Q-See QT8716-16AA-4 32 Channel 3 MP/1080p NVR System with 12 High-Definition IP 3 MP/1080p Cameras and 4 HD Varifocal Cameras and 4 TB Hard Drive (White/Black)

What customers say about Q-See QT8716-16AA-4 32 Channel 3 MP/1080p NVR System with 12 High-Definition IP 3 MP/1080p Cameras and 4 HD Varifocal Cameras and 4 TB Hard Drive (White/Black)?

1. 2 of 2 people found the subsequent review helpful

   
   Fantastic logic, robust options/capability, mostly predestined for business use, September 22, 2015

   By 

   Stephen Lerch –
   
     
   
     

   This review is from: Q-See QT8716-16AA-4 32 Channel 3 MP/1080p NVR Logic with 12 High-Classification IP 3 MP/1080p Cameras and 4 HD Varifocal Cameras and 4 TB Hard Drive (White/Black) (Electronics)

   Vine Customer Review of Free Manufactured goods (What’s this?)

   

   Customer Video Review Length:: 1:55 Mins

   The Q-See Qt8716 is a COMMERCIAL GRADE NVR (network video recorder). With the assumption that this will go into a commercial attention, here are particular… design decisions around the NVR that make it ideal for a business and not so much for home/private use, unless you really need 16 cameras (logic is expandable to 32 cameras).

   Before you hold this, make sure it meets your needs/wants. Also ensure you are OK with needing an account with Q-See in peacefulness to use the remote view APP functionality of the NVR (standard remote view is configurable for using a desktop/laptop without needing a Q-See account). Mandatory fields for this setup are: name, address, and phone number. You are also presented with mandatory fields for what you bought, everywhere you bought, date of hold, and use case. Here are other optional fields as well. If you don’t want to provide this level of information to use the app, you won’t want this logic. This is, but, a very small part of the capability this logic provides.

   Again, before you buy, just because this uses POE (Power Over Ethernet) and is simpler to setup than many such systems, you still need to properly plot out everywhere you want the cameras, how to mount them, potentially determine cable run length (anything more than 100 ft and you can’t use the included cables and will likely need some kind of POE repeater), and the menu logic on NVRs, especially one predestined for commercial attention, can be pretty deep and complex.

   What you get in the box includes:
   16 channel NVR w/ 4 TB hard drive preinstalled
   4 – QTN8039B cameras
   4 – QTN8040D cameras
   8 – QTN8037B cameras
   16 – POE Network cables
   Power cables, mounting brackets, SATA cables for extra hard drive installation, etc

   The first thing to realize is that this NVR is massive. We are talking 3 inches high, 17.5 inches deep, and 17 inches wide. Next, realize this is LOUD. We are talking ancient desktop style PC loud. You don’t want this mounted in a bedroom closet or everywhere people gather (like living room closet), as it will keep you awake or at least ensure you know everywhere it is. Yes, it is that loud.

   So why is it so huge and loud? Simple: 16 camera connections, and each of those connections uses POE, or Power Over Ethernet. This connection type is the simplest, as you only run one cable to each camera instead of power, video, and audio. This single cable offers the power AND the data transfer between the camera and the NVR. You need to draw all of the power for each camera, and the NVR itself, from the power supply in the NVR, which means it needs powerful cooling for the power supply itself AND the cooling of the NVR.

   In the video part of my review, I’ve included video for each camera type so you can get an thought of the quality of the video from the logic, which is quite excellent in my opinion for an NVR logic.

   One thing to keep in mind when you buy this – they expect this logic to go to professionals. As such, the menu logic, and navigation of the logic on screen is mostly logical, but complex. Also keep in mind that the logic does NOT come with a printed manual. If you need the manual, you’ll want to head over to Q-See’s website and check for support.

   You can configure vital things like recording time. Let’s say you want to record only when no one is in the construction. You can set the NVR to record constantly from 8 PM to 6 AM or no matter what timeframe you need. You can set it up to record constantly all through a specific time period, you can set it up to record on motion detection over a specific time period, or you can set it to record “all the time” but only on motion. You can also set it to permanently record, and configure it to recycle hard drive space when the drive is full. The list of things you can set this NVR to do is pretty mind boggling, and in a business scenario, essential in my mind. Enthusiasts at home will also appreciate all the capability this offers.

   The NVR logic also allows you to set up remote view of the logic (remember you need an App and a Q-See account if you want to use this from your iOS or Android device, but browser based viewing doesn’t have that restriction). Setting up your logic for remote view can be complex, and you will likely need to have access to your router to open ports and so on.

   You can copy the video from the NVR to a USB drive (hard drive, USB stick, etc). When you do this, you can choose between the NVR’s native format or AVI. In pretty much every case you will want to choose AVI for the format, as otherwise you need extra software installed on a machine to view it. It also makes it hard to share, say in case you need to provide the establishment video proof of an incident. Copying the AVIs and converting the format with Adobe Premier/Media Encoder is how I made this video…

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2. 1 of 1 people found the subsequent review helpful

   
   Significant investment for signficant performance and function., September 25, 2015

   By 

   Kelly Sottelbaum (PacNW, USA) –

   This review is from: Q-See QT8716-16AA-4 32 Channel 3 MP/1080p NVR Logic with 12 High-Classification IP 3 MP/1080p Cameras and 4 HD Varifocal Cameras and 4 TB Hard Drive (White/Black) (Electronics)

   Vine Customer Review of Free Manufactured goods (What’s this?)

   Even as the price tag may scare many people away from this, the ones most likely to want a logic of this sophistication (and overall quantity) are likely those running businesses, everywhere this is more of an investment than a toy to watch the mailman deliver mail each day. As seen from the description and pictures, here are a total of 16 cameras, and the unit is expandable out to another 16 for a total of 32 cameras and monitor points.

   Let’s initiation with the terrible points of this. First, the dome cameras are fixed – they do not provide extra zoom or pan/tilt capabilities, so I’m not quite sure they’re in the dome to start with. Secondly, the setup and menu screens are perfectly functional, but certainly lacking a excellent UX designer’s touch. This logic is more geared to the professional in that regard. Third, given the complexity and number of cameras, this takes a long time to set up. (This is also a positive, as noted later.) Lastly, as other reviewers note, the logic does make use of some noisy fans to keep the unit cool – I don’t really consider this a negative, because this logic isn’t designed to be sitting in the living room of your apartment – it’s a commercial unit.

   An fascinating design question comes to mind when setting up this unit – given up to 32 channels, this unit has 16 PoE built in. This means that each of the 16 cameras this unit comes with can be plugged into the main unit with a standard ethernet cable (included) and provide power to it. And that part is fantastic – only one cable going to each camera! But, the cable lengths max out at 100 feet, and because you need the full connection and power, if you want to use a coupler to connect a link cables collectively, you’ll also need a powered repeater to do so. But the fascinating question it raises, for me at least, is that given 100′ in any direction, would 16 cameras in that span over-saturate the area with cameras? Depending on your layout and needs, it may work fantastic, or you may wish you had more flexibility in distance. (For instance, in a warehouse setting, 100′ in each direction may not be nearly enough; in a retail background, it may be perfect.)

   Even as this is 32 channels, if you wish to enlarge it by adding more cameras, you do so by connecting to cameras already connected to your LAN or the Internet. In this regard, it does provide flexibility to place cameras over a greater distance – basically, anywhere your network is covered. And as far as expansion, this can also accept additional hard drives, to contain up to 32TB of video recording.

   The actual cameras on here are more impressive than I imagined they would be. The image quality is VERY clear, even in low light, everywhere many cameras fail completely or get the picture blurry or pixelated enough to be useless. Even nighttime video is impressive, providing a black and white image to make out clearly what’s going on.

   As a whole, this is a substantial logic that provides a lot of flexibility and expansion, exceptional quality video and hardware as a whole, and for what it is and does, could provide a fantastic value for business owners. Recommended for commercial and industrial usage, or if you have a huge house/property that you need 24/7 surveillance (say, maybe you’re a drug lord.) Fantastic logic with its largest weakness being the user interface of the menu systems.

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3. 1 of 1 people found the subsequent review helpful

   
   IP Video Security in a Box, September 9, 2015

   By 

   Someone (CA) –
   
     

   This review is from: Q-See QT8716-16AA-4 32 Channel 3 MP/1080p NVR Logic with 12 High-Classification IP 3 MP/1080p Cameras and 4 HD Varifocal Cameras and 4 TB Hard Drive (White/Black) (Electronics)

   Vine Customer Review of Free Manufactured goods (What’s this?)

   This is now being used in a nail soir?e. As far as my experience with professional IP cams, I’ve worked with Axis and Toshiba, as well as some other brands that are ONVIF compliant.

   [Excellent]

   The DVR is really a computer with a PoE switch integrated as well as some other controls. Performance is decent considering it has to deal with 12 IP camera feeds simultaneously.

   All cameras are HD pledge or privileged.

   All cameras are PoE which means that you will save both money and sanity from not having to deal with finding an electrical outlet for each camera. The cameras are just powered over the ethernet cables.

   You get a wide diversity of cameras covering virtually every scenario for a small store: indoor, outdoor, night time IR, dome & bullet cams, varifocal and so on.

   It even comes with the ethernet cables.

   The software has a lot of options including remote viewing

   Q-See has mobile clients for iOS, Android, Window Phone, and even Blackberry.

   Very excellent value for the price.

   [Ok]

   As expected the GUI is very ancient teach i.e. complicated and not intuitive like modern UIs in the 21st century. I didn’t place this as a negative because All professional video security IP systems are terrible since they favor function over form and in general they either don’t have the resources for UX or they aren’t willing to invest in it. From my experience, it’s a small bit of both. It’s very hard to hire creative people for an industry that’s both dull to most people as well as convincing an entire industry that their UI is needs heavy reworking. Only consumer grade systems from say Nest are intuitive.

   [Terrible]

   Installation will not be simple (or cheap if you choose to hire someone). Unless you have experience or a lot of time to experiment, you will need to hire a professional. The least expensive is a electrician. Specialized installers will cost more but may be worth it? Why? Because they can strategically place your cameras in the right spots with the right view. I could be incorrect but I feel that both this and professional installation services are tax deductible as a business expense.

   [Misc]

   Even as you can use this for your house, it’ll probably be overkill for most places.

   I will update the review with any new insights or issues that I run into.

   [Verdict]

   This is a fantastic, capable logic.

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