Recommend: NVR that doesn't suck!

[JOHN HANSEN]

Good day everyone,

First of all, let me say hello! Clearly this forum is the number one place for camera related info, so I'm excited to be here.

Secondly, pat me on the head, I'm a camera noob. I moved into a house that has a system with 2 IP cameras going to an ADT rebranded Dahua DVR. The cameras are POE powered, and not PTZ. They're little domes, and look like lower/mid cost stuff from China.

Here's the issue- the software is terrible. It glitches, and the motion sensing areas (i.e. only record when there is motion) doesn't work, so I can't even flag areas of movement. The app for iOS basically does fine with Live View, but other than that, looking back at footage is terrible.

So, I'm thinking I can go one of two ways to get out of the HikVision, Dahua, and other unrefined systems:
- Find a commercial grade DVR/NVR system that has excellent software and phone app
- Build something PC based, and then find some excellent NVR software to run on it, that hopefully also has a great phone app.

Considerations:
- If I dump the dedicated DVR, I'm looking at needing 2 POE injectors, or a POE switch, unless the system already has this.
- I might like to expand the system in the future, but by no more than 2 additional cameras. I just don't have the area to need more than that.
- I would love a system that would output the cameras via a video cable at the source, so I could have a monitor connected.
- Wish: Broadcast HDMI over Ethernet to HDMI2 ports of various TVs to 'switch to' as needed to see who's at the door, etc. Is this even possible?

So, I need some expert help. I'm an IT professional by trade, but I haven't worked in the security field. Any recommendations that anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. I've started looking a little at Synology, but I'm not sure how 'refined' that is. Probably their entry level stuff would handle 4 cameras.. but does anyone know how well the software works in comparison to the entry level equipment? Has anyone used the DS Cam app? I see that there are some videos, and a software demo of the main interface. Are there any app demos?

Thanks for the help,
-pd

 

[nayr]

BlueIris or MileStone XProtect

 

[tigerwillow1]

Here's the issue- the software is terrible. It glitches,..............
..........- Find a commercial grade DVR/NVR system that has excellent software and phone app

Good luck with this! I've been through 2 NVRs, and while the 2nd is a big improvement over the 1st, it's still plenty buggy. What is a commercial grade NVR and where do you find it? The first one I tried is called "Platinum Enterprise Level", so I thought I was buying "commercial grade" and "assumed" this meant excellent software. In reality it was a total flop for me and I wasted more time than it was worth trying to get it working. There have been 2 firmware updates in the last few months that have made it a bit less bad. The 2nd one (that interestingly cost less) at least barely does my job and has wasted way less of my time. I can survive with it, working around the bugs. My career was in the computer industry and I'm shocked at the buggy software in these security products.

 

[Deali]

With motion detection on such systems it is not easy. I don´t know how deep your experience is, so don´t feel offended if you know all this.
First of all, if you have a Dahua NVR, be happy! I guess that the cam´s are not from Dahua.
Go to the "Setting, Camera, Remote" on the NVR. If the manufactor is ONVIF, these are not Dahua cam´s and you have to set them up @ the camera itself.



If you go to the "Setting, Event, Video Detect" page make shure the "enable" is checked. Ich you go to the region, it may look like the picture below. This is from am Dahua NVR4832. On an 5832 and on an 5216 it looks different (you can actually see a picture).
But don´t think it will work if you make changes here! That is only true if you have Dahua cameras!
If you hit save, the NVR will try to modify the camera itself. This will not work, at least i have never seen it working



So you have to make the motion detection setup in the camera itself. Below you can see the correspondig region setting in the cam to the above picture from the NVR.



Motion detection works as follows:

the camera sends a signal to the NVR, isMotion:false, the NVR will do nothing.
If somthing will move through the selected area the camera will sent a VideoMotion signal to the NVR and the NVR will take action if the "enable" which i circled is checked. It will do everything you requested in the event setup.

I have used a tool called Onvif Device Manager, which is a great tool, just try it.



I will stop now, maybe i try to help in the wrong direction! But keep in mind, you have to do the camera setup on its own web-page, so you have to log in to it. See below:



So just check it out, if you would go the easy way buy some Dahua cam´s. I cant tell you to mutch about that, i don´t have Dahuas yet. But they are on the way to me.

I hope this was helpfull, again sorry for my english.