Affordable Home Security Options: Avermedia vs. Geovision

For those of us that are thinking about investing in a good video surveillance system for your home or small business, one of the most important pieces in designing the surveillance system is the DVR, or in this case, the DVR Card. Almost anyone can go on the internet and find a literal army of dvr card products – so much so that it is very difficult to make the decision on which one to choose. Who says that more is better, right? When you are conducting this search and trying to make your decision on which dvr card to choose you will likely run into two major brands in which both make the boastful claims that their product is the best.

Don’t they all do that? Wouldn’t it be nice if the manufacturers were actually honest in their claims of how great or awesome their products are? Well, this is clearly not the case. So with all of this in mind, we are going to help you make the decision on which brand would be better for you. In this case we will pick on the two leading brands which are Geovision and Avermedia. We will give you our honest, no-frills opinion on both brands.

Avermedia

Avermedia is one of the oldest companies to be around that still make DVR Cards. It is rumored that they were actually partners with Geovision back in 1998. However, they make some really good dvr card products. One of the most notable points about the Avermedia DVR Card product line is that they are very stable and are not prone to crashing. The dvr cards work well and are a good deal for the price. What I just said Is about the only positive things about Avermedia DVR Cards. The downside is that the documentation is horrible – very little information. Also they do not give frequent software updates and add features when compared to the other brands of dvr cards. Aside from the lack of documented details it really doesn’t take a lot of brain power to install the card in your PC and install the software. This is one of those things that the                     manufacturer assumes that you can handle without any real complications.

Geovision

Geovision is quite possibly the oldest and most established dvr card manufacturer. They have been in the video surveillance game back with VCR’s were still in use and everyone was making the switch to digital. The dvr cards they make are well designed and are somewhat complicated. This doesn’t mean that they are hard to use. Basically the company keeps making software upgrades which in turn, keep adding more functionality and features to the dvr card system. If you want to have thousands of features then this is your surveillance system. The manual and documentation is very good and easy to follow. You can tell that they sunk a lot of money in its design and documentation. The primary reason for the attention to detail as well as having all of their design bases covered so to speak, is the result of the success of the company over the past 10 years. Geovision has had along time to implement most of the customers recommendations throughout the life of the company.

 

Conclusion

Here’s the deal… If you want a basic video surveillance system for your home and you don’t want to be bothered with all of the complicated bells and whistles, then the Avermedia DVR Card system just might be for you. It is cheap and does its job well for the price you pay. However if you want to do some really cool things such as email and SMS alerts, POS integration or centralized video monitoring management then the Geovision DVR Card product line would be your best bet. I would recommend the Geovision dvr card line to anyone or any company that needs a extensive video surveillance system that has the ability to integrate with almost anything that a business owner would need. Even if you are not going to use it for business, but instead use it for your home it works equally as well providing top-notch service and stability. If you are concerned about the technical support aspect then you have to give credit to the Geovision DVR Card line since you will literally find a multitude of questions and answers sprawled all over the internet. Not to mention that the seller of the Geovision dvr card line is obligated to provide you with direct level technical support. Likewise you can contact the Geovision technical support team by using their Live Chat feature – however you cannot call them for phone based technical support. With Avermedia you must either contact the seller of the product or contact the Avermedia technical support by way of their forum-based technical support ticket system.

When making the choice to protect your home or business there are many things to consider and we hope to have helped you make the right decision. If you need more guidance or have some really specific application questions, feel free to give the Esentia Security Consultants a call at 800-390-7090 free of charge!