Need advice on a low cost PoE Dome camera to monitor my driveway.

never infact, microsoft products are banned on my property and especially my networks.. I understand its features far surpass that of a hardware NVR, but if you dont have any need for video processing what features are left that are so critical? Right out of the gate your introducing more complexity, more power consumption, restrictive hardware choices, less stability, less scalability, etc; in exchange for a few nice bells and whistles that hardly make or break a video surveillance system.

I think BI is awesome and I've never used it, I am very glad it exists.. but its not always the best solution for everyone, however I do think everyone should check it out and evaluate it.. I did, and personally found it to be lacking.. now BlueCherry is more suitable for me and is an option on the table for numerous reasons, I'd of probably opted for it had it been more mature at the time.
 
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nayr said:
if you record continuously, and I see very little reason not to with massive storage space widely avilable.. then a hardware NVR is missing what functionality? BI has excellent external motion processing and thats a given, but if your function is simply to record video and review it easily.. then a hardware NVR has all the functionality nessicary.

and while I have little reason to suspect BI.. I have every reason to suspect Microsoft, so just requiring windows as a base means BI is not software I can trust any more than my Chinese NVR..
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Listen we get you are paranoid but most of us here use windows machines at home and office with no issues. We also understand that you use motion sensors for everything. However for 99 percent of folks here blue iris provides many function simply not available on most NVR's. I will list a few.
1) Quick and easy to replace hardware
2) CONSTANT feature updates.
3) Motion zone alerts that are highly customizable for those not using magnets and pir sensors at every corner of the house. Set properly you can eliminate false triggers.
4) Quick video review on the mobile client. Hikvisions mobile client is crap. You simply cannot review video in an efficient manner.
5) Highly customizable live view display including camera sizing and prioritizing cameras with motion
6) Independent storage parameters for different folders. So you can keep some cameras footage longer than others.
7) Independent motion settings for day and night, which can be automatically adjusted for sunrise sunset for your location.
8)Being about to view alerts only on a mobile browser or app when also recording continuously (not available with hikvision)
9) playback a lower bitrate stream when viewing video remotely (not available with hikvision) and a huge issue with low bandwidth connections
10) distinct motion settings for recording vs alerts
I can go on and on. I would never user a standalone NVR if you paid me.
 
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tangent said:
I realize a good NVR can cost as much or more than a low end pc and that the cheap NVR's certainly have limitations. I'm curious what you see as the biggest advantages of blue iris over an NVR. Better motion detection and software you can trust?
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see my post above. The difference is night and day. I got rid of all standalone units.
 
fenderman said:
Listen we get you are paranoid but most of us here use windows machines at home and office with no issues. We also understand that you use motion sensors for everything. However for 99 percent of folks here blue iris provides many function simply not available on most NVR's. I will list a few.
1) Quick and easy to replace hardware
2) CONSTANT feature updates.
3) Motion zone alerts that are highly customizable for those not using magnets and pir sensors at every corner of the house. Set properly you can eliminate false triggers.
4) Quick video review on the mobile client. Hikvisions mobile client is crap. You simply cannot review video in an efficient manner.
5) Highly customizable live view display including camera sizing and prioritizing cameras with motion
6) Independent storage parameters for different folders. So you can keep some cameras footage longer than others.
7) Independent motion settings for day and night, which can be automatically adjusted for sunrise sunset for your location.
8)Being about to view alerts only on a mobile browser or app when also recording continuously (not available with hikvision)
9) playback a lower bitrate stream when viewing video remotely (not available with hikvision) and a huge issue with low bandwidth connections
10) distinct motion settings for recording vs alerts
I can go on and on. I would never user a standalone NVR if you paid me.
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1. Quick and easy to replace hardware that has to meet very specific requirements, wont run on just any PC well. only certain ones
2. More like constantly breaking things from the support threads Ive been observing in my time here, even you suggest disabling auto update and downloading full installers so you can quickly roll back.. then you have constant patch reboots and windows forcing you to upgrade OS's
3. You'll never get rid of all false triggers and an alert that is untrustworthy is worthless.
4. Dahua's apps are a piece of cake to quickly review video on a mobile client, cant speak for Hik's
5. SmartPSS is pretty damn customizable and gives me awesome live view capabilities with instant playback and more.. on a Mac none the less.
6. Ok i dont have this but I dont really need it either with a month of 24/7 archive capabilities I have my self more than enough.
7. Ive got day/night profile switching for finer tuning of image quality based off sunrise sunset, however I fully admit my NVR does not provide this and the feature actually increases your capabilities.. every NVR should do this, but I digress.. I did release the commands required to perform this externally at least, so it can be accomplished if you need it.
8. This is avilable on Dahua NVR
9. also avilable on Dahua NVR, all my substreams are VBR and play quite well on cellular connections.
10. See #3

I could go on and on, I would never use a Windows based <ANYTHING> if you paid me.. Ive only had my NVR since febuary, yet its never been down once and has been churning along without interruption with a solid 5 month uptime.. I suspect in a year I will have well over a years of uptime on this machine.. my NVR operates under a 10W envelope, my battery backups can run 5x longer than the most efficient BI NVR.

paranoid perhaps, but Microsoft compilers were just caught inserting tracking routines into software authored by other people.. I have every reason to distrust them based on their history.
 
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nayr said:
1. Quick and easy to replace hardware that has to meet very specific requirements, wont run on just any PC well. only certain ones
2. More like constantly breaking things from the support threads Ive been observing in my time here, even you suggest disabling auto update and downloading full installers so you can quickly roll back.. then you have constant patch reboots and windows forcing you to upgrade OS's
3. You'll never get rid of all false triggers and an alert that is untrustworthy is worthless.
4. Dahua's apps are a piece of cake to quickly review video on a mobile client, cant speak for Hik's
5. SmartPSS is pretty damn customizable and gives me awesome live view capabilities with instant playback and more.. on a Mac none the less.
6. Ok i dont have this but I dont really need it either with a month of 24/7 archive capabilities I have my self more than enough.
7. Ive got day/night profile switching for finer tuning of image quality based off sunrise sunset, however I fully admit my NVR does not provide this and the feature actually increases your capabilities.. every NVR should do this, but I digress.
8. This is avilable on Dahua NVR
9. also avilable on Dahua NVR, all my substreams are VBR and play quite well on cellular connections.
10. See #3

I could go on and on, I would never use a Windows based <ANYTHING> if you paid me.. Ive only had my NVR since febuary, yet its never been down once and has been churning along without interruption with a solid 5 month uptime.. I suspect in a year I will have well over a years of uptime on this machine.. my NVR operates under a 10W envelope, my battery backups can run 5x longer than the most efficient BI NVR.

paranoid perhaps, but Microsoft compilers were just caught inserting tracking routines into software authored by other people.. I have every reason to distrust them based on there history.
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1) you can walk into any staples or best buy and buy a machine that is capable of running BI. If you buy an optiplex or elitedesk as recommended on this forum you have a repair person with parts at your doorstep next day. You can replace power supplies, motherboards etc on your own in a few hours with parts from nearby stores.
2) The issues users have is because they stupidly update with each release. I run over 20 BI systems with ZERO glitches. This is a support forum so users will post issues. There are likely 100k + blue iris users so a few issues are normal. NVRS have issues as well, there are many posts about random shutdowns, those users are screwed.
3) I have successfully elimiated ALL false triggers. Blue iris has advanced alert parameters that allow this. Regardless, its still much better than any motion detection in an NVR. Lots of folks end up disappointed with the NVR motion detection and then are screwed.
4) Dahua has the same issue. Blue iris is MUCH MUCH faster and more accurate. Outline the steps for reviewing an alert via the dahua app.
5) smart pss only works with dahua. Worthless. Options are limited. Nothing even close to BI.
6) You might not need it, most others find it userful
7) you;ve dont that with custom scripts, most users cant/wont do that
8) Not on hikvision which is widely used
9) see 8
10) most users want motion detection at some level. You are an exception.

Bottom line is once you user software based vms you wont go back. To each his own. I would NEVER recommend an nvr unless the user wants to record 24/7 and only review on occasion. Like I said, I got rid of all of the standalone. They suck.
You are paranoid about windows. Its perfectly secure and safe. Most of the users check their banking and private emails on windows machines.
 
1. I can amazon prime me another NVR here tomorrow, and If I was determined I could surely find one locally at a premium from a security vendor in town.. but my NVR is fanless with no moving parts other than the disk drives and all components integrated into the mainboard.. so chances of any problems are low, and I can easily cluster multiple Dahua NVR's together for redundancy and still be under the power envelope of a single BI machine.. and two NVR's would run about the same cost as a single nice BI server, minus storage.
3. how long did it take you to accomplish that and how much stuff did you risk missing before you did? How many people can spend weeks fine tuning this shit through trial and error, and think its convient to do so.
4. here is how it works with gDMSS, an alert is pushed to my phone.. I click the button and the video plays.. one click is all it takes and I believe I can make it play without interaction if I so desired.
5. SmartPSS works with ALL cameras with an RTSP stream if you have a Dahua NVR, I am looking at the feed from a $30 TOP camera right now on it.. I cant do anything with this camera from a Mac directly.
7. If they dont want it why does BlueIris offer external scripting abilities? How many BI users are even using this? few I suspect.

Windows is not safe and secure by default, it can be with some effort.. back when I abandoned windows you could not even plug it into the internet without it getting infected without any further interaction.. all you had to do was plug it in to the internet and you got a virus.. im sure its better now days, but not really.. my brother in law gave my mother a Windows laptop, she had it completely infected within days and she's a luddite whom only uses the internet because she has to.. never went to a porn site or did anything other than checking email and searching real-estate listings.. she wasent even on facebook or anything, I cant explain how she ruined the laptop with such ease but I got her a MacBook and she's bee on her own for the last 3 years without a single problem

This is one thing we clearly disagree on brother, I however am willing to recommend BI when its appropriate, your displeasure with Hardware NVR's seems to be solely based upon some shitty Hikvision experiences.
 
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nayr said:
1. I can amazon prime me another NVR here tomorrow, and If I was determined I could surely find one locally at a premium from a security vendor in town.. but my NVR is fanless with no moving parts other than the disk drives and all components integrated into the mainboard.. so chances of any problems are low, and I can easily cluster multiple Dahua NVR's together for redundancy and still be under the power envelope of a single BI machine.. and two NVR's would run about the same cost as a single nice BI server, minus storage.
3. how long did it take you to accomplish that and how much stuff did you risk missing before you did? How many people can spend weeks fine tuning this shit through trial and error, and think its convient to do so.
4. here is how it works with gDMSS, an alert is pushed to my phone.. I click the button and the video plays.. one click is all it takes and I believe I can make it play without interaction if I so desired.
5. SmartPSS works with ALL cameras with an RTSP stream if you have a Dahua NVR, I am looking at the feed from a $30 TOP camera right now on it.
7. If they dont want it why does BlueIris offer external scripting abilities? How many BI users are even using this? few I suspect.

Windows is not safe and secure by default, it can be with some effort.. back when I abandoned windows you could not even plug it into the internet without it getting infected without any further interaction.. all you had to do was plug it in to the internet and you got a virus.. im sure its better now days, but not really.
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Not long. Didnt miss any motion. You can record continuously while messing with motion settings.
Most of my BI machines cost under 300.
Again, smart pss is a joke compared to BI. Its the same as an nvr. No extra features. OK for some. The reason most folks use blue iris is for the additional functions simply not available on ANY NVR.
BI offers running scripts as an option. Thats why its so great. You proved my point when you said few are using it. Most users cannot and will not mess with scripts. It will require another machine to send scripts. Not everyone is conformable with pi etc. or has a machine running 24/7. The sunrise sunset option is built into bi, no script required.
If your NVR is accepting an rtsp stream it cannot do motion detection. I know you dont care about storage space or alerts
I've used most of the NVR's out there. I would never install another one. To each his own. But nvr's are very limiting.
Another example, you come home and want to disable alerts or specific cameras (indoor cams). Not easy with NVR's. Super easy with blue iris. Yeah, i know you have a script for it. Im talking about normal folks.
 
it does ONVIF cameras for motion detection too, i just never bothered because as you know I dont use it.. and SmartPSS is not a NVR, far from it.. its just a software client for the NVR.. which BlueIris lacks, I get full playback capabilities from a remote machine without using any remote desktop nonsence.. I also have the capabilities of playing back and converting files from a non BlueIris machine.. which is also something BlueIris lacks.

My alarm system triggers my NVR to tell my indoor cameras to stop recording when we come home, and to start recording when we leave.. super easy, took a single wire.. and I dont have to do anything that I wouldent already do when I left and came home (arm/disarm).. no scripts at all for that.. my NVR came with a half dozen very useful IO ports, your windows computers do not.

My $250 NVR is capable of 16 feeds from high MP cameras without issue, you can really fit 16 8MP feeds on a $300 BI machine? it seemd to me those $300 boxes were for those with just a handfull of cameras or low resolution.. I was under the impression if you required that kind of performance you were looking at a $500 minimum.. but I defer to your expert knowledge on this.. How is the h265 hardware acceleration? Ive got that too, but dont know about BI's capabilities specifically.. how much additional is a 16 camera license for BI? plus how much does Windows its self cost? dont forget to add that into your tally..
 
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nayr said:
it does ONVIF cameras for motion detection too, i just never bothered because as you know I dont use it.. and SmartPSS is not a NVR, far from it.. its just a software client for the NVR.. which BlueIris lacks, I get full playback capabilities from a remote machine without using any remote desktop nonsence.. I also have the capabilities of playing back and converting files from a non BlueIris machine.. which is also something BlueIris lacks.

My alarm system triggers my NVR to tell my indoor cameras to stop recording when we come home, and to start recording when we leave.. super easy, took a single wire.. and I dont have to do anything that I wouldent already do when I left and came home (arm/disarm).. no scripts at all for that.

My $250 NVR is capable of 16 feeds from high MP cameras without issue, you can really fit 16 8MP feeds on a $300 BI machine? it seemd to me those $300 boxes were for those with just a handfull of cameras or low resolution.. I was under the impression if you required that kind of performance you were looking at a $500 minimum.. but I defer to your expert knowledge on this.. How is the h265 hardware acceleration? Ive got that too, but dont know about BI's capabilities specifically.
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Smart pss is a recorder as well. Smart pss can only work with dahua cameras as i stated. The only way you have it working with your top is because you are using it with your NVR as an intermediary.
Blue iris can play clips remotely using the BUILT IN webserver. You dont need any client etc..just a web browser.
Again, most folks have no clue how to wire their alarm into their NVR. Even so, blue iris can disable the camera from live view or remote viewing as well. The NVR does not. You can also turn the cameras on while alarm is off, say if the kids are with a baby sitter.
Most home systems are not 16 cameras or running 8mp cameras. Most home systems can run off a 300 dollar pc. You can easily run 20+ megapixels off an i5 haswell.
There is no h.265 support with but at the same time there is no h.265 in any other vms package yet. h.265 is not ready for prime time.
 
BI is a 60 dollar license. There is no additional cost per camera.
Windows 7/10 PRO is included with my 280 dollar i5-4590 haswell with a three year next business day warranty. Tax included as well.
 
Your mistaken, SmartPSS is a software client for Dahua NVR's and Dahua IPC's.. for local recording capabilities you pair it with Dahua's PC-NVR software.. which is not avilable for Mac so I've never used it.. but you cannot use SmartPSS for NVR functionally by its self.. it just connects to the cameras or NVR to playback and view live streams, it'll also alert of events and play audio files.. but yeah by its self with a mix and match system its nearly worthless, but pair it up with a actual NVR its compatible with and it does its job, and does it very well.. yeah it wont connect to non-dahua hardware directly, but the NVR will gladly connect to all sorts of cameras and then provide me with all the same functionality Ive came to expect.

I am pretty confident that if someone can wire up and install IPCameras all by them selves, they can take a wire from an alarm output and run it to the NVR's input.. and they could also install an over-ride switch to trigger recordings when the system is disarmed.
 
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nayr said:
Your mistaken, SmartPSS is a software client for Dahua NVR's and Dahua IPC's.. for local recording capabilities you pair it with Dahua's PC-NVR software.. which is not avilable for Mac so I've never used it.. but you cannot use SmartPSS for NVR functionally by its self.. it just connects to the cameras or NVR to playback and view live streams, it'll also alert of events and play audio files.. but yeah by its self with a mix and match system its nearly worthless, but pair it up with a actual NVR its compatible with and it does its job, and does it very well.. yeah it wont connect to non-dahua hardware directly, but the NVR will gladly connect to all sorts of cameras and then provide me with all the same functionality Ive came to expect.
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I am pretty certain that the windows version of smart pss can record - or the installation includes the option for the recording server. Regardless, you cannot use smartpss/pc-nvr to record non dahua cameras if you dont use the NVR. That was my point.
 
that would be the PC-NVR part of it, I cant say weather or not that piece of software works with non-dahua's.. I would not be surprised if it did not, but im not the one advocating software NVR here.. so whats your point? my point is it works great with all cameras if you have a hardware NVR, and it does..
 
nayr said:
that would be the PC-NVR part of it, I cant say weather or not that piece of software works with non-dahua's.. I would not be surprised if it did not, but im not the one advocating software NVR here.. so whats your point? my point is it works great with all cameras if you have a hardware NVR, and it does..
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Yes but with the same severe limitations as the NVR
 
man did I ever open a can of worms... thanks for your insights on nvr vs bi. Ultimately there's no correct answer, different solutions fit different people's needs.

Currently I've just got a couple cams and they ftp footage to a raspberry pi & hdd hidden in a wall. It's been a while since I last tried BI and I'm pondering my options going forward.

I've also been pondering how to best set up cams for a couple relatives who have a greater need for them than I do. Simplicity and ease of use are a big factor and synology is actually a strong contender from what I've seen, I just wish they had a dual nic version to isolate the cams. For me the "smart detection" features built into some cameras are very appealing, but nayr is right storage is cheap these days.
 
tangent said:
man did I ever open a can of worms... thanks for your insights on nvr vs bi. Ultimately there's no correct answer, different solutions fit different people's needs.
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no frets, its beneficial for all when fenderman and I dont see eye to eye.. you guys get some very solidly backed opinions when we do.. he knows his shit, nobody else here has his BI expertise.. he's done a well enough job advocating for BI you'll even find me pointing people at BI, without ever using it personally, and you see how much I despise Windows.. but we respect each-others opinions and that leads to some passionate debates.

I am big on simplicity and reliability, dont make things more complex than absolutely nessicary.. for that I am willing to accept limitations, as long as I am aware of them upfront.. at heart I am a German Engineer whom believes firmly in the Unix Philosophy.. I'd rather have the best tool for the job, Hammers are perfect.. no need to attach screw drivers and knife blades to it so it can do more than is nessicary, why work with a crappy hammer just so you can save some room in the toolbox.

for me, a NVR's job is to save video to disk and allow for quick and easy retrieval of that video.. so a hardware NVR is far more attractive to my philosophy than a big bloated piece of software sitting on more big bloated pieces of software.. whats the point in having all these features your unlikely to use and just increases complexity with no tangible benifit.

now if you require a tool that is more advanced than a simple hammer, then BlueIris is the next best tool in the box.. I wont deny that.

for the longest time I recorded all video to a FTP Server, and I was perfectly content.. I never review footage unless I have a good reason too, but having motion flaged in the timeline and being able to playback video from my phone was something I required so the FTP server was no longer an adequate tool for the job.
 
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LOL you guys. It's war of BI vs NVR :laugh:

Well.... I use both and let the NVR manage the 24/7 recording. I don't even bother accessing those boxes because I love using Blue Iris for my daily monitoring, etc. For me it's the software of the GOD's and fun to play with. It also has an outstanding app for my iOS device and realtime playback of events is simply amazing.

I figured out how to lower some of the local CPU load. I dialed down that 5 Mega Pixel camera to a comfortable 1080p since it's just monitoring the driveway at point blank range.

I also lowered the BI Pre-trigger video buffer on some of the cams. My norm was set at 50 since I only record on motion alerts with the PC. That buffer is great for seeing shit before the event triggers, but does eat up some CPU ponies.

Tiger
 
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Yep, I use BI but in my mind for practical benefits NVRs have come a long way now that in-camera line crossing detection has become the norm. That gives them fairly useful motion alerts. They're also great for Microsoft haters.
 
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