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[mpls]

I too have dinked around with x10 equipment (a 3-camera pkg) and found it’s hit or miss with the knowledge and customer support levels of the various techs.  I’m on my 2nd vcr comm II and have come to learn that “there are a few vcr’s out there that the commander just won’t work with”.  Who knew?    My frustration comes from why wasn’t that disclosed BEFORE I spent hours over several evenings trying to get the commander to work because I thought it was MY technological ignorance?  Thinking it was MY deficiency I enlisted the help of a friend that spent (an additional) 8 – 10 hrs over two evenings to no avail.  The problem:  my vcr won’t learn the record and stop functions.  I have to manually schedule my vcr to record 8 hrs while I’m at work.  I actually need a little over 9 hrs to cover commute time, but I wasn’t able to find a tape that long.  And then I have to wade through hours of blue screen , which is contrary to how the commander is advertised to work.

Observations I’ve discovered thus far:


1)  Getting a technician who actually provides knowledge AND customer support is hit or miss.  And they are not available weekends when I would think MOST customers would have the time to dink around with the equipment.   

2)  They don’t disclose that 2.4 ghz equipment MAY interfere with the wireless cameras;  it not only MAY interfere, it DOES and WILL interfere!  However, I will take partial responsibility for that because there may be those of you out there that that fact is obvious.  I bought a new 5.8 cordless phone in an attempt to get the stuff to work.  When it was determined that I just happen to have one of those vcr’s (mentioned above), I tried the vanguard software.


3)  I insisted that a tech walk me through the not-user-friendly software, mostly because of my horrendously time-consuming and unsuccessful experience with trying to program the vcr commander II.  I found a comparatively good one and stuck with her!  The images are horrid.  They make the images transmitted through my vcr look like they’re high def (they are not, in fact they’re fairly grainy and snowy).  The vanguard software transmission is extremely pixilated.  I have yet to (easily) find a topic in the wiki knowledge base link that addresses how to resolve this.  I will return the vanguard order.

4)  My cameras also have audio.  However the audio feature is moot with the vanguard software, or should I say "mute" .  Also something else not disclosed before purchasing the software.  But I thought I could live without that IF it worked well enough … not.  I will return the vanguard order.

My questions now are:  Am I understanding that the vcr commander II will also record to a dvr?  If so, is there a brand of dvr that is confirmed to work with the commander before I go out and make another investment to make my initial investment work?  I don't want  this to be a case of throwing good money after bad money!

Thanks for any constructive input!