Alternative to DMSS?

[tigerwillow1]

"I've been using BI for five or six years. I just tried, for a laugh, the Dahua PC based NVR. Comparing the two it's like a rotten lemon to the sweetest peach you've ever eaten."

Funny thing, after using the Dahua NVR for a few years and trying BI, I felt the same way in the opposite direction. Then I realized that being a somewhat expert user of the NVR and a total newbie on BI, my initial opinion was close to worthless. If somebody hasn't used both solutions for at least a couple of months each, their opinion is anything but informed. I had a similar experience with a new car last year. There were a few nasty things on the old car that I hated, and chose the new one to a large extent on "fixing" these things, which it did. Over the year I found a lot of nasty things on the new car that work just fine on the old one. After a week with the new car I thought it was a huge improvement. After a year, its list of brain-dead stupid things is just as bad as the old car's list, just different.

 

[Soundchasr]

Question: am I removing the NVR and just using a PC with Blue Iris or am I supposed to use both together (NVR and BI)?

 

[wittaj]

Question: am I removing the NVR and just using a PC with Blue Iris or am I supposed to use both together (NVR and BI)?

That is up to you - you can run the NVR as a backup and feed the cameras into BI, or you could eliminate the NVR, but then you would need a POE switch to power the cameras.

 

[Soundchasr]

Has anyone compared to Blue Iris app to Surveillance Stations from Synology?

 

[wittaj]

People have asked that too...

surveillance station vs blue iris ipcamtalk site:ipcamtalk.com - Google Search

 

[Flintstone61]

I would keep the NVR running until you've had a chance to tinker with Blue Iris and compare things. I keep the NVR for the EZ App because my housemates are girls from Vietnam and English is not their first langauge. I tried to show them UI3 and Bi paid App,,,,but they are hammerheads when it comes to change.

 

[Soundchasr]

I would keep the NVR running until you've had a chance to tinker with Blue Iris and compare things. I keep the NVR for the EZ App because my housemates are girls from Vietnam and English is not their first langauge. I tried to show them UI3 and Bi paid App,,,,but they are hammerheads when it comes to change.

I think that's what I'm going to do. I'll be down there later this week to try it out. Any issue with running it on my daily use PC (not a dedicated PC)?

 

[Flintstone61]

I'm running it on my daily use PC, but They seem to recommend for best results use a dedicated small form factor PC for most situations.
You'll want to make Virus scan exclusions, and some other tweaks like running BI " as a service"
Like your C:\ drive should be an SSD, and you'll want a dedicated video storage drive.
My first BI PC was dedicated. It's at a commercial property i manage. after some weird problems with it, I upgraded to a used HP Elitedesk i5-8500 Sff off eBay and never looked back.
With that success I decided to get another 8th generation PC for home to upgrade my 4th gen intel pc. daily driver.
Although I must say the 4th gen still can do the job, but it has no on board SSD, and wasn't win 11 capable.
I run a daily back up of the whole C:\ drive. with Macrium reflect. There other product choices to run backup as well.
beofre Things get really hosed up, Make sure you have a backup created before and after the BI install.
That way if you experience problems running it, and you decide to revert back, you don't lose your daily driver.

 

[Soundchasr]

I'm running it on my daily use PC, but They seem to recommend for best results use a dedicated small form factor PC for most situations.
You'll want to make Virus scan exclusions, and some other tweaks like running BI " as a service"
Like your C:\ drive should be an SSD, and you'll want a dedicated video storage drive.
My first BI PC was dedicated. It's at a commercial property i manage. after some weird problems with it, I upgraded to a used HP Elitedesk i5-8500 Sff off eBay and never looked back.
With that success I decided to get another 8th generation PC for home to upgrade my 4th gen intel pc. daily driver.
Although I must say the 4th gen still can do the job, but it has no on board SSD, and wasn't win 11 capable.
I run a daily back up of the whole C:\ drive. with Macrium reflect. There other product choices to run backup as well.
beofre Things get really hosed up, Make sure you have a backup created before and after the BI install.
That way if you experience problems running it, and you decide to revert back, you don't lose your daily driver.

Thanks for that info. I have an old laptop I think could work - 10th gen i5, with 8GB and an SSD.

 

[wittaj]

Thanks for that info. I have an old laptop I think could work - 10th gen i5, with 8GB and an SSD.

Yep, that will work for demo, but you wouldn't want to use a laptop long term as it isn't designed for 24/7 and eventually it will slow the processor in favor of keeping the temperature down.

 

[Soundchasr]

eventually it will slow the processor in favor of keeping the temperature down.

Didn't think of that. Thanks.

 

[Flintstone61]

If the C:\ drive is on board m.2 drive, and they left room for a Spinner in the chassis you might flub your way thru....If the spinner is a 4300 rpm SMR drive all bets are off.
It'll give you grief.

 

[Soundchasr]

If the C:\ drive is on board m.2 drive, and they left room for a Spinner in the chassis you might flub your way thru....If the spinner is a 4300 rpm SMR drive all bets are off.
It'll give you grief.

It has a 256 M.2 drive. I'll check if they left room. I assume I can also add an external or use a high GB SD card maybe.

 

[wittaj]

External USB drives do not work. Even though the rated capacity of USB 3.0 and an external HDD are high, that is instantaneous capacity, not sustained.

I tried it as a test and it couldn't keep up with two cameras. YMMV.

Depending on how you set it up and the cameras, you will blow thru a SD card quickly. A 4MP camera recording mainstream 24/7 can easily go thru over 6GB every 90 minutes.

 

[looney2ns]

Laptops are a bad idea.
Using BI on your daily driver computer is a bad idea if you expect reliability.
You can purchase a dedicated BI computer for under $200. Such as this one Click here these machines have proven to be very reliable systems for BI.

Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris

Buy refurbished. Don't build or buy new. The most cost-effective Blue Iris computers are refurbished business-class systems such as "HP EliteDesk" and "Dell OptiPlex". You can usually get a good deal by searching [URL='http://www.ebay.com/']Ebay[/URL] for specific CPU model numbers, and...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Soundchasr]

Laptops are a bad idea.
Using BI on your daily driver computer is a bad idea if you expect reliability.
You can purchase a dedicated BI computer for under $200. Such as this one Click here these machines have proven to be very reliable systems for BI.

Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris

Buy refurbished. Don't build or buy new. The most cost-effective Blue Iris computers are refurbished business-class systems such as "HP EliteDesk" and "Dell OptiPlex". You can usually get a good deal by searching [URL='http://www.ebay.com/']Ebay[/URL] for specific CPU model numbers, and...

ipcamtalk.com

Thank you for that link. I'll set it up on the laptop for trial and then grab one of those.

Are all of the systems continuous recording or can they be set for motion only too?

 

[wittaj]

Thank you for that link. I'll set it up on the laptop for trial and then grab one of those.

Are all of the systems continuous recording or can they be set for motion only too?

You can do it however you like. Most record continuous just in case motion misses it.

 

[Soundchasr]

You can do it however you like. Most record continuous just in case motion misses it.

Is there any way to use the drives that are currently in the NVR while hosting BI on another machine?

 

[wittaj]

Is there any way to use the drives that are currently in the NVR while hosting BI on another machine?

Not unless you put the drives into the computer LOL.

Actually someone probably could figure out a way, but the bandwidth limitation of the NVR would kill it from working.

 

[bigredfish]

Hmmm DMSS works for me

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