Labs

Costing over £100 more than Y3K's USB DVR, Domia's recorder doesn't offer much more for your money. The video capture card is a PCI card, so you can't use it with a notebook, and with no audio inputs you can't record sound. Fortunately, the software interface is far less clunky than Y3K's XSW Lite. Although the PCI card only has four BNC inputs, you can also monitor and record feeds from IP cameras and even local webcams.

You'll need a powerful PC to use this kit. Even with the latest dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM in our test PC, its performance became noticeably sluggish when we asked the Harmony software to monitor three CCTV cameras and one IP camera. The video feeds remained smooth, but launching other applications

ADVERTISEMENT

took much longer than usual.

Unlike XSW Lite, Harmony allows you to move the viewing window and make it fill your whole screen. Motion detection can be configured separately for each camera and you can mask areas of the image you don't want to monitor. When movement is detected, the software can record a video clip or capture a JPEG image. There are also controls to begin recording manually.

Oddly, there's no way to schedule recordings at set times and there's no interface for reviewing recordings. You simply have to find the files in the folder you've specified. There's no easy way to configure the quality of video recorded, either. Harmony simply lists all the available codecs on your PC, leaving you to choose the right one and make the right settings. Make the wrong choice and a one-minute clip could consume 1GB of disk space. It isn't easy to monitor the system remotely, as each camera's feed has to be configured individually for viewing via Windows Media Player. There's a bewildering range of options, and you'll need to be able to open the correct ports on your broadband router.

The Harmony software in this kit has some advantages, but the lack of sound recording is disappointing and a few areas of the interface need work. At nearly three times the cost of Y3K's alternative, it's poor value.