Pros/Cons between Synology Surveillance Station and Blue Iris?

[FLtechie]

I installed 2 Hikvision cameras about 1.5 months ago and am using them with Synology Surveillance Station (SS). I need to add more cameras, but have concerns based on issues while using SS -especially if I have issues now and will need to $$$ purchase per camera licenses to add more to the existing problems.

Does anyone have direct experience with both Synology SS and Blue Iris? What are the pros/cons? Should I highly consider Blue Iris? I have never used or seen Blue Iris -not sure if there is a trial version available.

Issues while using Synology SS (I have a Synology DS1812+): :sad2:

• Higher than desired CPU utilization while there are no other connected users to use various services
• SS response when using the GUI is too slow. My laptop has crashed many times, only when I have SS running (in IE) while viewing videos.
• SS settings are used for the video / motion configurations for both Hikvision cameras (in place of using the camera settings):
  • The cameras keep detecting motion almost every few minutes. In those videos there is no movement at all. When reducing the sensitivity it causes the camera motion detection/recordings to go from no change at all to zero detection/recordings.
  • After I starting using the motion mask to exclude areas the recordings now do not show the 5 secs before activity and also several seconds after activity is detected. Example: for my driveway area the recording only shows after everyone has walked out, got into the vehicle and closed all doors. The recording only shows everyone sitting in the vehicle while it's warming up or pulling off.
• Operation failed message 100% of the time when attempting to delete any video.

Thanks for feedback.

 

[klasipca]

There is a trial version available that you can try for yourself. It's whole another beast requiring you to have (or purchase) dedicated pc hardware. If you are only adding 1 or 2 cams it would be cheaper to pay licensing cost for Synology.

 

[jwamsley07]

I was using a synology DS212j with a few vivotek and foscam cameras at a smaller warehouse. After about 6 cameras it started using a lot of CPU. We added another 10 cameras which caused me to look at other options. I needed to keep the size and cost down for the PC, so I ended up buying an Azulle Quantum Byte Fanless Windows Mini Desktop PC with 128GB SD card running Blue Iris. At first, I had to tweak the camera settings to keep it from maxing out the PC processor. Since it is now using the intel display hardware setting, running 16 cameras, mostly Foscam 960P cameras at 8 frames per second the CPU usually gets no higher than 60%. Right now it is only storing about two weeks video, but I am going to be adding 5TB external drive to it to keep over six months video.

 

[DokkenVersusChicken]

does DSM surveillance station do HD? I have a DS411j and have never really used the cameras, but when I last looked at it it was limited to a lower resolution than i needed.

 

[j4co]

You can off course hack the synology to get like 30 licenses. No idea if this is allowed to be shared here..

Update: as i get question in pm about this.

It worked on one single version, now 2-3 years old where a hex edit of a system file resulted in 2-30 cameras configurable.

Either synology pathed this possibility, it still works, or has been moved to other mechanism for the licenses. I cannot tell, and i do not have a synology anymore.

Google is your friend in this case.

 

[Ch0ppa]

You can off course hack the synology to get like 30 licenses. No idea if this is allowed to be shared here..

Interested in this as a potential backup to BI. Info via PM perhaps ?

Apologies in advance if I have broken the forum rules. (Mods, feel free to remove the post.)

 

[wcrowder]

For what you paid for that Synology station you could have a really good BI setup. Start over and use the Synology box for what it was designed for, a NAS.

 

[AP-123]

Agree w/ wcrowder. SS keeps improving to where BI has been for a while. Switched after paying for many licenses. Never looked back.