Q - Why don't I just buy the system at some big box store?
A - It's alright if you buy one from there.

There are some considerations you should take into account however, for example;

• Who will you call if you need the system installed?
• Is there a person who you can call for technical support or if your system or cameras do not work?
• Is the system that you purchase the type that you need?

There are several things about your location that dictate the type of camera and field of view you may need and those big box systems only come with one type.
A lot of systems hype "Hi-Res" BUT, are they truly high res or do you need hi-definition?
Also those store systems may or may not include cables from DVR to camera. If they are supplied usually they are maximum 60 feet in length and if you need longer; there you go searching to find them which adds to your time and expense.

• What happens if a camera does not work straight out of the box or if after three months the IR leds stop working?
• Is the hard drive (not always included) large enough?
• Is there a warranty? What does it include?

The quality of the recorded video from a DVR depends on three factors –

• frame rate (Usually degraded by the amount of cameras)
• resolution The resolution refers to the level of detail that is recorded.
  Resolution is usually regarded in pixels per inch. Usually vertically and horizontally.
  This has caused a lot of confusion when one tries to figure out which resolution a DVR or camera has.
  
• compression The third factor that affects video quality is file size, or the level of compression. If you look at video on camera, the footage will reflect the resolution of your camera setting. If you view that same footage after it has been recorded, you may notice that it appears lower in resolution, depending on the file size option or level of compression that you have selected on your DVR. The reason this occurs is directly related to the process of compression. There are three codecs common to the mobile surveillance industry,

• MJPEG
• MPEG-4
• H.264

NOTE: Some DVR's DO NOT start recording right away when motion is detected because they don't have buffered recording.

How does the box store compare.

There are several types of cameras being sold out there. HD-SDI, TVI, CVI and IP. HD-SDI has been known to be prone to issues with it's cabling. It's very fussy and alot of time even though you've had cables already intstalled and just replaced with an SDI camera, if the cabling had become degraded in any way your video will also be degraded.

HD-SDI is being replace these days with HD-CVI and TVI. However, HD-CVI is owned and manufactured by one (very large) company. This company is Dahua and they sell under various brands, ie: Qsee™, ICRealtime™, GenIV™, eyeServ™, etc. Since this company makes the HD-CVI protocol, most other companies have adopted HD-TVI and IP protocols. Also this CVI protocol is NOT backwards compatable with analog cameras. You may see the advantage of having more companies adopt a protocol over just one.