NVR or BlueIris? I think I might want an NVR!

[BLKMGK]

I'm torn here! I'm struggling with the obvious question of how best to record cameras around my house. My thought is I want to put an NVR or computer in a closet somewhere away from my main gear where it's less likely to be grabbed. Whichever will be done will likely have a networked KVM with an IP based HDMI extender so I can monitor things. I have a BlueIris license and am using it on my desktop right now but looking at what I'd put together for a PC vs some of the NVR the prices seem comparable. Seeing that NAYR is running an NVR for some fairly complex operations gives me hope that an NVR might suit my needs. I'm currently running a single Dahua camera in a fixed position, I had to reduce resolution to 1080P to keep my desktop from becoming angry recording lol. Plans are to add at least two outdoor bullet cameras and like a PTZ under my eaves. That would total 4 cameras outside, I've got some thoughts about possibly covering entrances with cameras inside. I intend to stick to Dahua everywhere unless something really special shows up under another brand. The Dahua 4216-4K NAYR is using looks pretty good to me, potentially overkill but they make an 8channel too. Is there anything I couldn't easily do with an NVR? CaliGirl seems to be doing very well with her remote cabin using an NVR and that makes it appealing too (yes I've lurked a lot). Is there some serious advantage with BlueIris over an NVR I'm missing? I think I've pretty much convinced myself to use an NVR at this point despite having the BI license. Not like me to turn down building another computer... Must the NVR take each camera into a separate port or can many cameras come in on a single network port? I don't want to home-run all of my cameras to the NVR and it would be more complex to VLAN each camera I think (new to VLAN).

Either way I'm upgrading my network to put camera traffic on a VLAN and I'd not use POE from an NVR. I'm actually using powerline networking (ZyXel) for my first camera as it's on a detached garage, TP-Link POE injector is taking care of it's power. I've been shocked at how well the networking for that has held up! I'll VPN to whatever device I end up recording to via a PFSense gateway, this will be as secure as I can make it. All other cameras will be wired to VLAN capable switches (TP-Link) and unable to reach the internet directly. Does this sound somewhat sane?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/English-version-Dahua-NVR4208-4K-8ch-NVR-2SATA-no-POE-ports-4K-H-265-DH-NVR4208/32602941216.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.2.PfyzLn&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_2,searchweb201603_1&btsid=40f0ef81-1942-4759-9f6b-61eb02c4e49b

and

http://www.cctv-mall.com/nvr4208-4k-dahua-4k-nvr4208-4k-1-5u-network-video-recorder-with-onvif-2-4-support-2hdd-dahua-4k-nvr-network-video-recorder-nvr4208-4k

Those are the two retailers I've found with this particular NVR. The CCTV one is unbranded which makes me somewhat nervous, thoughts? The 16channel model I've linked below is a VERY modest bump in price too. I bought my Dahua camera from Ali so no concerns there really

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/English-version-Dahua-NVR4216-4K-16ch-NVR-2SATA-no-POE-ports-4K-H-265-DH-NVR4216/32602830005.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.2.ATjRCZ&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_2,searchweb201603_1&btsid=770434e9-e925-4e13-9c73-bb18649583b8

http://www.cctv-mall.com/nvr4216-4k-dahua-4k-nvr4216-4k-1-5u-network-video-recorder-with-onvif-2-4-support-2hdd-dahua-4k-nvr-network-video-recorder-nvr4216-4k


CCTV-mall sells the more upscale NVR5216 pretty cheap too and it's quad core capable of higher data rates but this seems overkill? Yeah, I'm a little fish out of water! I'd appreciate some feedback.

 

[fenderman]

You dont need to build the pc...you can buy an optiplex/elitedesk i5 - skylake system for 300..blue iris is much more flexible when it comes to alerts, profiles, ,video review, backup/nas storage or simultaneous write ...the mobile app is much better than what is available for standalone NVR's....if all you want to do is record 24/7 and review video after an incident then an NVR is ok..

 

[BLKMGK]

Sources for hardware? Not seeing any quite that low out on fleabay. Form factor of the Elitedesk in SFF is nice, USB HDD for additional storage? I had considered a NUC, I have a few of those doing duty for Plex and Kodi right now. Don't know what I don't know, so far BI triggers a bunch on cars going by despite my masking but mostly just larger SUV and trucks which I'm not too bothered by. Are there big downsides to an NVR? Not found a manual for one yet but I suspect I'd be doing lots of trial by fire learning either way lol. Not using direct write currently, I'd lose compression wouldn't I?

 

[fenderman]

Sources for hardware? Not seeing any quite that low out on fleabay. Form factor of the Elitedesk in SFF is nice, USB HDD? I had considered a NUC, I have a few of those doing duty for Plex and Kodi right now. Don't know what I don't know, so far BI triggers a bunch on cars going by despite my masking but mostly just larger SUV and trucks which I'm not too bothered by. Are there big downsides to an NVR? Not found a manual for one yet but I suspect I'd be doing lots of trial by fire learning either way lol. Not using direct write currently, I'd lose compression wouldn't I?

Search the forum for elitedesk and optiplex...I buy them for 300 all the time..Read the help file and undestand how to properly setup motion detection...DONT use a nuc...overpriced garbage...buy a tower or sff that can support AT LEAST a 3.5 drive and an ssd...Why would you want blue iris to recompress your video?? Set a lower bitrate in the camera. You must use direct to disk if using multimegapixel cameras...You loose alot of the custom functions and options..you need to use both to see. I would never use a standalone NVR even if free...

 

[BLKMGK]

Rencode isn't a huge deal to me so long as the profile is decent and maintains quality, I do wish it used H.265 though. I'm trying out direct to disk, will see if it makes much difference. If I do a PC it will need to be something unobtrusive, I need more PCs like a hole in the head. I'd throw it on my ESX server if I didn't think a thief would break their back dragging it out in the event of a burglary.

 

[fenderman]

Rencode isn't a huge deal to me so long as the profile is decent and maintains quality, I do wish it used H.265 though. I'm trying out direct to disk, will see if it makes much difference. If I do a PC it will need to be something unobtrusive, I need more PCs like a hole in the head. I'd throw it on my ESX server if I didn't think a thief would break their back dragging it out in the event of a burglary.

It will make a huge difference in cpu usage...blue iris supports h.265...in the latest version..

 

[BLKMGK]

am on 4.4.7 x64 and no option but I see they say they support it at least. I'll fiddle with it, I use h.265 on any video I store for myself and really like it.

 

[fenderman]

am on 4.4.7 x64 and no option but I see they say they support it at least. I'll fiddle with it, I use h.265 on any video I store for myself and really like it.

you dont need to select it as an option...set the camera to h.265

 

[BLKMGK]

ah so it's not reencoding just dumping the raw stream then, not much to support in that case! It's more CPU intensive to encode and decode but it yields smaller video and isn't too hard for most CPU to decode. <shrug> If I go with an NVR I'd certainly want one that could handle it. As cheap as some of the unbranded NVR are it's almost worth just trying.

 

[fenderman]

ah so it's not reencoding just dumping the raw stream then, not much to support in that case! It's more CPU intensive to encode and decode but it yields smaller video and isn't too hard for most CPU to decode. <shrug> If I go with an NVR I'd certainly want one that could handle it. As cheap as some of the unbranded NVR are it's almost worth just trying.

There is lots to support...in fact, very view vms support h.265 - only a handful do....its not as simple as you think. For example milestone only supports h.265 in their expert and corporate versions which are insanely priced per camera....H.264 also produces better images, that is why h.265 has not caught on as quickly...As far as direct to disk, you will get the same smaller video by lowering the bitrate..makes not sense to stream at a higher bitrate then waste cpu power reencoding at a lower rate...

 

[BLKMGK]

If the camera is outputting H.265 then no they just need to put the stream to disk, no encoding necessary to have H.265 video on disk in that case. I don't find H.264 to encode better images but it does certainly make for smaller video which serves me well storing video for entertainment purposes which is where I've primarily dealt with it. Direct to disk does seem to be making for far smaller files, I'd guess that attempting to reencode them with H.264 was bloating them - grr. I've bumped the resolution up and the camera's output quality while swapping it to H.265 to judge file sizes. I think I'll notice more come morning when it switches back to color mode. Direct to Disk does seem to be saving a good bit of resources though thank you!

 

[fenderman]

If the camera is outputting H.265 then no they just need to put the stream to disk, no encoding necessary to have H.265 video on disk in that case. I don't find H.264 to encode better images but it does certainly make for smaller video which serves me well storing video for entertainment purposes which is where I've primarily dealt with it. Direct to disk does seem to be making for far smaller files, I'd guess that attempting to reencode them with H.264 was bloating them - grr. I've bumped the resolution up and the camera's output quality while swapping it to H.265 to judge file sizes. I think I'll notice more come morning when it switches back to color mode. Direct to Disk does seem to be saving a good bit of resources though thank you!

You dont understand...its not simply streaming to the disk, the software has to be able to VIEW the stream for motion detection and replay the file...a lot of work needs to be done for this implementation...that is why even very expensive packages dont have h.265 yet....

 

[bryansj]

The newer Dahua NVRs support h.265. I tried Blue Iris on my ESXi server using the trial and it used too much CPU for my liking. You'd need to pass through an Intel GPU to bring down the usage.

I simply got a Dahua 4208-4k and added a drive. Pretty happy with it. Getting a PIR for alerts will also help instead of relying on video motion detection. I haven't had a single false alarm since connecting mine. Before the PIR I had to disable email alerts unless I wanted to see pictures of shadows and giant moths.

 

[fenderman]

The newer Dahua NVRs support h.265. I tried Blue Iris on my ESXi server using the trial and it used too much CPU for my liking. You'd need to pass through an Intel GPU to bring down the usage.

I simply got a Dahua 4208-4k and added a drive. Pretty happy with it. Getting a PIR for alerts will also help instead of relying on video motion detection. I haven't had a single false alarm since connecting mine. Before the PIR I had to disable email alerts unless I wanted to see pictures of shadows and giant moths.

The demo does not support direct to disk.. that was your problem not hardware acceleration...

 

[BLKMGK]

Ah first I'd heard of a PIR, very interesting tech! How do you like the Dahua NVR? Have you found many shortcomings? Are you using many cameras with it? One thing I've not been able to figure out - can the ethernet ports on the back host more than one camera apiece? If I VLAN my network all of my camera traffic could potentially come in on one cable and I'm not sure how the NVR expects input. I know they POE on ports and that they setup their own network, I just don't want to have to homerun everything to a single point - that's a pain better left to analog cameras

 

[bryansj]

Ah first I'd heard of a PIR, very interesting tech! How do you like the Dahua NVR? Have you found many shortcomings? Are you using many cameras with it? One thing I've not been able to figure out - can the ethernet ports on the back host more than one camera apiece? If I VLAN my network all of my camera traffic could potentially come in on one cable and I'm not sure how the NVR expects input. I know they POE on ports and that they setup their own network, I just don't want to have to homerun everything to a single point - that's a pain better left to analog cameras

I'm just using it with two cameras and a PIR. My coworker is using one with five cameras. All cameras are Dahua IPC-HDW4431C-A 4MP. He just finished fishing the fifth camera and needs to do his PIR next.

We both got the NVRs without PoE. Running a separate PoE switch. This would let you not home run everything, but it would still all need to be network connected somehow.

 

[BLKMGK]

Thank you, that helps! I have POE switches and injectors, POE on the device itself would be wasted for the same reasons I'm not home running cables back to it. I'm currently using just a single IPC-HFW4431M-AS-I2 which is also a 4mp capable camera, the infrared illumination has been pretty impressive but I also have good lighting around my house for a good bit of the evening. Lots to learn but i'm having fun with it. I may try an NVR to see how it works, I wonder if it could be run alongside BlueIris? So long as BI just receives it might work assuming I put them on the same network. I did get my hands on one of the previously mentioned SFF PCs in the office today to look over. At the right price, and if it came with an OS, it might be worth checking out too. What are you using for a PIR? Other than the brief description I found from Google I've got no experience with them but it sounds interesting - I can think of a few possible places to use such a thing in areas that are out of the way and seldom accessed by me.