NVR/Server/Computer Recommendation for 25 Cameras

[speed89]

Hi everyone,

I am looking a setting up a surveillance system from scratch that will comprise of about 25 Cameras. I will utilise the Hikvision DS-2CD2332-I 3MP camera in most locations with various lens sizes depending on what is required. I may install some long range cameras with 20X Optical zoom, this is TBA. There are 3 Buildings with each getting some cameras. All the buildings are in close proximity to each other. The largest distance from the front building to the back one is about 60-80m.

I am tossing up between running one NVR capable of running all the cameras, running 3 separate NVRs (one for each building then port forwarding the NVRs to a computer that can monitor all the NVRs connected cameras) or putting together a server/computer with
software like Blue Iris or using the Hikvision iVMS-4200 v2.3.1.3 or Hikvision iVMS-5200 Professional software.

I need something that is easy to operate as I will not be on the site to configure or watch over it. I like the idea of Blue Iris because it seems feature rich and capable, with a very low cost at $60 for up to 64 camera license. A single NVR capable of running this amount of cameras will cost about $3,000 and from what I have read are not the most user friendly, GUI isn't so good/clunky and very limited.

Any suggestions would be great.
TIA for your ideas/advice!

 

[bp2008]

This will bring even a high end i7 PC to its knees with Blue Iris. I run 20 cameras into my Blue Iris on an i7-3770k. I have an assortment of cams but the average resolution is about 3 MP. I have to use frame rates in the ballpark of 6 FPS to keep CPU usage acceptable. If this is okay to you, then I recommend you get a refurbished dell workstation with 8 GB memory and an i7-4790 CPU. When on sale with coupon codes these are $500 or less. Usually you can find these sales once or twice a month. Just about the only way you could get better frame rates using Blue Iris would be to build an expensive server with dual xeon CPUs, total cost probably $2000 or more. That, or split the load into two or three systems as you've already considered. I would still recommend each system be an i7 if it will run more than perhaps 8 of the cameras. Fewer than that and you can probably get away with an i5 CPU.

 

[fenderman]

As great as blue iris is, for that many cams blue iris is not optimal.. Go with ivms, exacq, milestone or avigilon... Or a 32/64 channel nvr...

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[wseaton]

I work mostly in the data center, and I agree with bp2008 in that if you want that many cams with Blue IRIS you are better off having multiple systems. Servers with multiple physical processors don't scale that well and the cost curve is often much higher than having multiple workstations with 4-6 core. I run my AV on small Lenovo Servers with quadcore Xeon E3-1225's, and they cost $350 brand new. Slap Win8 Pro on the boxes, mount a couple HGST drives and you have a lot of server for the dough. That same processor in a dual processor machine would cost $2,000 (base) and my capacity woulnd't scale anywhere close to the price increase. I then likely have to screw with registered memory above and beyond ECC, and it gets really expensive It's the classic vertical -vs- horizontal scaling debate that we have to deal with.

My current 1225 runs six Axis cams at 15 FPS. At 1280x800 the machine runs about 55% processor utilization with all cams recording. If I drop down to 1024x640 on the cameras native CPU utilization plumets to 30-35%. If I enable direct to disc recording CPU utilization dives to 10-15%, but I lose date overlays, and frankly I prefer my software take care of that than have to make sure all my cams have time server access across firewalls, etc. So, 25 cameras is theoretically possible on a single processor box, but you'll need to cut a lot of corners.

 

[fenderman]

@wseaton if all you need is time overlay consider this time server
http://www.timesynctool.com/
Run it on the blue iris server.. You may have to allow port udp 123....
This way you can run direct to disc and all your cameras will be perfectly synced...
With respect to 25 Cams, op wants to run at 3mp.. That's 75 vs the 6 you are recording... If he dropped to one or two MP. Maybe...

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[wseaton]

Pretty sure that's a client and not a server. Keeping embedded linux devices (most IP cams) synched with Windows based servers is not an easy task because the protocols are different. You really need a dedicated NTP server on your network to do this properly, and I've never seen one running on Windows do it right. Most of the time you need a dedicated appliance.

Next, Axis cameras that I use do a lousy job at time stamping. They mask off a part of the frame to do it costing you viewing area and technically don't overlay. Much easier to do it on the server, although this isn't very efficient do to re-encoding as we both know. Realize that my recordings are often viewed with a police officer over my shoulder, or attorney. Accurate time stamps are mandatory.

Last, if the OP we're going to use direct to disk I don't see why this wouldn't be possible. It's re-encoding that kills the CPU, not throughput.

 

[fenderman]

Pretty sure that's a client and not a server. Keeping embedded linux devices (most IP cams) synched with Windows based servers is not an easy task because the protocols are different. You really need a dedicated NTP server on your network to do this properly, and I've never seen one running on Windows do it right. Most of the time you need a dedicated appliance.

Next, Axis cameras that I use do a lousy job at time stamping. They mask off a part of the frame to do it costing you viewing area and technically don't overlay. Much easier to do it on the server, although this isn't very efficient do to re-encoding as we both know. Realize that my recordings are often viewed with a police officer over my shoulder, or attorney. Accurate time stamps are mandatory.

Last, if the OP we're going to use direct to disk I don't see why this wouldn't be possible. It's re-encoding that kills the CPU, not throughput.

It creates an NTP SERVER on windows machine...I have this running on almost every one of my 20+ blue iris machines...its works PERFECTLY - the cameras sync to it perfectly an in sync, check out it. Also blue iris can add the timestamp to the video during export if you use direct to disk though this my be a problem for evidentiary purposes.
Even using direct to disk, blue iris uses tons of cpu..lots for displaying (because it displays the main stream not the subtream)....some for motion detection, etc...
Your machine would come to its knees with 75mp worth of cameras....trust me, it would never keep up it would be pegged at 100 percent.

 

[wseaton]

It doesn't matter because AXIS cameras replace video area with a fat black stripe showing the time stamp and cut image area. Next, I've not had good luck running NTP servers on Windows machines. If I did so I would spin up an Ubuntu box in a VM and do it native that way. Same problem when you're trying keep Linux or Mac machines time synched on Active Directory. Just doesn't work right, or if it does it's not reliable. Again, do able, but regardless of the fact I don't like my cameras doing time stamps, and that's that.:shame: Too many evidence trails to audit, and the black strip smells photoshop to an attorney. If Axis cameras did a legit time stamp without cropping...maybe.

I'll look at the export option you mentioned.

 

[fenderman]

It doesn't matter because AXIS cameras replace video area with a fat black stripe showing the time stamp and cut image area. Next, I've not had good luck running NTP servers on Windows machines. If I did so I would spin up an Ubuntu box in a VM and do it native that way. Same problem when your trying keep Linux or Mac machines time synched on Active Directory. Just doesn't work right. Again, do able, but regardless of the fact I don't like my cameras doing time stamps, and that's that. Too many evidence trails to audit.

I'll look at the export option you mentioned.

The program runs as a service, it sync with any timeserver your tell it to...you can setup as many redundancies as you wish. There is absolutely no reason why the timeserver cant run well on a windows machine. I can tell you that I have it on 20 machines at least...works like a charm ZERO issues..its just works...really...but yes, if the axis cams block the image that's a different story..