Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Do your research. I've seen a lot of bad reviews for Zmodo DVR's on other websites from people that don't know anything about CCTV IR based camera systems... I own 2 of these DVR systems, in my experience they are the best. For years I struggled with PCI based DVR solutions, (SAMS club specials to) they ALL SUCK. The software for all PCI based cards is the same Chinese garbage. No support, no updates, short operational life. Out of the box the Zmodo systems work very well and without hassle. Couple of points to this... #1 Camera quality, for the price you can't expect the best. The most important feature here is the DVR and these are worth the price (- cameras). These don't have much range, they are too small you really need to tailor cameras to your environment. Buy a larger one for distance visibility at night. Do your research. You can't expect these to see a license plate 15" away. #2 To improve image quality use coax and not the dual cables provided. Lot of quality loss in these but it isn't practical for companies to sell these with large coax bundles shipping would eat you. Only complaint I have is the manual is bad engrish. Regarding the actual DVR, it's fairly easy to use, the interface isn't the best but it is better than other systems. The IE software is like all IE software, its buggy. This one isn't compatible with mac but you can use vMEye on your iPhone to view it remotely. There are other options for Mac, I don't ding the DVR for bad third party integration. DVR should be standalone and work on its own anyway. The newer model is mac compatible. As for upgrades, there are non, but its pretty rock solid as is. Would be nice to be able to shell into it to play with the linux build on it. Again I wouldn't ding this product for the lack of upgrades when you compare it to the rest of the low end DVR market. Lastly support. I had some issues with the last one I ordered missing parts and having a mixing issue (maybe woot issue). The support was very surprising. I hadn't needed it before. Make sure you call the US support, don't email or use web chat it goes to China.