Do I need Blue Iris for these scenarios?

[randyth]

I have a question about the advantage of Blue Iris in my scenario of cameras use.

Mu current scenario

At the moment I have 4 Dahua 4MP camera's (and an expansion with two more are planned. My setup will never grow beyond 8 camera's).
I don't have Blue Iris yet.
At the moment I have configured all camera's through the firmware settings to ftp-upload videos/snapshots on motion-trigger (for certain zones) to my machine (Dell Optiplex i5-2500, 8GB ram, 2TB storage).
After some tinkering with the threshold and sensitivity this seems to be working (though with some false alarms due to shadows and lighting).

I'm using free TinyCam (though VPN) to watch videos live on my Android phone. I also have a webserver on my machine that can serve and playback the ftp-uploaded files (still a W.I.P.).

I always thought Blue Iris was essential for my setup, but I'm in doubt now as it seems the firmware capabilities are much more advanced than I thought.
Therefore I'd like to ask the following:

Questions

1. Is Blue iris recommended if I want to record video on motion (much like I do now with the the current firmware method)? What are the advantages over the firmware method?

2. Is Blue Iris recommended if I want to record video 24/7 for 6 camera's (and also record videos on motion triggers)? Or can I use the firmware of the camera's to record 24/7 streams (of the 6 cams) to my machine?

 

[randyth]

I still would like to hear the advantages of Blue Iris in the above setting.
Can anyone recommend me Blue Iris (I want to purchase it badly as it sounds fun and cutting-edge, but I must be able to justify it).


According to the post here i would guess the following on the advantages of Blue Iris:
- My guess is that Blue iris has more advanced and more reliable motion detection than the camera firmware (though both are motion detection by software ).
- And my guess is that Blue Iris has better support for archiving and searching through the archive than the firmware method (which basically forces you to directly browse the filesystem or use a custom script).

 

[Audioadam]

It has a free trail, why are you asking everyone if it is better than your "homebaked" solution. No offense, but the guy who created and maintains blue Iris, has gotten up everyday for the past ? Years, and worked on making a solution that works well for this, it's not perfect, but it is likely much better than what you will come up with as a hobby. And the price is a no brainier. That said, you'll need a dedicated pc.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mcorzine]

It sounds like you've got a pretty good setup going here. Good work! Blue Iris is meant to simplify all of the functions that you have manually created this is so the average user can have all of these features without creating FTP servers, webservers, file management, etc. I do not know about your camera's capabilities but a 24 hour continuous recording is very simple to do with BI. It sounds like you might have to set the motion detection sensitivity very high to achieve this with your current setup.

Blue Iris is capable of recording 24/7 AND motion detection recordings at the same time. I would download BI and try it for the 14 free days with just one camera to see if it gives you additional capabilities or simplifies what you are already doing.