Green Horn Questions - DVR/NVR/Cloud(self vs vendor hosted)

M

MonitorMyHome

Young grasshopper
Jan 7, 2015
63
7
Hello

My wife has decided we're in need of more cameras inside and outside of the house. This isn't really my area of expertise so I've come to you guys for some help.

It seems the options are:
  1. Recording to SD Cards or local storage
  2. NVR/DVR systems
  3. Cloud based systems (self or vendor hosted)
Am I missing any options?

I think option 1 is out because it seems like the least reliable and lowest storage. Option 2 seems to limit your number of channels and doesn't provide any offsite backup. Option 3 seems like way too much work and potential for security issues if self hosted. I have some vendor hosted cameras already like a Nest cam (my wife insisted on it for the form factor). The vendor solutions are actually quite good and have things like AI (facial recognition, package delivery, etc) but the subscription prices can get quite out of hand for multiple cameras and they are worthless if the internet goes out. Plus some vendors only save "clips" which is in my opinion isn't great.

My ideal world is a mix of cloud and local storage and the AI capabilities without limiting my ability to expand my system as desired. Is there anything out there that's like that?

Thanks!
 
MonitorMyHome said:
It seems the options are:
  1. Recording to SD Cards or local storage
  2. NVR/DVR systems
  3. Cloud based systems (self or vendor hosted)
Am I missing any options?
Click to expand...
A lot of folks here run an inexpensive ($70) VMS called Blue Iris on an older PC. Blue Iris is camera-brand agnostic ... if the camera supports ONVIF (or at least a local RTSP feed).

It doesn't have AI built-in, but it has somewhat recently added support to round-trip an alert image to a third-party (like Sentry) for instant analysis, with Blue Iris triggering an alert if the analysis comes back positive.

IMO, Blue Iris has some pretty good motion detection abilities built-in. I want to call out the "built-in" part because most NVRs themselves have zero motion detection abilities built in. They typically have minimal processing power and rely on each camera to do its own motion detection and then signal the NVR when motion is happening. For NVR folks running different camera models, that can means that each camera has different motion detection abilities which can be frustrating. With Blue Iris, you have the option of BI (on the PC) watching the incoming video from each camera and doing motion detection on that, which means you have the same motion detection options on each of the cameras.

Blue Iris doesn't natively support cloud storage, but the way it handles recordings in general gives some flexibility for that. Since BI runs on a Windows PC, some folks put the recordings in a folder that syncs up to their cloud (using that cloud's sync tools). This isn't something I do, so no first-hand experience here, but I have seen a few threads on the subject float by.

But to answer your question below, ... a system that does all of that would be like the Holy Grail. I haven't seen one system that does all of that. While Blue Iris doesn't natively do all of that, it's open/flexible enough to accomplish a lot of that (IMO).

MonitorMyHome said:
My ideal world is a mix of cloud and local storage and the AI capabilities without limiting my ability to expand my system as desired. Is there anything out there that's like that?
Click to expand...
 
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aristobrat said:
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But to answer your question below, ... a system that does all of that would be like the Holy Grail. I haven't seen one system that does all of that. While Blue Iris doesn't natively do all of that, it's open/flexible enough to accomplish a lot of that (IMO).
Click to expand...
Sounds like a great opportunity for someone!

Anyway it sounds like Blue Iris does a lot of the movement package detection. The facial detection sounds a little more iffy.

I think Hikvision might have a decent solution but I worry about the fact that they can’t be used on government contracts because of spying concerns.
 
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MonitorMyHome said:
Sounds like a great opportunity for someone!

Anyone it sounds like Blue Iris does a lot of the movement package detection. The facial detection sounds a little more iffy.

I think Hikvision might have a decent solution but I worry about the fact that they can’t be used on government contracts because of spying concerns.
Click to expand...
hikvision has nowhere near a decent solution.
Cloud recording is a gimmick and useless only peddled by companies that want to generate RMR.
There are lots of folks doing ai, see sighthound.
 
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fenderman said:
hikvision has nowhere near a decent solution.
Cloud recording is a gimmick and useless only peddled by companies that want to generate RMR.
There are lots of folks doing ai, see sighthound.
Click to expand...
Are you suggesting sighthound as a blue iris add on? I did a quick search for it and didn’t find anything that would help me understand how to incorporate it into an system.
 
fenderman said:
hikvision has nowhere near a decent solution.
Cloud recording is a gimmick and useless only peddled by companies that want to generate RMR.
There are lots of folks doing ai, see sighthound.
Click to expand...
Also when you say hikvision doesn’t have a decent solution are you saying their facial detection software doesn’t work as advertised? Also I’ve see the Nest facial recognition. It’s very very good at identifying individuals package deliveries etc if you put aside RNR.
 
MonitorMyHome said:
Also when you say hikvision doesn’t have a decent solution are you saying their facial detection software doesn’t work as advertised? Also I’ve see the Nest facial recognition. It’s very very good at identifying individuals package deliveries etc if you put aside RNR.
Click to expand...
that is exactly what i am saying. Blue iris can also easily identifiy package deliveries without sending highly compressed video to the cloud from subpar cameras with severe limitations. Nest is a joke.
 
MonitorMyHome said:
So then what would you recommend?
Click to expand...
I would recommend reading the cliff notes and threads on various cameras. I personally use blue iris...its light years ahead of anything else. AI is not the be all and end all. Cameras are doing ai now, dahua has implemented successful human and auto detection. Though you dont need that for accurate alerts. You need a highly configurable product light blue iris.
 
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fenderman said:
I would recommend reading the cliff notes and threads on various cameras. I personally use blue iris...its light years ahead of anything else. AI is not the be all and end all. Cameras are doing ai now, dahua has implemented successful human and auto detection. Though you dont need that for accurate alerts. You need a highly configurable product light blue iris.
Click to expand...

it would be nice to see bi pull from dahua camera when it captures faces with their AI detection. I have to go into the camera to see them.

but openlpr (have not looked into it) logs it without the need of the web interface into bi?
 
TL1096r said:
it would be nice to see bi pull from dahua camera when it captures faces with their AI detection. I have to go into the camera to see them.

but openlpr (have not looked into it) logs it without the need of the web interface into bi?
Click to expand...
who said it cant, you dont need to capture the face or vehicle, its in the video, you just need the trigger.
 
fenderman said:
who said it cant, you dont need to capture the face or vehicle, its in the video, you just need the trigger.
Click to expand...

I didn't know. I have IPC-HFW5241E-Z12E. Where do you see the AI alerts it creates in the web interface (sd card).
 
fenderman said:
Blue iris can be triggered by camera detection...lots of threads on this.
Click to expand...

yes I am figuring this:


But i mean the AI detection from dahua being incorporated into blueiris vs going into the web interface.. I said ai detection not trigger in original post.
 
I prefer to use BI for triggers, but there are situations where I use this.
trigger_happy.png
 
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