Zebra-Media Surveillance System v.1.3 comments:

By: Bapegual

Bapegual — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:24:57 -0500

Everydody must read excellent comment of Mark above #54 : yes the voting system is not perfect. To really know about the software being worthwile or not, probably you HAVE TO READ THE COMMENTS. Yes it takes time, even more time if you yourself contribute. Definitely it is a homework ! But after all, isn't it fair for the community that there is no easy free lunch !

By: electech

electech — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:49:50 -0500

There are many uses that the average user can use software like this. As #19 stated, renters especially have a use for this. Issues with animals coming into your yard, litterers, kids, vandals, etc... I would like to see remote viewing added to this software. Thumbs up! But needs some work!! Thank You GAOTD! Keep it up!

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:48:15 -0500

Installed and activated easily. Using a Foscam wireless, will not connect. Seems to work on laptop web cam, but really, big deal. Was looking for an easy to use package, so far this isn't it.

By: CT

CT — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:35:13 -0500

I have tried to connect to two different IP cameras on two different computers. An could not, although I have had no problems with iSpy. Also the passowrs for accessing the cameras do not stick. When I tried to save the username and password, the program changes the password to the username.

By: CyberFox

CyberFox — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:53:49 -0500

Please GAOTD dont change the vote system. The vote system is very usefull to people who knows how its been working by a long time until now. -GOOD AND USEFULL SOFTWARES: Positive Votes > Negative Votes -USELESS SOFTWARES OR BETTER FREEWARE SOFTWARE AVAIBLE: Positive Votes = Negative Votes -CRAP SOFTWARE DOESN'T WORTH THE VALUE Positive Votes < Negative Votes -COMPANY CHEATING THE USERS OF GAOTD Positive Votes < HUGE Negative Votes And I really appreciate the commentaries about alternative softwares, freewares or not. Thanks Giveawayoftheday.

By: Sue

Sue — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:53:15 -0500

Must pass -- thanks to those with useful comments. Not being a techie I rely on others expertise and read all of the comments first. @38/@48 Best comments on today's software. I have win 7 x64 so those help me definitively stays away. As such, I did not vote up or down. I think the up/down vote should be attached to the activation process. Right before closing that last frame, one could mark their vote. Then the count could total here. Then only those who have completed the download process can vote. No, not good. There needs to be a way to vote only after download but that won't work because no one could test the program first. BUT this is along the lines where I think it should go. (I hope that makes sense). Anyway, thanks to all the constructive comments on the program - they always help me, a non-techie, decide on a download or avoid a problem.

By: Doug Thompson

Doug Thompson — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:25:33 -0500

# 2 & 42 ... time zones. GAOTD seems to operate on North American Pacific Standard Time. Midnight PST is 9 a.m. in Sweden and 3 a.m. where I am, EST, and I get the notification at 3:00 a.m. I don't think GOTD's email daemon takes note of the time zone of the recipient. Notice goes out at midnight PST and that is when the software is first available. This also means that I really have until 2:59 a.m. my time to d/l and activate it though I have reset my computer clock to PST before doing it after midnight my time. I don't know if that HAS to be done, I forget if I ever tried to do it after midnight my time without setting the local computer clock. From that data it would seem that everyone on earth gets access to the daily freebe at the same instant, at midnight PST. I DO WONDER how it is that within minutes there are many comments and hundreds of thumbs up or down in some cases. I sometimes am up at 3 a.m. and check out the day's offering immediately. Sure, with some very popular programs there will be many ppl who are already familiar with the day's offering. But with this one? Just how many of us have experience with security cameras at all, never mind this particular software? You can see when each comment was posted ... there is a time stamp on it (expressed in your own computer's local time) ... and the first ones to comment were mostly wondering why there were already so many "thumbs" within the first ten minutes. It is almost impossible on the first day of using any genuinely new software for anyone to offer more than a "first impression." Most of those "first impressions" aren't very useful. Especially those that simply report "wouldn't work for me." There is no way to know if the "problem" was something specific to that user or that system or if there is a real problem with the software from that one fact, that someone had some problem that is usually poorly described. That hardly adds up to a useful "review." It's great when the publisher is participating and can answer those "it didn't work" issues which I expect most publishers could, most of the time, and most would likely very much wish to. Things I always want to know include how much memory it takes up, how much it inflates the Registry, and how CPU-intensive it is and that is only very rarely mentioned. I think that should be REQUIRED information! I mean can I even use it on my netbook which is limited to 1 Gb RAM and whose Atom CPU is no weight-lifting champion!?!?! Often, even with good software, the answer is no, it requires a more powerful system. I try to figure out from the "comments" if I can even run it before going to the trouble of downloading and installing it. The "thumbs" really provide no useful information. INFORMED comments do, sometimes there are very knowledgeable and useful comments but most are first impressions which are rarely very useful.

By: Mr Bill

Mr Bill — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:25:32 -0500

It would appear that this does not record audio, just the video.

By: Mark Fordworth

Mark Fordworth — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:26:05 -0500

To #2 and others complaining about the voting. I did not early vote in this case, but I sometimes do. When I do it is because I already know the software, good or bad. Installing software just to vote would be foolish. It bloats your system, can cause conflicts with other things, and can even be a security problem. I actually had to rebuild my system a year ago and lost many good GOTD offerings because my video was so screwed up from all of the different and conflicting video applications I had "tried out". If I see a supposedly $200 package offered here that saves things in its own proprietary format that I will not be able to read after my next rebuild, and does less than free open source similar software, then of course I'm going to give it a thumbs down, and I don't feel any obligation to first download it and potentially compromise my system with it. Suggesting that only people who are willing to download and install something on their system should vote would inappropriately skew the votes toward the positive, and it would preclude the most knowledgeable users from voting in many cases. I have downloaded several very good applications from GOTD over the years. But the gems are something one has to wait and search for, unfortunately many of the offerings here are not all that good. Perhaps some people feel we shouldn't offend anyone offering something for free with a negative vote, but I feel that to encourage the better than average software you have to be willing to express disappointment with the mediocre, the under preforming commercial versions of free software, the buggy, and the just plain bad software. I expect that many people do use the thumbs up / thumbs down count as a quick first indicator of what they should expect. If the thumbs up outweigh the thumbs down by two or three to one, and if they are interested in that type of application, then it might be a good application for them to download and evaluate for themselves. If the thumbs down outweigh the thumbs up by a similar or higher ratio then they might be well served to at least read the posted comments before installing the software, even if they have to wait a few hours to see a number of comments posted. It would make no sense to tell the people who already know about the flaws in an offered piece of software that they should not vote because they did not download and install the software, particularly for things that have been offered here before.

By: Knowledgeman

Knowledgeman — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:02:30 -0500

Doesn't work on Win7-64. Problem is probably not related to operating system. Tried to monitor a web cam but get this error: [ERROR] NO VIDEO DEVICE SELECTED VideoFormat depends on the current video capture device. Assign VideoDevice with the index of the video capture device in the VideoDevices list. Other software works fine so something is wrong here. Every webcam has its own format but this program doesn't allow selection of the type of camera. Worthless.