Hello......I'm new here and just getting started

Joined
Jan 16, 2018
Messages
24
Reaction score
4
Hello All:

I have been lurking for a few months and can now say I have already learned a ton from members here.

I started with 2 1080 Amcrest Wireless PTZ cameras....I have high speed wireless and those two worked great, no lag, no problems whatsoever. One went upstairs and it can view my living room electronics as well as my front and back doors. The other is in the garage.

After installing these I learned about this site and started reading..... Have since received a 3 mp outdoor Amcrest WIFI camera, learned about Blue Iris, installed the demo, found out I liked it better than anything else I have used, have then bought a dedicated BI machine (HP Power Pavillion 580-023W with i5 -7400, 8GB RAM, with dedicated 3GB G-FORCE graphics which I quickly removed and reverted to intel built-in.

BTW this computer can be bought for $250 at Wal Mart if you can find one using brickseek. It is a black Friday leftover that has been clearanced. I just picked mine up 2 weeks ago....The video card removal makes it a perfect BI machine (in my opinion based primarily on price).

I got the BI machine up and running (full purchased version) prior to getting the third WIFI camera up.....now that it is up I am seeing a need for new improvements......this is my max for wifi cameras..... I have a roll of cat 5 on order and can very easily convert two of my three to ethernet. My machine runs good using the parameters I've seen here concerning frame rate etc.... I use less than 15% of my cpu and have only 8 GB ram ....the only hiccup I am seeing deals with wifi lag currently.....

So, I now need to convert my two wireless cameras to cat 5 wired and also install a camera for front coverage... Looking at the ALIBABA Dahua I've seen referenced a few times... I am curious if turrent cameras can be wall mounted, not ceiling mounted????? I may chime in for advice on that soon, but also just wanted to share the HP Pavillion find in case anyone else was looking for a great price, new (not refurbed), includes kb and mouse No monitor)
 

mat200

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Jan 17, 2017
Messages
13,670
Reaction score
22,782
Welcome Slick

Looks like a really nice system for $250! Good find.

Turret cameras can be ceiling mounted, wall mounted, and other mounted... lots of options.

There should be some pictures in the installed picture thread on what people have done, or in the turret thread it self.
Do feel free to check out some of the pointers we have on various related topics, including junction boxes and wall mounts.

Resource Guide on IP Technology for all Noobs


UPdate: for those looking for more info on the i5 system which Slick mentioned:

HP Pavilion Power 580-023w Gaming Tower, Intel Core i5-7400, NVIDIA GTX 1060 3GB Graphics, 8 GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive, Windows 10

MSRP: $649
SKU: 803136621
UPC: 191628492534

During Black Friday this was going for $499
for $250 its a sweet deal, if you can find one in store ( typical Walmart clearance warning - hard to find some of these deals - but if you do, its a score )
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 16, 2018
Messages
24
Reaction score
4
Ok, so I spoke too soon when I said everything was going smooth. I am losing the ability to connect to Blue Iris from the Android app. It seems to change its ip address at random.

I have comcast internet, not a static IP address. I use a tp link router and thought I had ip address reserved for the blue Iris (shows up as Amcrest DVR correct?). Well overnight something changed and now my router shows Amcrest DVR twice and it is attached to two different IP addresses....

That is currently my hiccup, losing connectivity remotely.....I'm sure it is just a setting but unsure which.....

Also due to running the remote wizrd repeatedly, my serial number kept dropping everytime I ran the wizard and Blue Iris locked it due to repeatedly use of the same serial ###..... So Ken from blue Iris sent a temporary # for the time being.....

I can dig into the forum and try to find answers but if anyone wants to point me in right direction, I'd appreciate it.....

What Mac address does blue Iris webserver use???? Same as my computer Ethernet card????
 
Joined
Jan 16, 2018
Messages
24
Reaction score
4
I think I made a little headway....I turned off all port forwarding from my cameras, however this was previously on because I had TinyCAm Pro as well as AMCREST VIEW Pro installed on Android and this is how I installed my first two cameras.....

To reserve a IP Address (not sure that is the same thing as making it static though) with my router, I have to supply the Mac Address that I want to have a specific ip address, so I did a CONFIG /ALL at a command prompt and that gave me a mac address of an ethernet card that is the same ip address of the BluE IRis web server (shown in the webserver tab under settings)....... however in my case , my router recognizes this device as AMCREST DVR ????? I am guessing that is because I had previously installed Tiny Cam Pro and or AMCREST web view (came free with my first two cameras)....Could this be the case?

My android app is working as of right now, with no port forwarding on cameras, only on the blue iris web server....and it works using wi-fi and 4 g cellular... so I am happy

I have the IP reserved for the blue iris server, not sure that is the same thing as setting it up as static, but I am making progress, thanks for the help....

VPN is next, I know a lot of helpful people advise going that route......
 
Top