I'll respectably disagree with you on the 24x7 recording for every camera. I do that on some of my cameras; I record the low-res stream 24x7 and the 4k stream when there is motion. On some of my other cameras, like my backyard where there isn't a single recording, sometimes for 5 days if I or the kids didn't go back there, I don't want constant recordings of that. In reviewing the footage in the backyard, there hasn't been a single instance of someone stepping one foot back there that I haven't recorded. The storage analytics in my application is telling me I'll have around 4 to 6 months of recording; you may not have need for anything that long, this is why I'd prefer longer: The police wanted all the footage I had from one of my cameras that covered my front yard and my neighbors (the vandalizing ones). One of their cars was keyed and they claimed it wasn't that morning, and that we must have done it when they weren't home that day. Luckily the camera I had was a 4Mp, and I could prove it was there longer. You could only see the key mark for about 5 hours in the morning when the sun was reflecting on it, and I could prove it was there at least 8 days, but I couldn't go back further. I bumped up my capacity then, and now I'd rather have a longer archive of relative footage then days of nothing on my other cameras. I'm comfortable with this decision, others may not, it's up to the individual.
On your second point I don't think we disagree. "basic MD" was terrible for me, on camera or on the server, that's why I went to Axxon and it was much better. Object tracking, direction, speed (funny to watch the clips with trailing lines of my kids riding their bikes seeing where they came from and the direction they were headed). Solved many of the issues with basic (keyword there) motion detection. I still had bug recordings at night (not as many as with motion detection, slower moving bugs in frame long enough it thought were objects), and because you set the size of the object and the sensitivity for the entire area, I found it's not ideal for the overview cameras. If I set the object size small enough to detect my kids when they are playing on the other side of the cul de sac (exactly 162' from the camera at 4mm) it will detect every bird, clump of grass, changes in brightness, you name it, as an object and record it, making it not much more useful than basic motion detection. Nothing is perfect, and if you are recording 24x7 or buy an additional camera zoomed out that is one way to deal with where object tracking falls short.
With Advanced motion detection, I'm getting the best of both worlds. That same spot 162' away? Detects the motion there and switches from low to hi-res and records them playing. The rabbit 40' feet away from the same camera right in front? Doesn't detect it or record it in hi-res as it's less sensitive there. But a person? Every time. Object tracking can't do that yet, at least not with what I've seen. Unless you can define a half dozen areas with a different size object for each changing with the distance the object is from the camera, it's a poor solution for an overview camera over a large area (but far better than basic motion detection).
As nothing is perfect, including advanced motion detection, where it is still susceptible to problems is at night, with on-camera IR, recording bugs as events, more so than object tracking. I'm deciding how I want to deal with that; the external IR I have in the front eliminates the issue, but I have two cameras that I'm still using the IR on. Perhaps enabling object tracking on those cameras only at night is another option vs additional external IR. If anyone wants to see a few screen shots of what I'm referring to (regarding the low-hi res recording and granularity in motion) I can post a few.
Hopefully this doesn't come across negatively in any way, as that's not my intention. Just pointing out that while I think there are basic guidelines that are generally true, there isn't a single right way for everyone's situation. Lots of ways to engineer a different solution to the same problem. I enjoy your video's and comments by the way, always good food for thought.
