Bench Test 2: Quality on screen

What our experts say …

Digital video recording technology has ranged far and wide over the past decade, taking an occasional turn up a blind alley along the way, but in the past couple of years a distinct pattern has emerged and in the absence of any new or unexpected developments it seems unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.

The key features of the modern well-dressed DVR are very ably illustrated by the German-made Eneo DXR range of digital surveillance recorder/multiplexers. These include multiple hard-disk drives for storing large volumes of recorded video data, a CD or DVD writer for exporting recordings on disk for playback on a PC, remote viewing and configuration over a network, with the whole shebang controlled by a Linux-based operating system.

We've been looking at the DXR1-09N/750CDRW and that somewhat lengthy product designation reveals that it is a 9-channel design (16-channel models are also available) with 750 gigabytes of storage space spread across three internal disk drives, and it is equipped with a CD-RW drive.

What the model number doesn't tell you is that it operates in full duplex mode for simultaneous recording, playback and network viewing. It uses ML-JPEG compression (an advanced version of M-JPEG compression developed by Honeywell subsidiary Ademco) and it is capable of recording up to 100 images (fields) per second at a resolution of up to 720 x 576 pixels. There's no mention of maximum recording times anywhere in the instructions or literature but we have been assured that using typical mid-way quality and frame rate settings it should be in excess of 31 days.

The DXR1 can be connected to up to four configurable spot monitors. There are three USB 2.0 ports (two on the front and one on the rear) that can be used to update the machine's firmware and for connection to peripheral devices such as external storage devices (disk or flash memory), printer, mouse and keyboard, and there's provision for additional mass-storage in the shape of an SCSI interface.

Additionally it has four audio recording channels, text input for ATM and POS devices, a comprehensive set of alarm inputs and outputs and motion detection facilities. There is also email notification, scheduled recording (event and time-lapse), post alarm recording and a useful set of search facilities (time, date, event, text, motion etc), the latter aided and abetted by a front panel jog/shuttle dial.

Recorded clips can be exported to disk or flash drive and they are accompanied by a clip viewer program so that they can be instantly reviewed on any Windows PC. The machine supports remote PTZ control using a variety of common protocols.

Display options include single and multiple screens (sequence, quad, 3 x 3 and picture-in picture) picture freeze and electronic zoom (x2 and x4) and the operating system has a wide range of diagnostic tools that monitor the condition and temperature of the hard disk drives and will alert the operator in the event of any faults being detected. The machine comes with an infrared remote control handset and networking software on a CD-ROM. All operations are controlled from an unusually elegant on-screen display. This is a real pleasure to use and marks a welcome departure from the clumsy text-based screens we're used to seeing. It makes extensive use of PC style graphics; it's clearly and logically laid out, easy on the eye and the transparency can be adjusted so that the image remains visible.

The unit is housed in a smart looking cream-coloured VCR style cabinet with all of the controls neatly arranged and clearly labelled. The loading draw for the CD-RW drive is on the far left side. Beneath that are a set of status indicators and two buttons, for the main alarm and a Panic Alarm. When pressed the machine immediately starts recording all channels.

In the centre of the front panel there's a bank of camera selector buttons with LED indicators and on the right side is a row of VCR type playback buttons, a cluster of cursor and mode selector buttons. The jog shuttle dial is on the right side of the panel.

Moving round to the back, there is a bank of BNC connectors for the camera inputs and automatically terminated loop through outputs. Next to those are the five monitor output sockets, one for the main monitor (BNC and S-Video) and four spot monitors (BNC).

Along the bottom half of the rear panel there's a row of five phono sockets for the audio inputs and output, three spring terminal blocks for alarm inputs, outputs, alarm reset and RS485 communications. There's also the rear-mounted USB port next to a recessed system reset switch, an RS232 socket for serial comms, a VGA port, SCSI connector, and last but not least, a single Ethernet socket. Inside the unit the mainboard occupies the rear two thirds of the case and this is alongside a metal-cased PC type mains power supply. Two of the three disk drives are mounted inside a finned heat sink, which sits next to the main exhaust fan. The third drive lives beneath the CD-RW drive on the left, which brings us to one of the very few problems we encountered on our sample.

An early attempt to use the CD drive bought up an on-screen error message, claiming that it was not enabled. It was only when the lid was removed that we spotted that both the power and data leads were lying loose inside the case. It is just conceivable that one of them might have worked loose in transit but the fact that both of them were unplugged suggests that they were never fitted in the first place. Under normal circumstances this might cast doubt over Eneo's quality control procedures, however we are inclined to put this down to a one-off aberration as the machine shows all the signs of being built to a very high standard and extremely well put together.

Setup and operation

Thanks to the excellent on-screen displays the initial configuration is almost completely painless. Pressing the menu button displays a password logon page followed by the main menu, which has five options illustrated by a set of graphic icons. From right to left they are: System, Network, Devices, Record and Event.

Selecting each icon – using the cursor buttons on the front panel, remote control or a mouse – displays a drop-down list of the various sub menus. System includes general information detailing Site and System IDs, operating language, software version and update, the System and Event Logs, and the start and end time/date of the recorded data. Also on the System menu are the setup screens for time and date, hard drive status, user info, password setup and system shutdown.

The Network menu contains configuration screens for setting data transfer speed and quality, LAN and modem setup and email notification. Devices covers camera and audio configuration, alarm output, display settings and remote control. The record menu deals with resolution and quality adjustment, timer setup and archiving. Finally, the Event menu has sub menus for alarm inputs, motion detection setup, video loss, text input and the system event log setup.

The only preliminaries needed to get the DVR up and running are to set the time and date, select recording resolution (Standard or High), frame rates for Time and Event recording (0.1 to 25ips in 9 steps), recording quality (Very High, High, Standard, Low) and compose camera titles, all of which are made a great deal easier by using the remote control and a virtual on-screen keyboard.

Setting schedule recording times and customising the rest of the machine's various options are similarly straightforward. The only minor irritant is the motion detection system, which takes a bit of getting used to. The lack of any clear indication of recording times or capacities is regrettable. Unless it is very well hidden there appears to be no way to protect alarm and motion triggered recordings, other than by exporting them to disk. As it stands all data is eventually overwritten when the disks are full unless the option to disable 'Recycle' mode is switched on and the disk full alarm is enabled.

Network operation is refreshingly simple and setup took only a minute or two on the DXR1. The Remote Administration System software (Windows 9x, 2K and XP only) installs easily and comprises three separate but linked applications for administration, viewing and searching data stored on the DVR. The three programs mirror the basic functions on the DVR and are intuitive and easy to use. Some operations, such as composing camera titles, motion detection setup and search are even easier thanks to the use of the PC keyboard and mouse.

Performance

Switching to playback mode allows the operator to scroll forward through the material stored on the machine using the VCR style controls and jog/shuttle on the front panel or the remote control. There is a very good range of search speeds so it is reasonably easy to find a particular sequence. However, in order to delve further into the archive – more than day or so from the beginning – it will be necessary to use the Search facilities, to specify time and date or search by alarm event. This means it is necessary to log on and dip into the on-screen menus, which slows things down. A quick search option accessible from the front panel/remote control would have made things a lot easier.

Recording quality on the highest resolution settings is very good indeed, comparable with top end-DVRs we've seen recently, and the images on our sample, played back through a monitor, revealed plenty of fine detail, a wide contrast range and good colour accuracy. Noise levels are negligible and playback, at all speeds, is rock solid.

The range of quality options is comparatively limited but even on the High and Standard settings picture quality is still very good. It's only on the Low setting that serious deterioration sets in, with a marked increase in digital artefacts and a significant reduction in resolution. Audio recording is surprisingly good too, and the fact that there are four channels available makes this very desirable facility even more useful, though in the absence of any disk usage displays it is difficult to say how much impact it has on recording duration.

Playback over a network results in some further loss of detail with colours and sharp edges starting to look a little fluffy, but it's far from serious. Network playback also suffers from a reduced range of playback speeds. Recordings copied to disk are slightly degraded, but this only shows up on test patterns; normal camera views looks fine.

Initially we thought there was a glitch on the clip viewer program that's copied to disk at the same time as video. When full-screen display is enabled the window controls fall outside of the screen area and become inaccessible. We couldn't find any way of returning the display to its previous size and the program had to be manually terminated by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete. We later discovered that the solution is to press the Esc key; it would have been better if this information were included in the instructions.

What the manufacturer says ...

The new generation of eneo DXR Digital Video/Audio Recorders with 9 and 16 channels brings interesting new features for professional digital recording. Recording Speeds of up to 100 fields/sec (PAL) provide live video even in multi-channel operation. The recorders feature a VGA output and four spot monitor outputs.

Depending on the number of input channels, 9 or 16 alarm in-/outputs as TTL Open Collector are provided. POS/ATM connection is possible with the data interface.

Three USB 2.0 interfaces enable connection with peripheral equipment such as printers, mouse or external storage devices. Additional storage/RAID systems can be connected with the SCSI interface.

For quick and easy archiving a CD writer is integrated. Advanced search functions such as 'Motion Search' or 'Museum Search' make it easy to find the desired picture sequences. User-friendly buttons in VCR style as well as the jog/shuttle allow intuitive operation of the many features. Professional functions for alarm processing and motion detection make these professional DVRs complete.

Recorders in the DXR series work with a very efficient compression method (ML-JPEG). As a result they only take up approximately 18KB for one best quality image, which is significantly less than comparable models. As internal storage capacity can be expanded to up to 750GB, recording for long periods of time is no problem.

Features include supporting RAS remote software, which enables access to live pictures and recorded images in single or multi-view mode without interrupting recording. Configuration can be carried out remotely over the network, while configurations can be stored externally. This ensures that the complete set-up will be available unchanged after unit exchanges or upgrades. Via the integral USB port image sequences up to a size of 2GB can be stored on an external hard disk for data back up or archiving.