MERIT Lilin has a range of attractive surveillance gear
so it’s no particular surprise to find the company’s PDR 6160A 16-input DVR
combines a strong feature set with great looks. The unit is part of LiLin’s
6000 series DVRs and it offers features like MPEG-4 compression, 500GB SATA HDD
standard (with room for 4GB onboard), 720 x 240 pixel resolution, USB port with
MPEG-4 or AVI download, motion detection, SVGA and composite monitor outputs
and a LAN port.
Along with this there’s remote config and control along
with email notification of alarm events and you get multiprotocol PTZ camera
support, a mouse and an infrared remote control that allows control of 255
cascaded units in a single installation.
Typical of most DVRs, the face plate of the 6160A is laid
out in VCR-style, with everything falling readily to hand, from the controls to
the HDD bay and the DVD+RW tray. Importantly, you get a range of one-button
screen config selections including 3×3, 12+1, 4×4, 6+1 and picture-in-picture,
as well as controls for PTZ operation and navigating the menu. Making
investigations easier, the unit also has a jog shuttle control.
The rear of this DVR is dominated by 32 BNCs supporting
camera inputs and loops, with a pair of BNCs handling monitors. Audio sockets
handle audio inputs (there are 4!) and output and inside the case there’s a
single cooling fan. Merit LiLin has gone with a robust Linux operating system
which makes the 6160A a reliable solution.
Other features of the unit include noise reduction
filters that reduce file sizes of stored video, especially at night, and
monitor setup utilizing drag and drop camera placement. WAN and Internet
control is handled by a simple interface with no major software solutions
needed. The software incorporates access authorizations to ensure surveillance
security levels are maintained.
While you can setup and operate this DVR using the
buttons on the front panel, same as most DVRs, it’s far easier to handle the
task on-screen with a mouse.
The GUI has a status bar and task icons and you click a
menu button to bring up options including Setup, Live, Playback (search),
Motion Tracer, Zoom, Sequence, Audio and Shutdown. The functionality is
deliberately very straightforward and the simplicity of the GUI enhances this
functionality.
As you drive the system, the functionality is revealed in
layers and as you drill down by selecting functions, additional options open up
to you.
For example, if you click on the Setup button, another
layer of functions appears including Camera, Monitor, Record, Alarm, Network,
System, PTZ and Backup. When you select say, Camera, you open up functions that
allow setup of camera title, input enable/disable, video setup (brightness,
saturation, etc), video loss detection and noise filter.
Recording options are also straightforward and you select
from options like highest, high, standard and low, as well as frame rate, audio
on/off, pre and post alarm recording, resolution, MPEG encoding options and HDD
overwrite.
The Network section allows the installer to program in IP
address, subnet mask gateway and settings – it’s all very simple and easy to
manage.
The digital zoom function highlights the simplicity of
this DVR’s operation. As you move around the viewed scene in Zoom mode, a
rectangular target follows the centre of the field of view and when you hit
zoom, it pulls that rectangle up to full screen. You cancel this by a right
click.
This is a robust video surveillance solution that
highlights the great strength of the latest generation DVRs – simplicity of
setup and operation. Standalone it’s ideal for smaller sites and there’s plenty
of expansion capability should this be required on larger sites.
