Alarm.com ADC-CSVR2000P Commercial Stream Video Recorder Unboxing

Hey, guys. Hayden here again from Alarm System Store. And today we're going to be taking a look at the CSVR2000P which is this that I have right next to me. This is an alarm.com commercial stream video recorder. it's good for both commercial and residential applications, but essentially this is a 16 channel, SVR that's put out by alarm.com. And we have this one along with another model which is called the 2008P on our website right now. So you're welcome to go check those out. I'll link them below. but essentially what we're going to be doing today is just unboxing it. I'm going to show you guys what you get with it. We'll take a look at inside the device so you can swap out, hard drives if you need to. And then we'll talk about the differences between the different SVR models. So, give me one minute. I'm going to go ahead and start getting this open. And once I have all the devices out, we'll start going over what you get with it. So I'll be right back. All right. So I got everything out. had to angle the camera a little bit so that you guys can see this a little bit better, but you're going to see less of me, so I'm sure that's okay with you, though.

Anyway, just to go over what you get in the box with this CSVR, the first thing you get is the power block and cord. Basically connect this to an AC outlet, plug it into the power block, plug that into the CSVR, and that is how it gets its power. And the next thing you get is a six foot Ethernet cable. This one is pretty short, so generally you're probably going to need to get a separate one. if you're going for just a home installation, this might be sufficient. but basically this is just how you connect the device to your internet so that you can connect it to your alarm.com account. Yeah. Moving on from there. we have a couple of brackets here. I'll go ahead and get them out of the box real quick. the packaging. But essentially, these are rack mounting brackets. So, with commercial environments or if you're going to have a lot of CSVR orders, it is a good idea to rack mount these. And basically the way these work is you just take both the brackets and you mount them on the side here, and that's going to hold the device in place. And these brackets attach to the rack. so pretty straightforward. but it does come with rack mounting equipment if you need it. There is also hardware, screws to mount those brackets to the USB or, and then you also get some additional hardware for putting in a second hard drive if you need one. But this is the SVR itself.

So it's pretty standard size SVR. It's not nearly as large as the boxes, but essentially, this, like I mentioned, can be desk mounted or rack mountain. it does come with little rubber feet if you just want to set it down on a desk or underneath a TV or something, that you're going to be locally viewing all of your cameras through. But essentially, the cover doesn't really have a whole lot to it. on the front here, you got the ADC logo. There is a few LEDs, one shows power, one shows network status, and then the other just shows status of the SVR itself. And you do have one, USB three port on the front here that is for exporting video from the CSVR to an external drive, whether it be a flash drive or whatever the case might be. So you do have the option to export video with these CSVRs. And then now this is where we get into the specifics of this particular model, which is again the 2000P. But on the back here, if you'll notice, you do have your power. Now you got a couple HDMI ports for local displays so you can connect this to up to two, local TVs and you can view your cameras there. You'll get two USB ports on the back. Those are for, like your keyboard and mouse so that you can use the local display setup. And then on this model, there are only two Ethernet connections right here. One is for connecting the CSVR to your router for your network connection, and the other is for any PoE cameras you might have.

So those of you out there that are familiar with SVRs, you might be asking why does it only have one PoE port? Well, this particular model is designed to work more with a alarm.com Wi-Fi cameras. So most alarm.com cameras that are purchased are the Wi-Fi option. So this CSVR is capable of connecting to those Wi-Fi cameras so that you can record continuously on this device. There is like I mentioned, the 2008P in the 2016P, and those actually come with an additional, eight and 16 Poe ports by default. So you can if you have a more hard wired set up, you can connect those. Right now on our site, we're carrying the 2000P and we're carrying the 2008P. If you do have some hard wired cameras, like let's say you have, you know, eight Wi-Fi cameras and you have four hardwired cameras, this would still be the ideal model because for the most part, you're going to save money because this doesn't come with those extra PoE ports. It's going to be better for hooking up those Wi-Fi cameras. But what you can do if you do have PoE cameras to hook up, you can use a pre switch like this. This is a TP link model. We are carrying this on our website as well with this CSVR. there's a option where you can get one of these with it if you need it. But essentially what this offers is a single out port that connects to the CSVR in four in ports for four PoE cameras.

So you can have a couple of these. You can chain them however you want to do it. I would recommend if you have over four Poe cameras just to go with the 2000P model. That way you have the Poe port you need, and that one is still capable of connecting to Wi-Fi cameras as well. However, it is a bit more expensive, so that's the trade off. Essentially, though, what I'm going to be going over today is just kind of the features of this particular device. So like I said, it is a 16 channel CSVR. So you're able to connect up to 16 alarm.com cameras, whether that be Wi-Fi or Poe. It comes with a two terabyte hard drive built in. And those cameras can record at up to four megapixels at 2688x1520 resolution for the local displays. Like I mentioned, it does have two HDMI ports here, so you can connect up to two local displays, whether they be TVs or computer monitors or whatever. You want that as long as it has an HDMI port, it will work. But essentially those can stream at up to 3845x2160 resolution. And as I mentioned, this one comes with the two terabyte hard drive that's built in. And what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to open this device up, and we're going to look inside so you guys can see where the other hard drive sits. it does have one in it already. And if you are planning to use additional hard drives with this or you're going to swap out the one that's in it with a bigger one, whatever the case is.

Now, if you are planning to upgrade the hard drive in this or put another one in it, I do recommend going with the brand that they stick in here, which is a Western digital surveillance grade. If for some reason you can't get Western Digital, make sure that it is a surveillance grade hard drive, though. Don't go with anything less than a surveillance grade because their regular hard drives aren't designed to constantly write over the data that they already have saved. They can to an extent. But there's a couple of issues with that. one, you're going to kill your hard drive super quick if it's constantly rewriting over anything, and it's not designed for that. And two, you could just possibly lose footage because, again, it's not designed to constantly be rewriting everything that it has saved. So no matter what you do, make sure you're using surveillance grade hard drives with this. But give me one minute. I'm going to pop this open. There are six screws to get this device open. There's two on the back here. You can probably see from there. And then there are two on each side right there, there. And then this whole plate basically slides off and comes up. And that's how you get it off. So give me one minute I'm going to go ahead and unscrew these and move the camera up closer so you guys can see what's going on inside here. And I'll be right back one more time.

All right. So now that I have the screws out, you don't want to lift this cover straight up off the device, and I'll show you why in a second. You want to slide it backwards first and then lift up. So underneath here and you'll see a few tabs. And basically those slide in underneath this metal lip right here. So you don't want to try and lift and directly up because you'll bend either this or damage any of the components in here on the front face here is right where this lip is. So just be careful if you have to open it. So as you can see inside the device, there's not really a whole lot to it. you got your main circuit board here. you do have a single intake fan on this side, so that's going to pull in cool air. However, that will also pull in dust. And since there is no exhaust fan, I do recommend once every six months, once every year coming in here. Make sure you clean out all the dust so it's not collecting anywhere, and there's not a whole lot it can really get stuck on, except for maybe the heat sink here. However, that is where a lot of the heat is going to be from the circuit board, so it is a good idea to come in and blow that out. Make sure dust isn't collecting inside your SVR, otherwise it could potentially overheat.

Now, on this side here, you will see the two terabyte Western Digital, surveillance grade hard drive that comes with this device. And over here is the space for the secondary drive. So if you are going to put a second one in, you have two cables that you need to hook up. They're both Sata connections. But essentially if you have any experience with hard drives, it should be pretty straightforward. you have your power and then you have your data. So both of these get plugged into the secondary hard drive. And that is how it powers the hard drive and how the video that comes in on the circuit board gets stored on the device. So hook those two up, mount it down because hard drives do have mechanical components in them. You want to make sure you mount them down really well. like I said, it does come with the hardware required for that. There's plenty of screws in there, but essentially just make sure you get it matter down nice and tight. And that way while the hard drives running, it can't bounce around and potentially damage the internal components.

Outside of that, though, that's pretty much all there is to this device. Like I said in our next video, we're going to be doing a lot more with it. I'll hook it up to an alarm.com account. We'll hook up a couple cameras. I'll probably do a Wi-Fi and a hard wired one on the hard wire is pretty straightforward. You just plug it in and then it knows what to look for. You just got to put in the settings so I may not do a hard wired one. However I will do a wireless one so that you guys can see how the Wi-Fi cameras connect to the SVR. The only other thing to mention, which I'll go over again in our next video, is that you want to have, with Wi-Fi cameras, you want to use the SG130 smart gateway for alarm.com. I'll put a little picture up there so you guys can see it, but essentially it's just a like I said, a smart gateway. All it does is it prioritizes the bandwidth from the cameras that you connect to it. And that way it can prioritize the footage that is coming into the SVR so that you can get the best recorded footage at the best resolution possible for your internet speeds.

Other than that, though, like I said, just keep an eye out for that next video and we'll go a lot more in depth on the different settings that you can use for this. there's different options for bitrate, frame rate resolution for each of your cameras, and you can set those all individually per camera, even while they're connected to this SVR. So essentially, like I said, check back in a week or so. We should have that video up if it's not already. And other than that, that's going to do it for me today. So if you guys are on YouTube, please give a like and subscribe if you want to see more like this. We have a whole lot of videos for all Arcom devices and other equipment that we carry, especially security systems. If you are interested in these SVRs and you want to check them out, by all means go to our website alarmsystemstore.com. Like I said, I'll have links down below in the description so you can check it out there. And if you guys are interested in this or any of the other alarm.com or security products we carry, by all means reach out to us. We'd be happy to assist you in designing a system or an alarm.com video set up. Whatever the case is, just give us a shout and we will reach back out as soon as we can. All right. Yeah, that's going to do it for me. I will catch you guys on the next one.