Some years ago I put in IP cameras and after a rather exhausting review I decided to use Zoneminder. It's been working OK, though I had to do a lot of programming to get a feature I consider critical (simultaneous review of multiple cameras when looking back through time).
It's working, but it's a bit klunky - space usage is high, I've got to keep my code updated (the team wanted some, but not all), and I decided it was time to look around again.
Xeoma was an interesting one a while back, and they added multi-camera review -- but it's REALLY slow. Price is right, and generally like their modular approach, and everything else is pretty fast, but not the review.
I'm trying to stick with linux but the way, so I wound my way to NX Witness, which I found and then discovered it is Digital Watchdog in the US and known as Spectrum. I like it. Very fast, very complete. but I can't find the price yet, and expect it to be really expensive (anyone who won't sell direct, but sells to a distributor who sells to a reseller who sells to me -- can't be cheap. But it's fast, linux based, low overhead, storage is a lot smaller than the JPG's Zoneminder uses.
While looking at it, I found XProtect Essentials (there's a forum thread recently on it here). It doesn't do linux, but it is client/server based, and it has a free version for up to 8 cameras (I have 7). Last time I looked I did not pay attention as they limited you to 5 days archive and now it's unlimited with only some features missing, none I see I need. So I looked fairly extensively at it, and it seems really similar to the NX Witness software, and very full featured. It is a bit more clunky in some places, and a bit more intuitive in others, but very similar.
While I haven't exercised the motion detection quality, the features (including after-the-fact searches in an ad hoc zone) with it look great, much better than zoneminder. And while it has all the overhead of windows, it seems pretty efficient; I tried strangling it for memory and processors and it kept running fine.
Long prelude to.... anyone done a survey recently? Any I may be missing?
BlueIris I've tried, it's windows and a very high processor load from prior testing, and lacks the multi-camera scrub.
Avigilon I can't find anything about and has no apparent trial version.
Axxon Next last time I tried (well after they came out) didn't support the hikvision camreas well, plus their free is 4 cameras only, didn't try this time.
Shinobi is brand new, and looks like it has potential, but is really buggy, and is a one man operation.
Most of the others are pretty limited that I looked at. I want something I can use easily on a windows client, but also on android and IOS for quick looks. Remote access not terribly important but if it looked secure maybe, right now I keep zoneminder behind the firewall only not through.
Any insights?
PS. I hope to put it on an older PC which I put a lot of disk in a couple years ago, but it's still only a slower X58 board with 6GB of memory (but I could upgrade to 12GB easily, 16max but that slows it down due to the DDR3 setups).
It's working, but it's a bit klunky - space usage is high, I've got to keep my code updated (the team wanted some, but not all), and I decided it was time to look around again.
Xeoma was an interesting one a while back, and they added multi-camera review -- but it's REALLY slow. Price is right, and generally like their modular approach, and everything else is pretty fast, but not the review.
I'm trying to stick with linux but the way, so I wound my way to NX Witness, which I found and then discovered it is Digital Watchdog in the US and known as Spectrum. I like it. Very fast, very complete. but I can't find the price yet, and expect it to be really expensive (anyone who won't sell direct, but sells to a distributor who sells to a reseller who sells to me -- can't be cheap. But it's fast, linux based, low overhead, storage is a lot smaller than the JPG's Zoneminder uses.
While looking at it, I found XProtect Essentials (there's a forum thread recently on it here). It doesn't do linux, but it is client/server based, and it has a free version for up to 8 cameras (I have 7). Last time I looked I did not pay attention as they limited you to 5 days archive and now it's unlimited with only some features missing, none I see I need. So I looked fairly extensively at it, and it seems really similar to the NX Witness software, and very full featured. It is a bit more clunky in some places, and a bit more intuitive in others, but very similar.
While I haven't exercised the motion detection quality, the features (including after-the-fact searches in an ad hoc zone) with it look great, much better than zoneminder. And while it has all the overhead of windows, it seems pretty efficient; I tried strangling it for memory and processors and it kept running fine.
Long prelude to.... anyone done a survey recently? Any I may be missing?
BlueIris I've tried, it's windows and a very high processor load from prior testing, and lacks the multi-camera scrub.
Avigilon I can't find anything about and has no apparent trial version.
Axxon Next last time I tried (well after they came out) didn't support the hikvision camreas well, plus their free is 4 cameras only, didn't try this time.
Shinobi is brand new, and looks like it has potential, but is really buggy, and is a one man operation.
Most of the others are pretty limited that I looked at. I want something I can use easily on a windows client, but also on android and IOS for quick looks. Remote access not terribly important but if it looked secure maybe, right now I keep zoneminder behind the firewall only not through.
Any insights?
PS. I hope to put it on an older PC which I put a lot of disk in a couple years ago, but it's still only a slower X58 board with 6GB of memory (but I could upgrade to 12GB easily, 16max but that slows it down due to the DDR3 setups).