Security DVR Software for IP Cameras

snakevargas

Active Member
Anyone have a recommendation? From my online research, I thought Milestone XProtect was the industry leader and proceeded with evaluating their XProtect Go product, but so far my initial impression has been poor.
 
+1 ispy. You can also use it remotely over a vpn. They charge monthly for remote viewing, but a vpn gets around it. Also has an android app - Not sure about iphone.
 
Thanks. I've evaluated Blue Iris as well and am impressed with the feature set, ease of use, and stability. The problem with it is the CPU load as you start throwing multi-megapixel cameras at it. It's currently stable for me with the direct-to-disk option enabled, the UI window minimized and two 3 MP cameras. This doesn't leave much room for adding additional cameras though. Another two cameras will be around 100% utilization on the quad-core i5 in my DVR machine.

I will give iSpy a look.
 
I am seeing similiar with my ZM's transition over to utilizing multiple streaming HD IP cameras. 
 
First box (old now) was a legacy dual core (not core duo) Intel CPU with 4 Gb of RAM running 8 streams of analog captured video via an 8 port 8 chip analog card.
 
It did well.  I started to add SD IP cameras and it continue to do well.  (up to 12-14 cams).  I then started to add HD IP cameras.  The CPU utilization / combo cams pegged at some 97-98%.
 
Today its a second dedicated to HD IP ZM box.  It does OK with multiple streaming of 6 HD IP cams.  Upped the motherboard to a BCM commercial style core duo board. (simple low power with 4 Gb of memory).
 
I am sort of pushing the Leviton HAI side with using both analog via the older HAI Video hub and IP direct connects to the HAI Touchscreens.  I do some IP HD to Analog SD streaming via a Grandstream encoder which takes care of the older HAI Omnitouch screens while concurrently doing the HD IP streaming to the Omnitouch IP connect touch screens.  It does work this way for me.
 
On the camera side also noticed a 720 P HD IP camera does only so so with one 720 stream and lesser secondary streams.  It seems that the higher pixel sizes / memory are just faster.  Such that a 960P HD IP camera works way better (for me) than a 720P.
 
Years ago stayed away from using wintel capturing DVR software mostly because none of the software builds were tight enough for me. 
 
Too much fluff in the base wintel kernel made for some sloppy software programming but easy to do type stuff.
 
In commercial endeavors the only benefit that I saw was using Wintel mostly relating to company's wintel support resources not being familiar with using a Linux based server with no GUI for CCTV DVR stuff.  
 
Milestone is very robust and I have it on a bunch of sites where it works and works well.
 
What are the specs of the host system?
 
Keep in mind, GO is more of an evaluation level product. Essential is the minimum product that should be looked at for recording...and their hardware specs for the recommended are typically light.

There's a reason why GO is free.
 
My vote is Blue Iris. Many great features available with BI. I run 5 MP cams and have no bandwidth issues with my PC (Quad core). My PC also runs 2 other servers for  HA and media streaming. My network bandwidth total is around 1.2 mbs. Even streamming IPTV 24/7 with no lag.
Works with VPN no problems. 
 
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