Best Tablet to View Cams

Rickoo

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Apple, Android, Windows, regardless...

What would give the best video performance? I'm thinking android but am open to any format. Besides format, are there best practice screen resolution and processor speeds to look for? Is it beneficial to go for the top of the line units vs. entry level?

I've been looking at some of the Galaxy Tab units and am wondering what the best choice would be.
 

Steven4x4

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If you want to spend the money, Apple is probably the best as it seems like they are more involved in the development of their Blue Iris App.
Only issue I think I had with it (That I can recall), is that I had to constantly adjust the brightness (iOS issue).
Though, I'm not a fan of iProducts nor their price tag.

I actually bought the latest iPad and Samsung Tablet to check out the performance with the Blue Iris App and that's where I discovered how much more effort was put into the iOS App and how neglected the Android App was.
I ended up returning both products and went back to the tablet I've been using for years.

So currently, I'm using a Lenovo 10" Android 6.0 Tablet, it's like 4-5 years old. I think I paid $150 for it on Amazon. It has the bare minimum specs.
Up until a year ago, I used the Blue Iris Android App. But at some point the app stopped working properly during a series of BI updates.

So now, I still use the same tablet, but I created a homescreen (Chrome) icon that goes directly to UI3 (Full Screen).
You'll have to get the right parameters in the URL to get it how you want it, but once your setup, you're good to go.
It works really well and it loads and responds much faster than the app. I even started using the UI3 interface over the app on my cell phone.
I rarely use the app anymore cause it takes forever to load, by the time it loads from a motion alert, the person is already back in their car and out of the neighborhood.
Only other thing I added to the Android Tablet is an App to make sure that the screen doesn't go to sleep (Since it doesn't have this option in Android Settings, Max was 1 Hour.)

* Please note, my experiences with the Android App is a roughly a year old. Not sure what improvements they may have made since then.
 
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Just a thought:

1) If you go Android, the TinyCam Pro app is very nice. It's what I have been using on my phone, and Nvidia Shield Pro.
2) If you go Apple iPad, Idmss works well too. I run this on a 9.7" iPad without issue.

Keep in mind, you will not have anywhere near the functionality that SmartPSS will provide, on a PC. Mainly, just viewing.
 
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I review my cameras, including solo-live camera view, alerts reviewing and limited video scrolling on my Apple iPad. I am completely against paying the "Apple tax" and this iPad is the only Apple product I personally own. I bought it used on ebay from a pawn shop and I have been very satisfied with it combined with the UI3 interface. I have not tried the iOS application for iPad.

I also have a shortcut setup on a relatively new LG Smart TV to the UI3 interface and it works well also. I know you mentioned only TABLET, but just for anyone that wants to avoid setting up a ROKU or w/e, and happens to have a new TV in their future, you might be ok. The functionality seems feels more limited than the iPad, but that might be because I don't have a mouse hoked up to the TV and use the stupid remote.

There is a Remote Desktop for Windows app for the iPad that I have used when I can't get to the actual Blue Iris computer, but it's a much less usable in that scenario than say a laptop or ANY desktop with remote desktop.
 
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erensfd

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Are you using BI, or do you want to connect to the cameras / NVR directly?

So currently, I'm using a Lenovo 10" Android 6.0 Tablet, it's like 4-5 years old. I think I paid $150 for it on Amazon. It has the bare minimum specs.
Up until a year ago, I used the Blue Iris Android App. But at some point the app stopped working properly during a series of BI updates.

So now, I still use the same tablet, but I created a homescreen (Chrome) icon that goes directly to UI3 (Full Screen).
You'll have to get the right parameters in the URL to get it how you want it, but once your setup, you're good to go.
It works really well and it loads and responds much faster than the app. I even started using the UI3 interface over the app on my cell phone.
I rarely use the app anymore cause it takes forever to load, by the time it loads from a motion alert, the person is already back in their car and out of the neighborhood.
Only other thing I added to the Android Tablet is an App to make sure that the screen doesn't go to sleep (Since it doesn't have this option in Android Settings, Max was 1 Hour.)

* Please note, my experiences with the Android App is a roughly a year old. Not sure what improvements they may have made since then.
+1. I also have a 4-5 year old Lenovo tablet (A10) that I use for viewing my cameras 24/7. I used the BI Android app in the past, but it would crash randomly (not sure if it was the App, or my Android OS). As a remedy, I used two apps in the background in addition to BI. One would keep the screen alive so that the tablet wouldn't lock itself after BI app crashes/closes, and the other one would periodically check and start the BI app if it's not running. Similar to Steven4x4, I switched to using UI3 on Chrome at some point and have no issues. With UI3, you can easily adjust your stream quality. I view the "All Cameras" screen at 720p.
 

NickTheGreat

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I will NOT recommend Fire tablets. The one I have is 2 or 3 years old and it can't quite hack it.

Someday I'll find a use for the cheap things that I couldn't pass up :(
 

JonSnow

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I have an old Nexus 7 that I installed TinyCam on and use that, curious to know why you all use UI3 for an always on device? I really like UI3 and use it on my PC and Shield TV when I need to, but for an always on device I would rather not use the BI servers resources.
 

looney2ns

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I have an old Nexus 7 that I installed TinyCam on and use that, curious to know why you all use UI3 for an always on device? I really like UI3 and use it on my PC and Shield TV when I need to, but for an always on device I would rather not use the BI servers resources.
Set at 480p, the cpu increase isn't notable at all.
 

erensfd

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I have an old Nexus 7 that I installed TinyCam on and use that, curious to know why you all use UI3 for an always on device? I really like UI3 and use it on my PC and Shield TV when I need to, but for an always on device I would rather not use the BI servers resources.
Good point. With my setup, I don’t exceed 20% CPU use on my BI machine with UI3 running on the tablet, so I didn’t have to worry about that. But from an optimization perspective, it may make more sense to enable substream on my cameras and use an app that directly connects to them.
 

bradner

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I will NOT recommend Fire tablets. The one I have is 2 or 3 years old and it can't quite hack it.

Someday I'll find a use for the cheap things that I couldn't pass up :(
I was using a couple $59.99 8" Fire tablets until I upgraded to Firesticks and FireTV's. They were working fine but too small to have more than a couple cams on at once.
 
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Id recommend xiaomi mipad 4, very powerfull but cheap, i use to check my hiwatch nvr every day and it runs tinycam accessing 12 cams nicely,
8 inch you can get nice rugged case for as well.
often banggood and the like have offers and coupons for it
 
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eggsan

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I'm curious about this "custom charger." Looks pretty cool :cool:
I will include a series of photos, but the whole idea was to install a detachable mount, providing charging while standing in the wall. It was a trial-an-error process, but just "catch" the whole idea an do your own modifications. If you are interested an need more information, just let me know. The majority of the parts were purchase locally at Home Depot. The tablet case and connector was order to AliExpress
 

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MrGlasspoole

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Does somebody have experience how many streams you can show on some devices?
I did play around with rpisurv (SvenVD/rpisurv) but i will have ~7 local cams and ~7 from a remote location (VPN).
For the money you have to spend for Raspberrys/SD-Cards/wall warts/cases i guess its better to buy 2 tablets or maybe some Android Set-top box?
Also TinyCam just works and you don't have to fiddle around with scripts and Linux.
 
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Bear in mind you can get android set top for only £25 each.. and they are tiny, might be best to spread the load
 

MrGlasspoole

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If i look at the Android Set-top reviews (Amazon) the cheap ones are not so great. Also most of them have no custom ROM or you can't root them.
I guess a used Nvidia Shield would be best. The only machine that plays every video (bitrate/codec/resolution). But how do they performe with multiple video streams...

If i'm right, video chips can only handle a certain amount of videos at the same time. Thats where the professional video cards come into play...
 
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