Swann S243-16U-11111 16-Channel Digital Video Recorder

I have the DVR8-Net-Plus, which is just 8 channels. The motion sensing is fair at best. Revieiwing the recordings is weak. Often it does not even work when using the time stamp, so I have to settle for the 'event' list. You can transfer video via the USB port, but the file is only readable by the client s/w.
The client software (NetViewer 1.5 dated 2005) that you use to connect your computer is TERRIBLE. Its the only means of transfer video to your computer into an AVI format (because the recording on the HD is a proprietary format - I thought the removable HD was actually going to be useful, silly me). Its also used to view live feeds via the network (which often freezes for a few seconds when the unit senses motion and starts recording). You cant just select a time/date to review, you have to open an event list and choose a time stamp. That is not so bad, except this list has always been corrupted for me. I've returned the unit, tried a different HD, reformatted - still only a partial usable list. Video quality that you transfer off is horrid! I've tried all the AVI codecs they provide - its just plain bad (and I use the highest video settings on the unit). Finally, I would like to mention that the remote becomes none responsive and only unplugging the unit fixes this. No big deal when it used to happen maybe every other month, but lately its happened daily this last week. I've owned this unit for about a year.
If they updated the client s/w to make video transfer more easy and better quality and the remote didnt get locked out, I would rate 4 out of 5 since its cheap compared to real surveillance systems.