I had NVRs for many years. It was a frustrating experience.
There is a big debate here on which is better. Personally I found the NVRs to be too clunky and not very user friendly and got to the point that I was reactive instead of proactive. I literally tested BI and knew within a few minutes it was better than any NVR I ever had.
Like literally I would go months on end not even looking at the NVR videos because the interface was too clunky and would take forever to pull up any motion from the night before. And ended up turning off the alerts because there were so many false triggers. I would only look at it if I could tell someone messed with something on my property or a neighbor asked me if my cameras caught anything.
With BI, in addition to being able to configure it such that I get notifications whenever someone gets too close to my house, I can literally in less than 30 seconds every morning do a quick review to see if there was any suspicious activity or people walking down the sidewalk at 2am. I could never do it that fast with an NVR.
Here is the search tool of all the NVR versus BI comparisons:
blue iris vs nvr ip cam site:ipcamtalk.com - Google Search
I have had whatever the NVR operating system is running on go out. TWICE. Got to buy a whole new NVR - TWICE
I have had the ethernet port go out on an NVR. Got to buy a whole new NVR.
i had the HDMI port go out on an NVR. Got to buy a whole new NVR.
Most I ever got was 2.5 years. The only working part was the HDD that I simply moved from the old NVR to the new one. I got to the point of realizing that an NVR is simply a stripped down computer, so I went to BI and never looked back. I got tired of buying a whole new unit.
So in my BI Computer, at least if the SSD goes out, I can just replace it. If the ethernet card goes out, I can just replace it. If the HDMI port goes out, I can just replace it. etc.
Personally I gave up on NVRs because I have found them to be clunky and a struggle to review clips and if a component goes out like the internet port, then you are stuck buying a new NVR whereas a computer part goes out and you replace just that component. I went to BI on a dedicated machine and haven't looked back.
Keep in mind an NVR is simply a watered down computer....
You can use the camera AI to trigger events in BI.
An NVR is way less secure on the internet than a BI computer. NVRs are rarely provided with updates to fix vulnerabilities. Your BI computer can get constant antivirus updates or Windows updates if you want to (though most of us disable them and it is still more secure than an NVR).
One of many areas where I think BI does a better job is how it displays the alerts/timeline, and I believe it is still the same as when I last ran SmartPSS and DMSS.
As we can see from this screenshot (and as
@Flintstone61 points out above), it gives a green timeline with tic lines at various times to show when it triggered. Over to the right is a graphic/text representation of each trigger, but no image of the trigger.
So when I wanted to find or look at something, I needed to click each one until I found what I was looking for.
Wanna know when UPS came by in an NVR....well just start clicking on the timeline triggers till you see the UPS truck. May take awhile depending on the amount of traffic that goes by.
With BI, it gives alert thumbnails, so I can quickly scroll and find UPS way quicker than I ever could with an NVR playback timeline.
Or if you want to be notified when UPS, or FEDEX, or USPS comes by, with BI AI, you can set up an alert just for those vehicles. Good luck doing that with an NVR.
But to me, the thumbnails are invaluable. I can quickly scroll it at night and look for any activity instead of having to click each one and be like "oh that is John coming home" If I recognize the vehicle or person in the image, no need to investigate further.
