Which is better to record surveillance video with? A laptop? Or a digital video recorder (DVR)?

I would suggest using a laptop with surveillance software like Security Monitor Pro - a href="http://www.deskshare.com/video-surveillance-software.aspx" rel="nofollow"http://www.deskshare.com/video-surveilla…/a - It has time based recording and alerting, remote viewing, along with many other features that would be useful in surveillance.