1 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:13,440 with its Factory tuning and data center DNA an Intel 730 series SSD is an 2 00:00:11,599 --> 00:00:18,240 amazing choice for gamers and performance enthusiasts so this is a 3 00:00:16,119 --> 00:00:22,279 little new for us and full disclosure guys we're only doing this review 4 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:27,760 because these guys kard reached out to us when I happened to be already 5 00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:30,039 shopping for a monitoring system for our 6 00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:35,879 headquarters so I actually don't know know if their Aurora series AR 421 ckt 7 00:00:33,160 --> 00:00:40,480 001 is necessarily the best thing for the price but what I will tell you is 8 00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:43,840 that it's been torture tested Beyond just reviewing it it's been torture 9 00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:48,879 tested as if we're going to actually deploy it because we are going to 10 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:53,160 actually deploy it the unit came well packaged with everything safely tucked 11 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:59,960 in the cameras were in protective foam and inside the ample nicely built outer 12 00:00:56,600 --> 00:01:01,399 box the included cables are fairly unex 13 00:00:59,960 --> 00:01:05,640 exceptional in terms of the quality but they're nice and long at 60 ft and 14 00:01:03,879 --> 00:01:10,119 they're completely standard so they have one BNC connector and then one DC 15 00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:13,119 connector that comes out of each end of the cable so you could replace them with 16 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:16,960 something else if you wanted to it should be noted one of them is thicker 17 00:01:15,119 --> 00:01:22,119 than the others for the higher end camera and that is to support the motion 18 00:01:20,159 --> 00:01:25,720 tracking feature of it and it's got a little tracking control toggle right on 19 00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:29,759 the camera I personally didn't find the motion tracking that useful since I'm 20 00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:33,680 more interested in constantly monitoring my my employees here but for some people 21 00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:37,399 it would be great because what it basically does is it takes any motion on 22 00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:41,439 the screen digitally zooms into it enhances it a little bit and then it can 23 00:01:39,320 --> 00:01:45,159 do all kinds of cool stuff like start recording so it can trigger a recording 24 00:01:43,079 --> 00:01:47,479 or it can email you a snapshot whenever something moves in that Zone on the 25 00:01:46,399 --> 00:01:52,000 screen this would be great for something like your front door um the inclusion of 26 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:55,000 a mouse along with the remote in the Box was a little bit confusing at first but 27 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:59,600 when I started navigating the menus it made a lot more sense the unit 28 00:01:56,799 --> 00:02:03,960 definitely operates best with a mouse so let's get onto General specs and 29 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:08,959 functionality the DVR outputs to VGA composite or even HDMI to up to a 1080p 30 00:02:06,520 --> 00:02:12,879 display TV or otherwise the cameras themselves are weather resistant and 31 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:18,160 record in 800 line or 700 line resolution with 30 m and 20 M of night 32 00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:22,360 vision depending on which model so I got one of the higher end one and three of 33 00:02:20,599 --> 00:02:26,239 the lower-end ones with this particular kit it includes a 500 gig drive inside 34 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:29,920 this one of the first thing I did was like rip it open and find out what was 35 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:33,599 inside it's just a standard Cate Barracuda I would have liked to see a 36 00:02:31,640 --> 00:02:37,599 nasg grade Drive in there such as a wd purple but most people will probably 37 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:41,200 never noce the difference and the good news is it's extremely easy to open up 38 00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:45,239 and replace with something else if you want to all right so let's get into the 39 00:02:42,840 --> 00:02:49,920 quick start guide it's actually really solid um so all you do to hook it up 40 00:02:47,920 --> 00:02:54,120 physically is plug in your four BNC connectors plug in the power to the to 41 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:57,560 the DVR unit here and then plug in an additional power adapter to the wall 42 00:02:55,760 --> 00:03:00,400 which has four pigtailed connectors to power the cameras themselves you 43 00:02:59,239 --> 00:03:05,080 position the CER cameras wherever you want them plug in an Ethernet cable plug 44 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:10,959 in HDMI for monitoring and boot this bad boy up it drops you into the quick start 45 00:03:07,640 --> 00:03:13,920 menu which for straight recording and 46 00:03:10,959 --> 00:03:17,599 live monitoring is pretty much plug-and playay you can set it so that the quick 47 00:03:15,959 --> 00:03:24,120 start menu comes up every time or it doesn't come up every time you power it on you can disable it um and yeah I 48 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:28,480 think my mom could actually set up this just just basic monitoring and recording 49 00:03:26,640 --> 00:03:31,799 I did again I found it quite slow to navigate with the remote didn't the 50 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:35,239 remote that useful I suggest that people keep a mouse you know just kind of 51 00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:39,480 hooked up to it and nearby but once you get things going with the mouse 52 00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:43,400 everything in the menu is fairly intuitive so you right click to confirm 53 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:47,920 left click to go back if you've ever used Android with a mouse then you'll be 54 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:52,239 quite familiar with that and you know some of the the headers aren't that 55 00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:56,239 welln named but the good news is that the manual is surprisingly good so I was 56 00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:59,799 able to figure out what everything does and everything largely works with one 57 00:03:58,439 --> 00:04:04,599 exception which was a little bit disappointing I wasn't able to get the 58 00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:09,560 Dropbox feature working what that does is when you trigger a particular event 59 00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:14,280 it can take um a snapshot and then automatically upload that still to 60 00:04:11,319 --> 00:04:17,759 Dropbox for you I suspect it has more to do with my ISP than the unit itself 61 00:04:16,280 --> 00:04:23,199 since they weren't able to replicate my issue but their support was overall um 62 00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:27,440 actually extremely helpful all right so let's get into live monitoring and DVR 63 00:04:25,479 --> 00:04:32,080 control so that's going to be in display over here there's a few different things 64 00:04:28,639 --> 00:04:35,360 you can do you can set set up um so you 65 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:38,199 can pick all or one on cycle so actually 66 00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:42,320 we're going to go here out of the menu out of the menu ah okay so that's all 67 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:46,280 down here so you can pick a single screen you can go okay I want to spy on 68 00:04:44,240 --> 00:04:50,080 Luke or I want to spy on the new guy or oh my goodness is that a bathroom or you 69 00:04:48,120 --> 00:04:54,320 can cycle through or you can see all of them or you can cycle through them and 70 00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:59,199 you can change the cycle speed by just going into display and then Auto 71 00:04:56,880 --> 00:05:03,560 sequence changing the dwell you can also change things like the actual layout of 72 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:06,440 the of them on screen so because they have models that support up to 16 73 00:05:04,919 --> 00:05:09,400 cameras that's more of a concern for those ones because if you have four 74 00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:14,039 cameras you're probably just going to want the the 2 by two since there's not 75 00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:17,240 a whole lot of other options there um you can this is kind of cool you can 76 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:21,919 actually mask off certain regions so in that bathroom for example uh we had 77 00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:25,919 masked off you know a bit of a privacy Zone here so you can just kind of go 78 00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:29,280 okay we don't want to see people's Peeps and uh you know whatever's going on in 79 00:05:28,039 --> 00:05:36,720 that corner we're not that interested in that you Mas that off and that'll actually be masked off in the recorded 80 00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:39,680 file um you can toggle the camera name 81 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:44,319 as well as the time stamp on and off so there you go so see that up there in the 82 00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:48,800 top and then you can trigger alarms Now alarms can be used for all kinds of 83 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:53,120 useful stuff let's just go into the alarms setting here D doop doop there we 84 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:59,080 go alarm can be used for all kinds of useful stuff including disc error motion 85 00:05:56,479 --> 00:06:02,759 and video loss so yeah guys in the Spy movies where they just like cut all the 86 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:07,160 wires to the security cameras and nobody notices cuz they just happened to not be 87 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:11,680 this is like a home or small office class DVR and it supports triggering an 88 00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:14,800 audible alarm when video is lost so there you go anyway you can also add on 89 00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:21,919 additional sensors but that's not something that we did motion is something that I think will be used by 90 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:23,759 um the widest variety of people since 91 00:06:21,919 --> 00:06:29,880 it's it's pretty useful so it can be done by schedule so you can have um you 92 00:06:27,440 --> 00:06:33,639 can just have it recording at times or you can have it actually triggering an 93 00:06:31,720 --> 00:06:36,880 alarm if there's motion at times so I'm going to go ahead and there we go so the 94 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:40,840 schedule here there's normal or there's alarm and then you can adjust a whole 95 00:06:38,639 --> 00:06:46,280 bunch of the settings inside of it as well so here we go sensitivity can be 96 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:50,160 changed to anything from profoundly not useful because it's not sensitive enough 97 00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:54,280 all the way up to profoundly not useful because it's too sensitive and 98 00:06:51,919 --> 00:06:57,800 everywhere in between you can set up so that only a certain area triggers an 99 00:06:56,120 --> 00:07:02,879 alarm so right now I have it set for the entire screen to trigger an alarm but if 100 00:06:59,960 --> 00:07:07,000 I was to say for example not care if Luke is benchmarking which is his actual 101 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:10,960 job and I only want an alarm to go off when he sits down you can see that those 102 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:16,280 red ones spin in your chair like you're having fun at 103 00:07:12,759 --> 00:07:18,680 work he's going to refuse to do it hey 104 00:07:16,280 --> 00:07:24,039 Luke spin in your chair spin in your 105 00:07:21,879 --> 00:07:28,319 chair there you go so you can see the red dots going off because he's clearly 106 00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:33,000 having way too much fun thank you very much all right 107 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:37,199 um so you can manage what an alarm trigger does including setting up a 108 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:41,280 pre-record window before the triggered event so you get a little bit of preo 109 00:07:38,639 --> 00:07:46,080 footage a post- record window pan til and zoom which is supported by the DVR 110 00:07:43,759 --> 00:07:50,240 but not by these cameras unfortunately the alarm ringer can go off uh anywhere 111 00:07:48,319 --> 00:07:53,560 from 10 seconds to 30 minutes and it's Extremely Loud which is why I have it 112 00:07:52,199 --> 00:07:58,800 off right now it's not something that we want to be having go off while I'm trying to do a video here and then you 113 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:02,680 can set up push notifications or email notifications as well as that Dropbox 114 00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:07,080 feature that I told you about before now when you consider that a home alarm 115 00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:12,400 system with no video will cost you however much a month um and basically is 116 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:16,800 doing the same thing as this except now you get a live view of the action um 600 117 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:22,039 bucks actually sounds like a pretty good bargain if you don't mind the setup 118 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:25,520 under information you can head over to record to see what kind of quality 119 00:08:23,759 --> 00:08:29,720 you're recording in which you set up in the sort of the other menu uh you can 120 00:08:27,599 --> 00:08:33,680 also see how much data you're taking up per hour then if you go to Disk 121 00:08:32,039 --> 00:08:39,000 Management you can set up how you want it to overwrite automatically whether by 122 00:08:35,800 --> 00:08:40,159 capacity or by days or just never 123 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:46,000 although that's not necessarily something I'd recommend if you plug a USB drive into the back you can go ahead 124 00:08:43,519 --> 00:08:51,800 and format that and you can offload footage to it by using the ah yes the 125 00:08:48,959 --> 00:08:56,519 record search here so this is kind of neat in fact I'm going to go try and 126 00:08:54,480 --> 00:09:01,120 find a clip to play for you guys that has the uh the motion tracking feature 127 00:08:58,839 --> 00:09:05,640 on Luke's camera working there we go so let's go ahead and play back so you can 128 00:09:03,560 --> 00:09:08,839 go ahead and scrub through the footage see okay there you go there you go so 129 00:09:06,959 --> 00:09:12,560 you were able to see that Luke's camera is looking for motion and then zooming 130 00:09:10,959 --> 00:09:16,600 in a little bit on it as well you can scrub through the footage just like that 131 00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:19,720 pick a different time it's not the fastest most responsive thing in the 132 00:09:18,040 --> 00:09:23,839 world but if you had an approximate idea of when a theft in your store took place 133 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:29,000 or whatever else then you wouldn't have too much difficulty tracking It Down 134 00:09:26,079 --> 00:09:32,480 based on the UI here permissions Within These Menus can be controlled by user 135 00:09:30,920 --> 00:09:35,720 account by default there's just one admin account and I didn't play around 136 00:09:34,279 --> 00:09:40,240 with it too much because I can't think of a reason why anyone else would really 137 00:09:37,519 --> 00:09:44,880 need to use it one thing that was kind of funny in the playback and review 138 00:09:42,760 --> 00:09:48,480 section is that they did some QC testing on my unit on the 6th of January 139 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:53,880 unfortunately it looks like I have it set to overwrite by date so it's not 140 00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:55,640 there anymore but uh there you go they 141 00:09:53,880 --> 00:09:59,640 do actually test them before they go ahead and uh and ship these babies out 142 00:09:58,079 --> 00:10:03,480 there are some color settings that can play around with I didn't really find 143 00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:08,720 them necessarily that useful so you can adjust brightness contrast Hue stuff 144 00:10:06,399 --> 00:10:14,680 like that uh and then you can do that by Channel or on all of the channels and 145 00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:16,839 the image quality overall you know what 146 00:10:14,680 --> 00:10:22,200 it's not the same as having a bunch of like HD camcorders set up as a security 147 00:10:20,079 --> 00:10:25,040 system but it's functional you won't be reading a license plate from across the 148 00:10:23,800 --> 00:10:29,640 street but if you were just trying to get you know a good look at a you know 149 00:10:27,079 --> 00:10:32,920 Shifty character like our new guy here then you'd probably be able it's better 150 00:10:31,279 --> 00:10:37,399 than a composite sketch based on someone's you know imagination that they 151 00:10:34,760 --> 00:10:41,959 give to the police for example um back to network setup for a minute other than 152 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:46,519 the Dropbox feature upm dealt with the port configuration and this was kind of 153 00:10:44,279 --> 00:10:51,880 cool is their mobile app actually worked effortlessly which um was surprising to 154 00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:56,600 me because I've used some of the consumer grade Wi-Fi cameras and their 155 00:10:54,959 --> 00:11:02,519 mobile apps tend to be really really terrible all you do is fire up the app K 156 00:11:00,040 --> 00:11:06,440 view QR you go ahead and add a new camera by just scanning the QR code 157 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:11,399 that's on the top of your unit and then you just go ahead and select your camera 158 00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:15,240 just go ahead BL BL I unplugged my Ethernet cable on the 159 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:19,839 back of this we'll be back in a moment oops and we're back anyway the apps 160 00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:23,399 available on iOS and Android is fairly straightforward you can take screenshots 161 00:11:21,880 --> 00:11:27,200 you can check which channel you want a monitor if nothing else even if you 162 00:11:25,639 --> 00:11:31,079 don't care about remote monitoring because you can do it on a PC as well 163 00:11:28,639 --> 00:11:33,680 you don't have to do it on your phone um even if you don't care about it at all 164 00:11:32,279 --> 00:11:37,399 it's pretty useful when you're running around the house or the office setting 165 00:11:35,560 --> 00:11:42,120 up the cameras because you can actually have a live view of what you're looking 166 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:45,200 at as you walk around and try to work on 167 00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:47,519 it so what's the conclusion here um I 168 00:11:45,200 --> 00:11:52,440 mean it's hard to say I you know it's like you know it's pretty cool you can 169 00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:57,720 monitor your employees you can you know monitor the back yard I think the one 170 00:11:56,079 --> 00:12:02,040 thing that I guess felt kind of missing like because I'm not a super a heavy 171 00:11:59,839 --> 00:12:05,040 user like I just wanted some basic video monitoring so the one thing that I kind 172 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:10,320 of felt was missing is I'm a bit of a pack rat so I wouldn't have minded some 173 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:12,160 kind of a networked Nas Nas automatic 174 00:12:10,320 --> 00:12:16,720 backup of the footage so I could archive more of it but I guess I could just put a bigger hard drive in the one concern 175 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:21,360 there is if I like if I was a thief breaking into a house and I realized there was a camera system I'd probably 176 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:25,199 try and find the box that goes with it but then you could always be smart about 177 00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:29,320 that and hide it somewhere or make it somewhere difficult to access and then 178 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:33,120 also just have a a home alarm system so they don't have a whole lot of time to 179 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:36,160 look for it until the cops come and uh that's so maybe that maybe that's all a 180 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:39,959 non-issue I mean like I said I haven't tested many other products in the 181 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:43,120 category so I can't really compare to anything else I'd love to hear your 182 00:12:41,199 --> 00:12:47,720 guys' comments if there's something else that I should be checking out it's 183 00:12:45,560 --> 00:12:52,959 definitely like much more feature complete and much better to use than a 184 00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:58,880 lot of the consumer grade like nanny cam on steroids style home monitoring Wi-Fi 185 00:12:55,959 --> 00:13:02,920 cameras way way better than that um and not even that inordinately more 186 00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:05,760 expensive but let me know if there's anything else that you feel like we 187 00:13:04,120 --> 00:13:08,959 should really be checking out in this category I think that's pretty much it 188 00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:12,320 guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a 189 00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:16,320 comment in the video and let us know if you have any other thoughts about it any 190 00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:19,160 requests for other like you know security system stuff or if you thought 191 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:23,279 this was totally stupid and we should never talk about this category again 192 00:13:21,040 --> 00:13:26,519 that's fine too and uh we do have a support Link in the video description as 193 00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:29,720 well so you can support us by giving us a monthly contribution to help us make 194 00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:34,120 more videos you can support us by buying cool t-shirts like this one and then you 195 00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:37,600 can also go ahead and change your Amazon links in any country pretty much to our 196 00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:41,600 affiliate code one so we get a small Kickback whenever you buy random crap on 197 00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:45,959 Amazon so thank you for watching don't forget to subscribe F Tech tips for more 198 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:51,120 unboxings reviews and other computer videos okay are we done sorry I got to 199 00:13:48,320 --> 00:13:51,120 take like a wicked 200 00:13:53,920 --> 00:14:01,040 pee what ah the lights out freaking 201 00:14:05,320 --> 00:14:12,040 okay all right there's a camera in here isn't there I guess I'm showing you guys 202 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:18,240 the uh infrared feature so this is what it looks like at night spooky Vision 203 00:14:15,240 --> 00:14:18,240 okay we're actually done 204 00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:31,040 now 205 00:14:31,839 --> 00:14:34,839 he