Hardware NVR vs NAS-NVR vs Software NVR (Security Spy or BI)

M

MacFun

Getting the hang of it
Aug 1, 2017
383
71
Houston, TX
I'm new to having security cameras and have only experienced having three NestCams at one location and I must say they were pretty slick with the ease of deployment, analytics, fast iOS scrubbing, easy to share a clip from one cam at least and audio I/o by default. Now, at a new location (a 2100 SF residential property) I'd like to reconsider all of the possibilities. From what I can tell there are 4 fundamental possibilities:

1) SecuritySpy (software NVR), yes I'm a Mac user no PCs at this location.
2) NVR (hardware, integrated POE SW)
3) NAS (synology or QNAP)
4) WiFi Cloud-based (NestCam or Arlo)

I'm a software developer and have done a lot of my own premise wiring.... I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty or for things to get technical. However I'm struggling with understanding the relative benefits of each approach.

Things that are important to me:
-hardware must be mounted in a machine room with no direct physical access. I will not want to go in there and hookup a monitor and keyboard just to use the NVR it should work remotely.
-all NVR operations should be available remotely via LAN or wan etc.
-audio recording for each camera, I now understand that external mic are plugged into the cams without mic and that becomes part of the IP stream and is recorded to the NVR.
-clip saving should be easy and can save to any network drive, I don't want to climb on a ladder and plugin a USB drive.
-full Mac compatible.
-easy IOS viewing of live feed.
-easy and precise marking of in and out points for clips to be saved.
-ability to synchronize or reconcile data on the cameras card if the NVR went down and the data is available on the camera SD card. I read where one the NAS units had this feature.
-reliable and flexible. So far Security Spy (SS) seems fragile. I'm sure it's just me and I need to learn more...
-certain events should be saved to a remote FTP just in case the NVR is stolen during a smash and grab.
-NVR data traffic to and from the cameras should be logically and or physically isolated from the rest of the network. With SS I assume I'd need a managed Ethernet switch to allow Vlans to be established.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing your comments about these different approaches.

Thanks,

Robert
 
I have the following setup:

Five Hikvision cameras, three bought from aliexpress which are not firmware-upgradable, and two I got from B&H hardware.
4-bay QNAP with four 4 TB HGST NAS drives in RAID 5.
Used 48 port Cisco 100 Mbps managed PoE switch, paid C$180 for it a few years ago.

The QNAP comes with software called Surveillance Station. I had to buy a couple of additional licenses because I think it only came configured for two cameras.

That seems to do the job for me. I have about 30 days of continuous storage at a moderate frame rate and quality. It is not cinematic quality, but it would be good enough for juridical use I think.

I primarily use Macs at home, but it was a PITA to set up the Hikvision cameras on my Mac, so I gave up and used my Windows laptop from work. The cameras themselves and QNAP work fine in Chrome on a Mac.

The Hikvision cameras suck out loud in terms of motion and line crossing detection. They alarm all the time. I just record continuously and mostly ignore the alarms.

I would like to install another camera to look at the road and do license plate recognition because there have been a few breakins on my street and the police sometimes ask me for footage. So I will have to look into an NVR with video analytics, or build a Linux-based peecee with open-source software. Or possibly buy an Axis or similar camera, if they have license plate recognition built into them. If anyone has any experience doing this, I'd appreciate the wisdom of your experience in terms of hardware/software and camera selection.
 
Did you use a different NVR before getting the QNAP? Are your cameras in their own vlan with the traffic isolated? As a Mac user not interested in using a PC would you avoid Hikvision? Also, about a cam for license plate reading, I suppose that is something more than a cam with a high enough resolution. I suspect that there is some smart processing within the cam? Also, if the cam fetches that plate ID, could this data be saved to a log?

Thanks,

Robert
 
The first system I used was an Unraid network storage box. It never played nice with the Hik cameras, and it was a bitch to set up. I never got the cameras to connect with NFS, for example. I think those problems were mainly to do with the fact that Unraid is badly broken. I had the 4-bay QNAP on hand not doing anything so I decided to use it as an NVR.

I could put the cameras and QNAP on a VLAN if I wanted to, but I haven't gotten around to it.

I am not saying it is impossible to set up Hik cameras with a Mac, just that I ran into problems and it went like butter on the peecee I used. The only thing you are using the peecee for is to set up the network configuration on the cameras. I have them set up to use DHCP, and I have device reservations on my Cisco router so they get the same address every time. After that is set up, you can use Macs forever.

Yes, license plate recognition is a form of what is known as "video analytics" where a processor either in the camera itself or in the NVR, is doing a lot of math to read license plates, determine if an object like a suitcase bomb is being left behind, if someone has jumped off the platform onto the tracks, etc. It takes a lot of computing power. My Hik cameras have a primitive form of it, but they absolutely suck at it.

In the end, I am hoping to have a text file with the license plate numbers in it so that I can turn the file over to the police if they request it. This may seem a bit weird, and I have no actual security concerns because I live in a safe neighbourhood, I just want to do it as a technical project.
 
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I too want to pursue some of these items as a techical project. I'm in a safe area as well. Yet, I don't have a monitored alarm. When I'm not home it would be nice to see if my TV is still there or if a package was left at my door or to see some history of those that walk up the driveway. So a couple of nestCams would work. Yet I'm interested in better picture quality for the price of the Nest solution. I'm intrigued by all of the possibilities. I would like an alert when my cat comes to the door. Measure the weight of a person standing on my door mat, flash lights based on a triggered event. Log license plates of cars that go by. Be easy to view live via iOS and Apple's TVOS, be able to save a clip via iOS. Also, I'm interested in learning about the pros and cons of each solution. It seems that hardware (dedicated) NVRs can deal well with a larger number of cameras at a given frame rate and they support h.265(+). While Security Spy does not support h.265 yet because macOS does not support it just yet. I'm not sure where Synology and QNAP fit in but I recall reading about special features that seem exclusive to them. For example when the cams lose the ability to write to the NVR they can write to a card on the camera and when the NAS NVR comes online it can fetch just the video that the NAS was missing.... that seems pretty sophisticated--yes?

Anyway, thanks for your input.

Robert
 
For license plate reading is it best to do that with the camera or the NVR? Is there a certain product that's known to do that well? BTW: I saw a slick Axis cam video where it was zooming around the image perfectly dealing with multiple moving objects. It looked like a professional videographer was shooting the footage--very impressive. I'm sure that technology cost a fortune.

Robert
 
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