Using BI in combination with NVR?

[blulegend]

Hi, I'm trying to search how to get better notifications and event triggering. My NVR (generic Hikvision) is pretty dumb. I have generic Hikvision POE cams 4MP I think. 9 of them.

I've set up my NVR to give me email notifications but they are pretty useless. Video review is pretty useless as well. I've been trying for hours to figure out when someone let their dog poop on my lawn but the events are so unreliable.

So, can I get a PC, set up Blue Iris on it and have it pull a stream from the NVR and send me notifications and do some better event analysis? Or do I have to get rid of the NVR add a POE switch and a then connect the PC. The reason why I ask is the location of the NVR is difficult to access and would be nice to leave it there as a back up and put the BI PC in the house somewhere for easier maintenance and better cooling.

Thanks in advance.

 

[fenderman]

Hi, I'm trying to search how to get better notifications and event triggering. My NVR (generic Hikvision) is pretty dumb. I have generic Hikvision POE cams 4MP I think. 9 of them.

I've set up my NVR to give me email notifications but they are pretty useless. Video review is pretty useless as well. I've been trying for hours to figure out when someone let their dog poop on my lawn but the events are so unreliable.

So, can I get a PC, set up Blue Iris on it and have it pull a stream from the NVR and send me notifications and do some better event analysis? Or do I have to get rid of the NVR add a POE switch and a then connect the PC. The reason why I ask is the location of the NVR is difficult to access and would be nice to leave it there as a back up and put the BI PC in the house somewhere for easier maintenance and better cooling.

Thanks in advance.

You can do either...adding a poe switch and sending the stream to both will give you true redundancy...also some NVR's cant handle streaming all the cams main stream at once.

 

[blulegend]

That is a great idea. So I would connect all the cams to a switch which also connects to the BI PC. But how to I connect it to the NVR? The NVR has its own POE switch built in.

 

[fenderman]

That is a great idea. So I would connect all the cams to a switch which also connects to the BI PC. But how to I connect it to the NVR? The NVR has its own POE switch built in.

connect the nvr to the same switch or to another switch on the same network...you dont need the cams connect direct to the nvr..the nvr will see them as long as they are on the same network..you will need to set the cams to static/reserved ip's on your network then tell the nvr that info, its been a while since I have used a standalone unit, but it will work no problem.

 

[blulegend]

Thanks! I've seen the IP settings in the NVR. However, I've never had to connect to the cams directly. I suppose I could since they are connected to the NVR and the NVR is on the network. Not really familiar with how IP cams worked. Initially, I thought they were only accessible via the NVR but it seems that is not the case and they each could potentially communicate with the outside. Ideally, I would've wanted the cams inaccessible from the outside except through the NVR or a BI PC.

 

[fenderman]

Thanks! I've seen the IP settings in the NVR. However, I've never had to connect to the cams directly. I suppose I could since they are connected to the NVR and the NVR is on the network. Not really familiar with how IP cams worked. Initially, I thought they were only accessible via the NVR but it seems that is not the case and they each could potentially communicate with the outside. Ideally, I would've wanted the cams inaccessible from the outside except through the NVR or a BI PC.

i think you misunderstood...you will not be able to connect to the cameras directly if they are connected to the nvr (though if you have a spare open port it can be done)...regardless..if you dont forward the camera it wont be accessible via the net...ensure upnp is off..

 

[blulegend]

Thank you so much

 

[Btown guy]

I have an NVR and also connected a dedicated BI computer. I had trouble with the network. Just switched off the NVR and it solved the problem. The BI computer works great so I never turned the NVR back on.

 

[slodat]

I'm going to give this a try with my Hikvision NVR acting as the POE switch so I can see if I need BI or not for my needs..

 

[blulegend]

I currently have 9 4MP cams. If I want to change two of them to 8MP cams in the future, will an i5-7400 system be able to handle the current and future configurations? Thanks!

I'm also considering an i7-7700 system to future proof but if the i5-7400 is plenty then maybe that'll do.