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If you buy an off the shelf DVR you won't learn nearly as much (if anything). On the learning curve: It can be some work (depending on how complex your system is), but you will become a proficient gnulinux sysadmin if you familiarize yourself with ZM and its many features. Search then post if its not already answered.
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The forums are there to answer questions.
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Zoneminder is a powerful tool, but it has a learning curve. If you want a hard copy, you can order the documentation through a self publishing service like If you wish to view the full ZM Documentation, I recommend viewing it through the PDF view, as the sphinx website is not efficient and requires javascript. It's concise, and tells you what you need to know.
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