Depends.. What are your needs?
1) Do you have a fairly strong dedicated computer?
2) Do you need to use the camera's motion detection system?
BI has a ton of features with great support, and in my opionion is well worth the money and time investment as long as you have the right computer equipment.
1) Do you have a fairly strong dedicated computer?
2) Do you need to use the camera's motion detection system?
BI has a ton of features with great support, and in my opionion is well worth the money and time investment as long as you have the right computer equipment.
Computer isn't a problem. Its going to be 24x7 recording so the motion does nothing for me. its simply comes down to having a few extra eyes. maybe a occasion review for something that may have happened other then that nothing more then what its purpose is recording away.
After playing around with the trial version of BI i really don't see how it has a ton of features. it has motion, it has snap shots, ptz control and you can schedule it to record on certain times etc, and lastly the easy setup of being able to see by phone outside the house. Its feature are not ground breaking and actually the same option as any cheap or free software. Honestly imo it seems BI just puts boxes there for people to click to make them think its better and worth more then other software. With all those option you can click its seems to make more of a mess then anything when people start clicking things. its good software from a flashing stand point and it works BUT as i said with all the non essential options it over complicates the software IMO more then the average joe would need for a home system.
After playing around with the trial version of BI i really don't see how it has a ton of features. it has motion, it has snap shots, ptz control and you can schedule it to record on certain times etc, and lastly the easy setup of being able to see by phone outside the house. Its feature are not ground breaking and actually the same option as any cheap or free software. Honestly imo it seems BI just puts boxes there for people to click to make them think its better and worth more then other software. With all those option you can click its seems to make more of a mess then anything when people start clicking things. its good software from a flashing stand point and it works BUT as i said with all the non essential options it over complicates the software IMO more then the average joe would need for a home system.
Blue Iris has a lot more options than any other video surveillance software I've seen. Like you said, that can be a bad thing if someone doesn't know what he's doing. But usually it is a good thing. For me it is anyway! 
One of the things I like most about Blue Iris is how it can so easily be integrated with 3rd party software to view camera video, view recordings, trigger camera recording, and things like that. If I wanted, I could make it so when my porch camera detects motion, Blue Iris sends a command to my Vera Lite to lock my front door. Not that I'd do that. I'd probably kill the battery in my keypad door lock in a month
One of the things I like most about Blue Iris is how it can so easily be integrated with 3rd party software to view camera video, view recordings, trigger camera recording, and things like that. If I wanted, I could make it so when my porch camera detects motion, Blue Iris sends a command to my Vera Lite to lock my front door. Not that I'd do that. I'd probably kill the battery in my keypad door lock in a month
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,407
You need to spend more time with it...it is way more feature rich than pss or ivms...it just boils down to what you need...here are just a few examples.
1) the schedule allows you to easily change alerts and motion detection settings based on time of day...including a relative to sunrise to sunset option which allows distinct motion settings for nighttime vs daytime.
2) you can have separate threshold settings for alerts vs recording..this ensures that you dont miss any motion but only get alerts when there is something significant going on (this is accomplished by cloning the camera and setting it for alerts only and hiding it from the main screen).
3) You can use the area of interest option to cut a camera in two, and display it as distinct cams, or just display a portion of the camera with out it being obvious that you are blocking a portion of the cameras view
4) it has a superb webserver, that allows you to remote view without having to port forward each camera which is security risk.
5) most importantly it allows you to mix and match cameras which pss /ivms does not...also i think you are referring to ivms, as pss is for dahua
This is just scratching the surface...i would go nuts if i had to rely on pss/ivms with respect to alerts...However, if you just need basic recording functions then yes those are fine...blue iris users pay extra for the multitude of options...its not just random boxes as you assert...if you take the time to learn the software you will see that each option is there for a reason...
3. Where is that option/ Disregard I just found it ok i will give it to you on that one its clever
4. I all ready agreed with that
5 I stand corrected on PSS being used with Hik. sorry about that. Im still playing with it so more will be discovered. again to me it seems to be more about glorified alert options then anything. Seriously its more then the average person will need.
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,407
I'm not an average person. Are you? Is anyone?
Im far from the average person and rightfully admit it. But the fact still remains 90 percent of the people out there don't research things thus settle for what they can get in a brick and mortar or price wise. Or just want something they can see with and not knowing. Ill be honest i was one of the 90 percent and here i am upgrading after well issues arose and becoming a bit more knowledgable on cameras. I still would to have the system one of my jobs had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth the stuff and man was it nice stuff. There wasn't anything you couldn't see and the software they used was written specially for them just amazing work on it. Im not in need of a system that high tech YET :O)