealth DVR is a effective motion activated security camera.

4 1/2 stars

---Please note that the manufacturer sent me one unit for reviewing purposes---------

my default software is able to play the videos that are captured with this unit, so I didn't need to install any additional software of drivers. I just put the card in my card reader and everything is there. You do HAVE to connect the unit to your TV to set it up. There is a built in menu that must be setup before you can use it. You can set it to record all the time or motion sensor. You can even set the times it should record if you know who or what you want to check on. The setup is a little confusing, but not too difficult. Once it's setup, it works really well. I set it up for motion sensing recording. The videos are just OK quality, about like most inexpensive surveillance cameras. If you know who you're looking at, it's easy to make out, sort of like a cell phone video recording.
The unit is a little bigger than I expected, so it's not really "hidden". If you have an alarm system in your home, with motion sensors mounted inside, you can mount this and people might think it's just another, larger, sensor.
If you're concerned about personal property, or need a nanny cam", this will do the trick. I just think it's expensive for what you get.

For a while, we've been looking for a way to monitor people working in our boat. We've never been able to pinpoint when some of our tools and miscellaneous items went missing.

This device truly offers us the discretion we want to keep an eye on the different people who come and go by giving us the oportunity to weed the good from the bad contractors.

Great quality video output. Very user friendly.

Works well, pictures and video are very clear. Battery life is short if there is a lot of video taken. Pluggin it in with included ac adapter solves this problem. However this then makes it more conspicious. Make sure to put this is a location that is hard to reach. If someone figures out what it is it can just be stolen and all the incriminating video with it.

John

After a few months with this camera, I have come to the conclusion that someone who is still using a bag phone, owns a tube-type television, and probably types business letters on an IBM Selectric designed this system. Why else would they have an programming system that is only accessible via television? Hello, there's this amazing newfangled thing called the LAPTOP, its use is darned near universal, and it is a bit more portable than my television set. It is also available in a larger version called the DESKTOP, which is pretty much ubiquitous in any modern office. Much more so than a tv.

Since this system seems to be aimed at the small business market, why would you not create an interface that could be controlled by an easy computer link? And control it you must, because for some reason, the unit seems to lose its programming relatively frequently, at least my unit does.

Although you can remove the SD card and view video on your computer, programming must be done using the RCA to RCA (male) Video Wire plugged directly in to a television set - not into your entertainment system, but direct to the TV (at least on our system, this is the only way I could get it to recognize the camera). The cable is short, and the control buttons are on the back of the unit, so if your RCA plug in is at the back of your TV set, you're left standing and holding the camera at an awkward angle, trying to figure out which button to push while looking at the instructions on the TV.

And, here's the worst part, there is absolutely no way to set the camera up and watch what it is doing in real-time unless you are setting it up right next to a television monitor and have it plugged in constantly. You can't tell if the camera is actually recording, even if the angle is right. The procedure (without a TV nearby) is, turn on the camera, walk around in front of it for awhile, walk up to the camera and stand absolutely still for a minute to make sure it's not recording, then turn it off (if it's recording when you turn it off it corrupts the file on the SD card), remove the SD card, insert SD card into your computer, find out the stupid camera is not recording, take the camera back over to the TV set, struggle to plug it in, check the confusing programming and see what's wrong, fix the problem (you hope), take the camera back to it's location and start the whole procedure over again.

The motion sensing unit on this camera is strange, it seems to work best at about 5' to 10' away, then works intermittently with anything closer or further away. And about 1/3rd of the time, it doesn't record at all, even with optimum lighting and environment.

A security camera that doesn't work when you need it is almost worse than no security camera at all.

We also have an older version of the Logitech wireless "Wilife" security cameras. We've used it during extended vacations to keep an eye on our animals and it's behaved with very few issues for years. I know people with older homes have some problems with the Wilife system due to their home wiring causing interference (the system using electrical plug-ins to transfer the signal from the camera to the base/computer), but if your home meets the criteria, the system works well. The price of Wilife cameras has reduced drastically since the new Logitech system has been released, and you can purchase TWO Wilife cameras for the price of one of these Defender systems. Because of this, and because of the poor interface and intermittent issues I've had with the Defender camera, there is no way I can recommend it.