Amcrest NV4108E-A2 4K 8CH POE NVR (1080p/3MP/4MP/5MP/8MP) POE Network Video Recorder - Supports up to 8 x 8MP/4K IP Cameras, 8-Channel Power Over Ethernet Supports up to 10TB HDD (Not Included)

I have had two POE Amcrest cameras now for just over a year. My biggest regret now is not having a reliable source of data-storage. Prior to having this NVR I tried several solutions to avoid "spending" more money. 1) Internal storage using the microsd. (These failed within a week...) 2) FTP storage - (SUPER unreliable, and EXTREMELY challenging to setup... Most FTP services only support one channel at a time! So imagine trying to deal with that...) Not to mention accessing these files means MANUAL WORK!!! 3) NAS - NAS solution was not bad, but still the same situation with manually accessing files... No decent UI to support these files being saved here... NVR is a game changer... DO NOT BUY CAMERAS without this being part of your shopping list. Buy less cameras and START with if you have to! 1) Setup pretty simple. I would suggest buying a different HD (I personally like Seagates...) Simply unscrew and place harddrive and screw into place... Plugin using the cables provided. 2) Hook up... POE ports make for less POE switches. 8 is plenty for my house... I would even say for "most" houses... Their is a cheaper model of this that seemingly does not have POE... I would say do not go with this, as you will later have to upgrade. This device also has HDMI and VGA output. I personally plugged this directly into my TV. Now I can stream all of my connected cameras to this... 3) Setup... Setup overall is pretty simple and easy to do... Biggest issue is understanding which windows and controls... Mouse can take a minute to get used to as left click triggers, right click exits... Various windows for managing each Camera can be difficult, but again once you get the hang of where things are... It gets easier. My cameras were mostly setup already so mostly just had to have my NVR log into each. 4) LIVE... Out of the gate the NVR is accessible via web browser, or app. I use the app more often... Now if you leave your home network you will need to have some basic Networking skills to do port forwarding. Having a DNS service is super helpful. Most routers now days have these built in, and just have to be configured. 5) Reviewing... NVR's make things SO much better. Yes its still a bit clunky. However, now I can go into any given date and pull up a feed. I wish I could scan faster, but maybe that will happen in the future.. Technically it would be better to just have it setup for alerts, but I prefer 24x7 recording. Much less chance of missing something. ---- CONS / Issues 1) The fan on the NVR is rather loud. I expect either it will "quiet" down over time. If not it appears to be a standard fan, so likely can be exchanged. Definitely do not use this without one as the POE, and harddrive will overheat... Especially if running multiple channels... 2) Interfaces - These are still a bit difficult to manage, but not impossible. Take some time getting used to where things are located. My preference is using the APP to manage each option set for the cameras. Even the Web Interface as then you can export/import much easier in my opinion. (templating makes this so much better to manage multiple cameras!) OVERALL Do not start into this path of cameras without an NVR. Period... It changed my whole setup, and is so much more reliable.

I had recently purchased a complete Amcrest system for my father, and after getting it setup for him, I decided I wanted one as well. I already had the cameras, just needed the NVR instead of just being able to watch the cameras, now I could record them as well! This fit the bill perfect, just had to pop in a drive I had handy, and off I went. Using the P2P feature is great, not having to manually poke holes through the firewall and simply being able to bring up the app and there's my cameras. The recording feature is pretty great as well. You can select any or all the cameras and see them on a single timeline, making it very easy to go through recordings. The motion detection is spot on as well, any time a car would go by, or a bicycle or someone walking it would capture it and even was able to set it up to email me! Setup was super simple, just hook it up to a monitor either over HDMI or VGA, and use the included mouse to go through the setup. I had it up and running and connected to my existing cameras in under 5 minutes. Speaking of which, this thing integrates with existing cameras seamlessly. Being able to use the 4 I had already setup before hand was great. The hardware itself works a treat too. I was able to sit and watch the streams with no hiccups, no blips just a nice crisp clear image. Recording was seemless as well, the only thing I had to setup that I didn't like out of the box is that it would take a screenshot every second. I set it to only take a screenshot when it detected motion, which made looking through alerts much easier. I've attached a few pictures showing the size of it compared to a standard flash drive, it's very compact! I also took a screenshot of the main page of the device showing some of options and the nice interface. All in all, if they would have had this a few years ago, I would have bought it then. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for an easy to setup and use NVR

Pude conectar cámaras de 4mp de otras dos marcas. Las reconoció fácilmente gracias al protocolo ONVIF. Trae un procesador rápido , comparado con el de otras dos marcas que use. No deja usar la comprensión en formato H.265 desde el NVR, creo que depende de la cámara. No la he probado con una cámara 4k. Hace ruido , pero no es molesto. Tengo unas dudas en cuanto a la cantidad de energía que envía. Ya que en una ocasión envió “ruido” a las cámaras. No he logrado configurar las cámaras vía http desde la pc al NVR. Puedes configurarlas desde el NVR , pero solo cosas sencillas. Dentro del nvr hay un led de color rojo que está constantemente encendido.

I bought this unit 6 years ago. I was a bit nervous buying this nvr. I didn't know amcrest and up until then I was living in the chinese greymarket hikvision ecosystem. It was the right choice buying it as this unit has been absolutely fantastic. It adopted a variety of non amcrest cameras without issue. I find the user interface to be better than hikvision. I had a problem with their software when I first started but after a call to customer support they pointed me to the VMS software by dahua. So I'm using SmartPSS as the remote administrator - very happy with it. This NVR has been plugging along since then without a single issue. I've read other reviewers who had issues with compatibility - not me.

Really happy it works with my new 4K Brillcam. I found out my GW NVR is not ONVIF compliant, even though the box said the GW NVR was ONVIF compliant - it was NOT, and I had to find an NVR that really was. Thanks

Compre el articulo para poder grabar los videos de un par de camaras 4K tambien de Amcrest: IP8M-T2499EW y IP8M-2597EB-28MM. Sin embargo cual fue mi desagradable sorpresa de que puede grabar los videos 4K, sin emabrgo no puede reproducirlos. Describo mi experiencia con el producto a continuacion: - Puede grabar a 4K (como lo indica), pero a la hora de intentar reproducir los videos grabbados, resulta que no se pueden visualizar a traves de las aplicaciones ni del NVR, debido a que la capacidad de procesamiento no alcanza para ello. Hazme el favor!!!! Intenté hacer la reproduccion a traves de las multiples aplicaciones disponibles en diferentes computadoras, pero la aplicacion se cierra al reproducir solo uno de los videos almacenados en el NVR. Antes de tener el NVR, yo tenia la captura en la memoria de la camara y desde ahi podia reproducir los videos, con algo de latencia pero funcionaba, sin embargo, con el NVR ya no es posible. La unica manera de reproducir es bajando la calidad de los videos grabados y solo asi se pueden reproducir desde el NVR. Por si las dudas, estuve navegando en la pagina del fabricante donde mas de una persona se ha quejado por esta situacion y en algunos casos devolvieron el producto, en mi caso, aun sigo evaluando el conservarlo o definitivamente devolverlo, ya que simplemente no me es funcional de esta manera. - Es muy ruidoso. Tiene un pequeño ventilador que hace bastante ruido. Lo coloque en la sala donde tengo la TV principal y ahi conecte el NVR para poder monitorear las camara a traves de la TV, sin emabrgo el ruido que hace el ventilador es bastante alto, como para tener una estancia tranquila como solia ser, trate de coultarlo tras la TV y ahorar unos metros de cable, pero aun así, el ruido es bastante. - No venia con el CD de los programas, aun cuando la pagina de Amazon y la caja indican que si viene. Al parecer no es mucho problema por que puedes descargar varias aplicaciones de la pagina del fabricante, aunque tampoco es la idea andar buscando el software, cuando se dice que viene incluido. - Su interface no es nada amigable y es muy dificil de configurar si no eres una persona que le guste andar buscandole a estos menesteres electronicos. Resulta que el fabricante cuenta con varias aplicaciones que puedes emplear para la administracion del NVR y de las camaras. SIN EMBARGO, resulta que no todas las opciones de configuracion y visualizacion estan diponibles en todas las aplicaciones, es decir, en una aplicacion viene algunas opciones de configuracion que no vienen en otras, por lo que debes instalar varias (en mi caso son 3, desconozco si haya mas...) para poder administrar en su totalidad los equipos. Y si no eres una persona familiarizada tanto con la administracion de equipos de este tipo, seguro vas a tardar en poder administrar correctamente y sacarle jugo a lo que tienes. - No apta para trabajar de forma profesional. En mi caso lo compre para administrar dos camaras que permiten monitorear el frente de mi casa, sin embargo, se nota muuucho, que no tiene la capacidad suficiente para poder administrar mas equipos en 4K, si tu idea es administrar mas de 2 camaras 4k, buscale por otro lado. Con camaras de menor capacidad, no creo que tengas problema, el desempeño paraece no tan malo. - El PoE funciona bien, otra de las razones por las que encargue el equipo. En definitiva NO RECOMIENDO ESTE PRODUCTO dada sus limitadas capcidades.

tl;dr - Company shipped an open-box return as a new item. Was missing HD mounting screws, and the previous owner had changed the admin password. At the time of this review, I have not been able to get the password reset. edit: Customer service is unable to reset the password and says to send it back. The company who makes the device (who claim to be affiliated with the seller) say that this is an amazon problem, that they ask that all returns be sent back to them but amazon does not comply. I'd take that with a grain of salt, myself, but that's their position. It's not their fault, there's nothing they can do about it. Longer version: So my company has been having some real problems with theft of tools and metal products. We've decided to install a surveillance system to try to see where the stuff is going. I bought this item as it appeared to meet my needs (IP cameras, POE, remote monitoring/alerts). When I opened it up, I noticed that the shiny plastic surfaces didn't have the removable protective plastic that you normally see even on cheap imported electronics. No big deal, I thought - some companies don't use it, and I don't care if it gets a little scratched anyhow. So I go to install the hard-drive. For budget reasons, I bought a 4TB WD Purple, this was lucky, as the manual says that it only accepts 4TB drives, despite the amazon page saying it takes 6TB drives. I can't comment on which is the truth. When I turned the device upside down, I noticed that there were shiny circles around the holes where the HD mounting screws bite into the metal. 'No problem', I assumed, they probably connect a HD during QC, maybe they screw it in for some reason? I open the unit and go to install my HD inside. 'Hunh, they didn't include a set of screws to install the drive. That's weird, the manual says four are included.'. Luckily, I have a box of such parts at home. Unluckily, I'm not at home. I make the 45 minute round trip and retrieve the screws. Hard-drive mounted, I plug the device into a monitor, connect the mouse and cameras and fire her up - ready to start configuring the cameras. Now, the manual says that the first thing that will happen is that a popup will appear asking me to change the password. This does not happen. 'No biggie,' I think to myself. Sometimes these manuals are written about obsolete firmware. I'll just find the option to set a new admin PW, And I can't log in. None of the default passwords work. I try variations on capitalization, try to connect to the default user account, nothing. It begins to dawn on me. This is a used device. Someone bought this, plugged it in, and changed the default password. They didn't like the device for some reason and returned it. The company, being both unethical and incompetent simply sent the device back out to another customer. They didn't bother to do a factory reset, they didn't bother to make sure the device worked, and they didn't bother to make sure that all the accessories that are meant to be included were included. I tried to navigate the password reset feature with the manufacturer, but their phone tech support person asked me to call back (long story) and when I did two minutes later the company had closed for the day. So now we have no security system for at least overnight, maybe for the whole weekend. That's the level of quality you can expect from this seller - I would suggest buying from anyone else.