Recommendations for a Dahua NVR 24/7 monitoring station setup

[swaan]

I am wondering what the is the best solution for monitoring a 6 camera Dahua nvr setup from a guard room that is separated from the NVR and can connect via wifi:

• some (linux) PC and web browser in kiosk mode
• More expensive Windows PC with SmartPSS
• sending USB/video directly from NVR through an video-to-IP converter over Wifi to the guard room?
• Something else entirely?

Cheers!

 

[bigredfish]

I’d recommend SmartPSS on a PC. Doesn’t need to be expensive. Most any pc will work fine. I have one instance running on a very old windows 7 box.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Is wifi going to reliably handle the feed from 6 cameras? I'm skeptical. Other than that I agree with using smartPSS.

 

[swaan]

Wifi I can upgrade if needed but cabling jobs are not possible.

 

[samplenhold]

Is wifi going to reliably handle the feed from 6 cameras? I'm skeptical. Other than that I agree with using smartPSS.

I think the OP is stating that the WIFI would be used to get connection to the NVR. I take it that the cams are hard wired directly to the NVR?

 

[tigerwillow1]

I think the OP is stating that the WIFI would be used to get connection to the NVR. I take it that the cams are hard wired directly to the NVR?

That's my take on it also. If smartPSS is viewing all 6 cameras at once, the 6 camera feeds will be going from the NVR to the smartPSS computer at whatever bitrates the cameras are running at. The total bitrate will fall easily under wifi max specs, but will wifi handle it reliably in real time? Has a lot to do with the connection environment, things like obstructions in the signal path, interference, etc. There's a chance it could work, I wouldn't even try it myself.

 

[swaan]

You two are correct that the cameras nor the NVR are on Wifi - only the monitoring station.

Regular office wifi might struggle yes but you can use point to point (wireless wire) on 5 or 60 GHz in these situations to get wire-like performance. So I'm not that concerned. I'm more afraid of a setup that requires constant maintenance - Windows updating, SmartPSS or Chrome crashing and so on. But If you guys say that Windows with SmartPSS is my best bet then I'll roll with that - thanks!

If there wasn't a need to check recordings I would have used a RTSP stream viewer on a Raspberry Pi like this thing: GitHub - SvenVD/rpisurv: Raspberry Pi surveillance
Simplicity and lack of user controls should mean less maintenance.

 

[bigredfish]

Im no expert on comms but the HDMI output of the NVR would be the most stable I think. Is there a way to use it over some converter via wifi to send it to the guardroom?

 

[tigerwillow1]

Putting aside my personal preferences, I think there's a lot to support what bigred is saying. My biggest personal preference is that I don't like the NVR's native interface at all. I find smartPSS much more user friendly and easier to use. I also like to be able to access the NVR from any network drop. Putting those things aside and pretending I could live with the HDMI output, I believe the amount of data being transferred over the HDMI link would be a lot lower than the video data being transferred to smartPSS. As a bonus, there's no extra computer to need maintenance and have reliability issues. I'm also guessing that a short glitch on an HDMI wireless link would be less disruptive than if all the video streams were being transferred. The HDMI link would also need to support a mouse. Options to think about. If most of the time is just viewing the live streams, the NVR interface wouldn't be too much of a handicap. When going through recorded video, smartPSS wins, hands down, for me.