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Posted: 7/26/2017 12:39:58 AM EDT
I use the software that came with my cameras but it eats up 30% of my CPU.

What are some good IP camera programs that I could use?

Will consider both paid for and free.
Link Posted: 7/26/2017 1:16:51 AM EDT
[#1]
I've played around a bit with Pysoft.
Link Posted: 7/27/2017 11:37:04 AM EDT
[#2]
blueiris and dont look back
Link Posted: 7/29/2017 8:12:09 AM EDT
[#3]
Windows, Blue Iris

linux, Xeoma
Link Posted: 7/30/2017 8:21:04 AM EDT
[#4]
Milestone xprotect essentials free up to 8 cameras.
Link Posted: 7/30/2017 8:27:09 AM EDT
[#5]
Buy a NVR and don't look back.
Nelly's has a ion that is affordable but you still need the purple hard drive.
Link Posted: 7/30/2017 8:32:49 AM EDT
[#6]
I use this:

Genius Vision

Non-commercial use is free.
Link Posted: 7/30/2017 8:43:21 AM EDT
[#7]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
Windows, Blue Iris

linux, Xeoma
View Quote
Which is better do you think?
I will soon be putting together a new system myself as mine needs replacing.
RIP XP
Link Posted: 7/30/2017 4:36:58 PM EDT
[#8]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
I use this:

Genius Vision

Non-commercial use is free.
View Quote
You are awesome!  How have I not heard about this before?

I just installed and configured, and I like it a lot better than Blue Iris!  10 cameras feeding 18 TB of storage at the moment, with some fairly high resolutions and frame rates.

ETA:  I can't believe how great this software is, and it's free!

I used Milestone Xprotect for years before and it's good, but their licensing and support structure went to hell.

I used Nx Witness / Digital Watchdog DW Spectrum for quite a while and love it, but it's spendy if you buy it.

This Genius Vision is just as good as those other two options as far as I'm concerned.  They all have areas where they're a little better or worse than another option, but even if they all cost the same this would be right up there with those other two.

Oh yeah, I used Blue Iris for quite a while too and it's just a poorly written CPU hog as far as I'm concerned.  These 10 cameras all tamed down to low fps and all the other optimizations like direct-to-disk turned on and it was running 63% CPU all of the time and hit 100% and lost its mind if I did much playback on my i5 server.

On that same i5 with Genius Vision and all of the fps cranked up the CPU just loafs along around 10% most of the time no matter what I do.
Link Posted: 7/31/2017 1:29:37 PM EDT
[#9]
I've played with a demo of Bluecherry and liked it pretty well.
Link Posted: 7/31/2017 7:04:50 PM EDT
[#10]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
You are awesome!  How have I not heard about this before?

I just installed and configured, and I like it a lot better than Blue Iris!  10 cameras feeding 18 TB of storage at the moment, with some fairly high resolutions and frame rates.

ETA:  I can't believe how great this software is, and it's free!

I used Milestone Xprotect for years before and it's good, but their licensing and support structure went to hell.

I used Nx Witness / Digital Watchdog DW Spectrum for quite a while and love it, but it's spendy if you buy it.

This Genius Vision is just as good as those other two options as far as I'm concerned.  They all have areas where they're a little better or worse than another option, but even if they all cost the same this would be right up there with those other two.

Oh yeah, I used Blue Iris for quite a while too and it's just a poorly written CPU hog as far as I'm concerned.  These 10 cameras all tamed down to low fps and all the other optimizations like direct-to-disk turned on and it was running 63% CPU all of the time and hit 100% and lost its mind if I did much playback on my i5 server.

On that same i5 with Genius Vision and all of the fps cranked up the CPU just loafs along around 10% most of the time no matter what I do.
View Quote View All Quotes
View All Quotes
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
Quoted:
I use this:

Genius Vision

Non-commercial use is free.
You are awesome!  How have I not heard about this before?

I just installed and configured, and I like it a lot better than Blue Iris!  10 cameras feeding 18 TB of storage at the moment, with some fairly high resolutions and frame rates.

ETA:  I can't believe how great this software is, and it's free!

I used Milestone Xprotect for years before and it's good, but their licensing and support structure went to hell.

I used Nx Witness / Digital Watchdog DW Spectrum for quite a while and love it, but it's spendy if you buy it.

This Genius Vision is just as good as those other two options as far as I'm concerned.  They all have areas where they're a little better or worse than another option, but even if they all cost the same this would be right up there with those other two.

Oh yeah, I used Blue Iris for quite a while too and it's just a poorly written CPU hog as far as I'm concerned.  These 10 cameras all tamed down to low fps and all the other optimizations like direct-to-disk turned on and it was running 63% CPU all of the time and hit 100% and lost its mind if I did much playback on my i5 server.

On that same i5 with Genius Vision and all of the fps cranked up the CPU just loafs along around 10% most of the time no matter what I do.
Any concerns about security with the obvious China software?
Link Posted: 7/31/2017 7:16:04 PM EDT
[#11]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:


Any concerns about security with the obvious China software?
View Quote
I'm not worried.  They do have a community feature which I haven't used, that lets you share with and use camera configs from others in their community.

I might setup a packet capture and see what it's phoning home about just to be sure.  I had pfSense running as my router / firewall but took it out a while ago when it started locking up so I can't easily see real-time traffic at the moment.  It is from Taiwan and not mainland China, which is nice.  :)
Link Posted: 8/2/2017 8:53:17 AM EDT
[#12]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:


I'm not worried.  They do have a community feature which I haven't used, that lets you share with and use camera configs from others in their community.

I might setup a packet capture and see what it's phoning home about just to be sure.  I had pfSense running as my router / firewall but took it out a while ago when it started locking up so I can't easily see real-time traffic at the moment.  It is from Taiwan and not mainland China, which is nice.  :)
View Quote
Okay thread hijack....

I just started exploring Genius Vision. For me, it is using about 4% CPU for each camera added (Core i7 Skylake). That's with no recording and no motion.

Anyways, have you found if there is an email function for it? IE, email a picture from a camera that alerts on motion detection.
Link Posted: 8/2/2017 8:59:45 AM EDT
[#13]
Link Posted: 8/2/2017 9:05:22 AM EDT
[#14]
I assume this discussion is about recording/viewing software right? NVR's are like $100 though, and they just work without fuss, so why use a PC for that role? Seems like a waste of resources.
Link Posted: 8/2/2017 12:19:05 PM EDT
[#15]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:


Okay thread hijack....

I just started exploring Genius Vision. For me, it is using about 4% CPU for each camera added (Core i7 Skylake). That's with no recording and no motion.

Anyways, have you found if there is an email function for it? IE, email a picture from a camera that alerts on motion detection.
View Quote
There kind of is but it looks like it's being phased out in favor of push notifications to their mobile app.  You can also set it to FTP a picture somewhere, even your DropBox.

If you dig around on their website they have a huge amount of documentation, troubleshooting guides, etc.  Way more than any other vendor I can think of.

Here's a couple of FAQ about email that I found there.

---

How to use Email Alert?

This is covered by user manual.

---

Does the software support using TLS/SSL over SMTP to transmit Email notification?

No.

---

Can I use Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail to receive trigger policy notification?

NOTE: This function has been superseded, you are strongly recommended to use Mobile push instead, which is available since version 920.
No you can’t. The reasons are explained below:
Free Yahoo Email and Hotmail does not provide standard SMTP protocol, while Gmail requires TLS (some kind of encrypted transmission) which we don’t currently support.
There is currently no plan to support these free Email types.
You need to find a mail server that supports SMTP protocol without TLS requirement. It’s generally the case of corporate internal mail servers, not those free Email servers which (due to being the main target of Email abuse or spamming) requires higher security.

---

Trigger Policy: Sending Email through SMTP anonymously

NOTE: This function has been superseded, you are strongly recommended to use Mobile push instead, which is available since version 920.
Genius Vision NVR does not allow sending email anonymously. You must create an account in your SMTP server and enter the correct username/password in our Trigger Policy configuration. This is not a bug but by design. SMTP servers that allow anonymous access are vulnerable to exploitation by spammers and worms.
Link Posted: 8/2/2017 12:24:11 PM EDT
[#16]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
I assume this discussion is about recording/viewing software right? NVR's are like $100 though, and they just work without fuss, so why use a PC for that role? Seems like a waste of resources.
View Quote
Better/more/ease of use functionality.
Link Posted: 8/2/2017 12:28:58 PM EDT
[#17]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
I assume this discussion is about recording/viewing software right? NVR's are like $100 though, and they just work without fuss, so why use a PC for that role? Seems like a waste of resources.
View Quote
You're stuck with the features and capabilities of that NVR from day one.  Many of us are doing way more than a $100 NVR can do, like running over a dozen high resolution cameras from multiple manufacturers at high frame rates, and storing weeks worth of video recorded 24/7.  If you can find an enterprise class NVR that will do all of that for $100, let me know because I will buy it.  
Link Posted: 8/2/2017 5:09:33 PM EDT
[#18]
Link Posted: 8/2/2017 5:22:35 PM EDT
[#19]
Link Posted: 8/5/2017 8:14:44 PM EDT
[#20]
I have played with blue iris a bit, but it really is a system hog...
Link Posted: 10/22/2017 2:30:35 PM EDT
[#21]
I installed blue iris and I am using Demo mode but it cannot find any of my cams.

All of my cams are IP cameras.

I entered in the IP address and the password but still, no video.

The camera is a Dahua IPC-HDBW1320E.

Never mind, working now.
Link Posted: 10/22/2017 11:07:17 PM EDT
[#22]
So Blue Iris is eating up 50% of my CPU with 2 cameras.


WTF!

A10-6800K!!!!
Link Posted: 10/22/2017 11:24:57 PM EDT
[#23]
Link Posted: 10/23/2017 11:20:34 AM EDT
[#24]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
So Blue Iris is eating up 50% of my CPU with 2 cameras.


WTF!

A10-6800K!!!!
View Quote
you need to optimize the BI install for your hardware.

First off, BI i made for intel CPU's, not AMD. Literally the newest 16 core AMD will run like shit. BI is coded to use intel's on-die VGA with hardware acceleration (VPP)

At the minimum, ensure you're cameras are recording in the BI native format and not MPEG or whatever else, also make sure you're recording direct-to-disk.

Another tip is to turn the cameras down to 15FPS (all you need) and even if they are 4MP, go down to 1080P resolution.

YMMV but I am running 9 cameras (4MP) on an older i7 intel CPU and it's only 37% usage at idle.
Link Posted: 10/23/2017 5:49:01 PM EDT
[#25]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:


you need to optimize the BI install for your hardware.

First off, BI i made for intel CPU's, not AMD. Literally the newest 16 core AMD will run like shit. BI is coded to use intel's on-die VGA with hardware acceleration (VPP)

At the minimum, ensure you're cameras are recording in the BI native format and not MPEG or whatever else, also make sure you're recording direct-to-disk.

Another tip is to turn the cameras down to 15FPS (all you need) and even if they are 4MP, go down to 1080P resolution.

YMMV but I am running 9 cameras (4MP) on an older i7 intel CPU and it's only 37% usage at idle.
View Quote
That is still crap performance though when I can have 7 cameras (3MP) running on a NAS using Milestone Arcus with motion detection and it only uses 5-7% CPU and that is on a Celeron N3710.

Blue Iris is a huge resource hog.
Link Posted: 10/24/2017 2:11:36 PM EDT
[#26]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:


That is still crap performance though when I can have 7 cameras (3MP) running on a NAS using Milestone Arcus with motion detection and it only uses 5-7% CPU and that is on a Celeron N3710.

Blue Iris is a huge resource hog.
View Quote
Yes, and I think it can be optimized further - but it really is the best universal suite out there for cameras with all the options it has.

I run mine on a barebones server 2016 install with nothing but a few add-on packages for the media encoding and firefox for individual cameras admin screens.
Link Posted: 10/24/2017 8:58:47 PM EDT
[#27]
Blue Iris told me

"Some of this is used for drawing the Evaluation banner, so that will go away once registered.

For suggestions on CPU management, please see the Troubleshooting topic in Help."


Time to find another program.


They expect me to pay $$ just to see if the CPU usage goes down.
Link Posted: 11/18/2017 1:38:54 PM EDT
[#28]
Late response, don't hang out much here.

Been using zoneminder for years.

Grab an old box and add one of these at minimum, Debian net install.
Link Posted: 12/17/2017 12:17:33 AM EDT
[#29]
BTT

Still looking for something that works.

ispy works but the FPS is pathetic, less than 1 FPS even after messing around with all settings.

blue iris work but I cant see the FPS and IR lights on the cameras do not work.

I can log into two of my camera online but I cant log into one of them even though I can ping it/get to the login page/see that the IR LEDs work.

I give up.
Link Posted: 12/18/2017 5:09:47 PM EDT
[#30]
Sorry man but BI is the best, you just need the right hardware and it takes some config time.
Link Posted: 12/18/2017 6:31:20 PM EDT
[#31]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
Sorry man but BI is the best, you just need the right hardware and it takes some config time.
View Quote
I have tried Milestone Arcus, Genius Vision, iSpy, and Blue Iris.  Milestone was okay, iSpy sucked, and Genius Vision was okay but very buggy and their mobile app was shit.

Blue Iris is indeed the best.  It has a bit of a learning curve but it just works.  If you take the time to configure it properly you get a helluva nice system for very little money.

I have 11 cameras running right now (will be 12 shortly) on a i3-4370 and when all cameras are recording constantly along with motion/zone sensing I use right at 70% CPU.

The ability to have things change relative to sunrise/sunset is simply awesome.
Link Posted: 12/26/2017 11:05:53 PM EDT
[#32]
I’ve used them all and blue iris is miles ahead of everybody else. Unfortunately, it only runs on windows. It’s cheap though, which is cool.
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