Svat CVP800 Mini Portable Digital Video Recorder with 128MB SD Memory Card

Comments about Svat CVP800 Mini Portable Digital Video Recorder:

Very good product, it is very simple to use and has functionality of much higher priced portable DVR's. I use a 16GB SDHC card to record on so I can record a few days on one card due to getting good record time with the motion detection function. I recomend this product if you are looking for a small DVR system to capture quality video.

Comments about Svat CVP800 Mini Portable Digital Video Recorder:

Pro's: Motion activated! <--WORKS GREAT, small. The picture is ok from the A/V out to the TV and even better with the SD card on the PC using Divx player to play the G.726 codec file. I use the highest quality settings and the frame rate is still smooth. The only problem I had with the unit was the TV out would not work at first. You MUST connect to your A/V input device before powering up the device so it will AUTO DETECT NTSC or PAL setting. NTSC for the U.S. The instruction manual could be written better. My only complaint about the unit is the battery life. The manual says about 100 min on alkaline AA batteries and that seems about right. Just wish it was more energy efficent. Seems to get a little warm after a while. For the price [$] it's a good product comparing it to other specificetions on other DVR's priced enven higher than this unit.

Comments about Svat CVP800 Mini Portable Digital Video Recorder:

I use this product as part of a video camera set-up to record frog behavior in the tropics. This DVR has been easy to set up and comes with more features than I need. The small size and durability has been such a bonus!

Comments about Svat CVP800 Mini Portable Digital Video Recorder:

Its biggest feature is motion detection, programmable byarea (22x15 grid cells), sensitivity (1-100%), and duration(5, 10, 15, 20, 30 secs.). It can also record manual(on/off), and schedule recording. It records audio andvideo from 352x24030fps to 704x48012fps (with slightlylarger resolutions and smaller frame rates for PAL), atlow/medium/high quality. The frame rates can be set from 1to the max for the given resolution. Audio recording can beturned off (or just not plugged in). When the end of the SDcard is reached, it can be set to stop recording or to loop. The motion record duration seems to be the minimum itrecords after detecting motion. I am still testing it tosee if a lot of motion equates to continuous mode. It willnot record if there is no video signal.At 704x480 12fps high quality settings, I continuouslyrecorded from 1:46 am to 6:38 am -- almost 5 hours on a 4GBcard.After much searching and testing, I have found a freeWindows utility that will combine the hundreds of small ASFfiles this device can create on a single card whileconverting them into a single AVI (or a few other formats)file. It allows drag and drop of hundreds of files fromWindows Explorer instead of a limited number from the OpenFile dialog. Using the Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V1video codec, I created a single 4.56 GB AVI file from a 1.83GB collection of 1,523 ASF files, which isn't bad at all. One annoyance is that it constantly causes many of mywindows to refresh, often moving its window above those ofother applications. A small price to pay. MediaJoin 3.0from Mystik Media can be downloaded from this and otherlocations:I have tested the device with two different 4GB SD cardsprobably non-SDHC The TOPRAM 150x card, which is currently sold with its ownUSB reader, Works fine. The RiDATA Lightning Series carddoes not work, nor is it recognized by an 18-in-1 cardreader I have that can read the TOPRAM card.

Problems Encountered: The user manual for the device states that it is possible toupdate its firmware, and provides incomplete instructionsfor doing so. The instructions are incomplete primarilybecause they do not indicate from where I am to obtain thefirmware upgrade, and secondarily what the name of the newdirectory is. While I have not yet tried a SDHC card with the device yet,I assume that it will probably not work I do know it willwork with at least one brand/model of 4GB SD card Ioriginally thought that all 4GB SD cards had to be SDHCcards, but this is not the case. It is possible that the manufacturer of the device providesa firmware upgrade that will allow it to read SDHC cards. However, I cannot find any manufacturer contact informationfor this device.

Previous Equivalent Items Owned: Homemade device using LCD, light-sensitive motion sensing device, VCRON, and VCR.

Comments about Svat CVP800 Mini Portable Digital Video Recorder:

Not a bad recorder for the application it was intended. It's motion sensing is really good and all the menus are straightforward. One thing I did not like is that the recording is storied in many small files on the card. That makes it difficult to run in most players (if you take the card out of the recorder and read it directly into your computer.) Also the recording skips a fraction of second as it stores the buffer. This gets a bit annoying after a while. It would be nice to have an option to record into one file. Instruction are a bit hard to understand. I would advise just hooking it up and playing with it.