PSIJanuary2018

TEST
PRODUCT TEST
AVTech AVH8516 NVR
What’s in the box?
NVR
Power supply and UK to IEC
(C5) mains lead
8 x Drive carriers and
mountings
USB Mouse
Disk Installation Sheet
Software CD
User manual
The NVR operates
well as a standalone
device
connected directly to
its monitor but for
better security can
be locked away and
accessed via a PC
This NVR, available in the UK from Traders
Warehouse, has a removeable front panel
giving access to 8 drive bays. These are
unpopulated and can take up to 6TB drives giving
a total unformatted capacity of 48TB. The
specification supports recording of up to 16 x 5MP
cameras. With 2 x HDMI and a composite video
output it can be used as the video management
system or browser linked from a PC. Remote
applications for PC, Android and iOS are available
for download. The unit supports up to 16 camera
streams with no additional licences required.
Getting started
The front cover unclips from the left-hand side to
reveal the drive bay. Carriers are provided for
eight SATA 3.5” disc drives. An installation sheet
shows the assembly process and advises to use
surveillance rated drives. For the initial testing a
single 1TB drive was installed. then with the
power supply, mouse, network point and HDMI
monitor connected the front panel power switch
starts the unit.
As the unit is directly connected to its HDMI
monitor, there is no need to find it on the network,
the network settings can be accessed through the
menu system or by way of the Setup Wizard and
changed to suit or switched to DHCP for
simplicity.
On the front panel 2 x USB 2 sockets are
available for the mouse and for memory devices
for export. Select and Unlock switches at the top
right are used to unmount a selected hard drive
from the system. The drives are hot-swappable
but must be unmounted before removal to protect
their data. The drives do not have to be of the
same make or size. No information was given on
how drives would be spanned but as there is no
requirement to allocate cameras to a specific
drive letter it is assumed that recordings are
allocated in sequence to available discs; test time
did not allow for such duration observation. There
is mention of energy-saving technology so it is
possible that non-accessed drives are temporarily
powered down. No internal RAID formatting is
possible but external storage configurations
could be added if required. A series of front panel
LEDs indicates the status of system activity and
individual drive operation.
The rear panel has the power in (19v DC at
3.42A), Relay Output (N.O.) VGA, Composite
(BNC), Microphone in & Audio out (Phono), HDMI
1, HDMI 2, USB 3, WAN (RJ45) and LAN (RJ45). The
VGA and composite follow the Main HDMI 1
output with the HDMI 2 being available for Spot
or alarm monitor functionality.
The two network ports are both 1Gb/s rated
and are intended for LAN to be used for local
camera connections and the WAN connection for a
router link to the outside world.
When the unit is powered, it was found to turn
on after about 10 seconds and after showing an
H.265 Splash screen proceeds to play a promo
video of AVTech products. The whole start-up
routine takes around 3 minutes and there appears
to be no way to prevent the video playing.
After the power-up sequence the system gives
the installer a Wizard set-up option that can be
skipped in favour of manual settings. The Power
button does not allow the unit to be powered
down; this is only possible from the Power Control
menu option.
An IP Scan programme is available from the
download site but this only scans the local subnet
of the PC. It does however allow IP changes and
firmware upgrades to be made to AVTech
cameras.
A 3” fan in the rear of the housing draws air
across the drives and out of the rear vents; this
did not sound to be running as smoothly as
expected so unless this was a one-off failure, may
require replacing with an improved version.
The NVR menu presents a simple screen layout
consisting of a 16-way multiple image grid.
Clicking the right mouse button brings up the tool
bar and a function panel. These allow changes to
the screen display format and access to replay
and device status information.
Operation
The NVR operates well as a stand-alone device
connected directly to its monitor but for better
security can be locked away and accessed via a
PC. The PC browser interface gives a very similar
look and feel to the direct connection. The
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