Swann SWNVK-873004 NVR8-7300 8 Channel Network Video Recorder & 4 x NHD-815 3MP Cameras (White)

What customers say about Swann SWNVK-873004 NVR8-7300 8 Channel Network Video Recorder & 4 x NHD-815 3MP Cameras (White)?

1. 13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

   
   Hardware excellent, software terrible, June 6, 2015

   By 

   Edward Falk (Silicon Valley) –
   
     

   This review is from: Swann SWNVK-873004 NVR8-7300 8 Channel Network Video Recorder & 4 x NHD-815 3MP Cameras (White) (Electronics)

   The hardware has everything you want. Fantastic cameras (I hear they’re rebranded Hikvision), built-in power-over-ethernet, 1TB storage, and so forth.

   But the software leaves a lot to be desired:

   There’s no web interface for viewing, control, and configuration. This would have been a fantastic feature, allowing me to place the device in a secure closet somewhere and operate it remotely. Unfortunately, the “web interface” it provides only allows you to download a browser plugin for Windows — nothing more. Swann would have done well to take a page from the router manufacturers and allow full configuration from the web page. Better yet would have been to also show still photos from the cameras, and best of all would have been to allow video streaming.

   There’s no support for Mac or Linux. Period. Have a Mac? Better run Windows in a VM and run the SwannView Link program from there.

   The SwannView Link application for Android doesn’t do playback. It either just spins or it crashes.

   There is no support for iPad. There is a SwannView Link for iPhone, but I don’t have an iPhone so I can’t judge.

   Swann, are you reading this? Please publish your protocol spec — the maker community will surely throw together some apps for it for free, and they’ll do clever stuff you never dreamed of.

   One more caveat: this product is called “8 CH Camera” — don’t let that confuse you. It has 8 channels, but only comes with 4 cameras.

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2. 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

   
   The cameras themselves are very excellent – the best I’ve ever seen at night in …, July 29, 2015

   By 

   Daniel Cogan (Florham Park, NJ) –
   
     

   This review is from: Swann SWNVK-873004 NVR8-7300 8 Channel Network Video Recorder & 4 x NHD-815 3MP Cameras (White) (Electronics)

   The cameras themselves are very excellent – the best I’ve ever seen at night in complete darkness.

   But, software is buggy. Application for PC works, just takes getting used to. Replaying video is not intuitive. Audio and video work on PC, although audio can be choppy.

   With SwannView Link on an iPhone 6 (with FIOS network at my home) I get video but no audio. And cannot review stored video (just tells me there is no file found or something like that). I noticed the iPhone App hasn’t had an update since 2014. And no support for iPad.

   The cameras can be viewed from a browser. I got it to work on IE, but not Chrome. Chrome complains that an unsupported plugin is being used.
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   Update 11/10/2015:
   I’ve had the system now since the end of July. With updates, and a better understanding, the overall system has gotten better. Tech support is terrible! I will now up my recommendation from 2 stars to three stars as I reckon the product is past its infancy and can be installed and used without much frustration.

   As far as my previous complaint about audio not working on the iPhone 6, it turns out that the mute button on the left side of the phone affects some streaming apps instead of others. In the case of Swann, if your phone is in vibrate mode (non-ringer), no sound will occur in live-play or playback modes. Swann did not offer that solution – instead I was told to enable the audio on substream mode, and the case was closed, so I couldn’t even let them know the solution I found.

   But I must say, I like this completely useless response from Swann when I clarified the speeds of network, and various components in trying to know why I wasn’t getting sound:

   “Our SwannView Link Application is under development. And one of supposedly added feature would be the audio streaming on which you are having problems with right now.

   I would let you know in case the application would be released.

   Please let us know if you need any further help with this. Thank you and we hope you have a wonderful day.”

   Swann made an update to the NVR box in the Aug/Sept time frame. The most notable change is that it will now offer auto-updates which the NVR can reach over the internet. Prior, the only way to update was to download to PC and install to NVR via a usbstick.

   This update has helped stability in playback mode. It is still hard on a pc to playback more than one camera at a time, but playback of one works honestly well – interface is better – can jump to different moments in time and show will update within a few seconds with the playback for that time. On a phone, it will only allow you to playback one camera at any given time (no way to choose more than one). But, it misses a key feature of allowing you any way to speed forward or jump in time. The interface is a set of files which are timestamped with the range of time, which you choose from, and then watch from the beginning of that time frame. To me, this is unusable. If something happens 15 minutes into the video, one must wait that long to see it and if you miss it, start again. For this reason, a quick forward/quick rewind or jump to function is terribly needed.

   Live mode across multiple cameras works pretty well on the PC and phone.

   I just noticed a new SwannView PC app version out 2.1.2.10 which I have yet to try. But last time a new PC app update was out, the web browser interface was also changed to match that of that app. The best place to get the most recent app is through their support center. The app offered on the product page is outdated, so if you buy the system be sure to get your app from the support center page.
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   Update 11/19/2015
   Kudos to the company for getting quality up on all fronts.
   I raised my rating from 3 stars to 4 as a result of iPhone app and Swann View Link PC app upgrades which I reckon really make this system easily usable and delivering the features I paid for. My initial revue was for 2 stars which I increased to 3 after Swann’s update to the NVR box.

   In version 2.1.2.10 of SwannView Link for PC, the playback mode has a nicer interface (although the left and right arrows to scroll forward or backward on the timeline are backward in my opinion). It handles playback of multiple cameras much better than it ever did. In the past, customer service told me my computer must not be excellent enough since playback used a lot of processing. Well, I never changed my computer but now it’s working much better.

   The iPhone SwannView LInk v2.1.6 brings a much better interface for playback. Prior, you did a search, which brought up a list of files. You’d have…

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3. 9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

   
   Fantastic system UI could be better, but worth the money., July 1, 2015

   By 

   Erick –

   This review is from: Swann SWNVK-873004 NVR8-7300 8 Channel Network Video Recorder & 4 x NHD-815 3MP Cameras (White) (Electronics)

   I bought this at SAMs club as a last one offer and it was 479.00 bucks. It was a steal in my opinion. I have had to run the wires through my attic and down the walls but that is to be expected to hide the wires. I have 3 out of four cameras running so far , just waiting for my wife to help me pick the best spot for the last one. Picture is fantastic, especially with 4 x digital zoom and the apps may be a bit clunky but they do work, I have the apps on all three of my iOS devices as well as my wife’s. I can see and hear what’s going on in each camera over the apps live streaming, the mics are omnidirectional is seems so you hear everything and it can be a bit messy at times, wind is a huge issue, even the slightest breeze is loud.If it’s quite in the frame you get a loud hum that I am looking at fixing, if possible. Also looking into a bluetooth mouse so I can hide the DVR unit away and control it from a distance ( not sure UI will allow it though).My only wish is that it came with more in depth configuration instructions because the software on the DVR is excellent but not user friendly. Overall I reckon it is a excellent system anything less is really a waste after seeing the other cheaper systems.
   Will update after its up and running for a while. I gave 4 stars because of UI and no real user configuration instructions.(at least not in my box).

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