Officially down the rabbit hole...

W

WhoKilledBambi

n3wb
Jul 12, 2019
11
19
Canada
Hello all,

Bought a kit from Costco ( https://www.costco.ca/Lorex-8-chann...D-and-6-UHD-4K-Cameras.product.100403204.html)

After reading a lot of things here and there and learning i realized my kit was not ONVIF compliant, then learned Lorex are Dahuas, then that the Lorex Software wasnt that great... Then, eureka, i learned about cAndyman.

So i've just emailed Empire to figure out what to do and i am seriously contemplating returning my costco kit and ordering 4 starlights and a dahua NVR, to start myself in the good path. Or maybe add 2 starlight to my kit if i even can.

I have a question, i currently have a pretty decent gaming PC with a overclocked i5. Could i use this pc to run milestone or blue iris while doing my other activities? I'm still unsure about going with a dahua NVR but short term have no plan to build a dedicated NVR cpu.

Thank you!
 
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@WhoKilledBambi welcome, you will find a number of people huddled in said rabbit hole!

So re: your i5 gaming PC, if you are just looking to explore Blue Iris before you go full monty, then that would be fine. However, long-term consider the following reasons that using a shared gaming PC is undesirable:
  1. Any decent gaming PC will have a good graphics card which will cost you extra money to run 24x7 and provide no real benefit for the 10-16 hours it is idled running a small camera system
  2. Any decent PC will be running all manner of other software, be subjected to crashes, Windows updates & frequent reboots possibly to load drivers and so forth. You want your security solution running 24x7 and not have to think about whether it's running.
  3. A video recording PC you will want to have lots of storage, and that storage should ideally be surveillance optimized (Western Digital Black drive not required)
  4. If it's a gaming PC and it's an i5, you are already hovering at the low end for some games from a performance perspective, so depending on your game do you want to give up 20% of your performance just the NVR? If you turn it off while you are gaming, what if you regularly forget to turn it back on when you call it a night?
Mind you I play on a 6-core i5 as a gaming computer, it works fine but I'm not playing AAA titles or trying to multitask/stream simultaneously (plus I'm old so a few more FPS doesn't help). Since it is dedicated, I might have a browser window up while I wait a game queue, I'm not doing anything else on it. Meanwhile by Blue Iris machine is sitting in the mechanical room just humming away mindlessly recording video. If Blue Iris seems like a good buy to you after you test it, definitely move in the direction of an off-lease machine that is dedicated! But when I was first setting up Blue Iris used an old laptop (also not recommended), but it was worthwhile to get something setup to fiddle with, and eventually upgrade to my old i7 gaming computer, and eventually a new dedicated i5 will probably replace that.

While I'd love to try a new AMD processor for this application, I need the used market to develop first and maybe AMD VCE support to get implemented in BI. As it is I might try AMD in the spring now that they have more compelling offerings, just not for this use case.
 
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Thank you crw030!

I'm happy to know i can run Blue Iris on my computer, while not ideal like you said. I think i'm going to go this route for now and dedicated machine will be a fun winter project.

What is the prefered method of install? Camera → Switch → Router → CPU ?

Thanks again!
JP
 
WhoKilledBambi said:
What is the prefered method of install? Camera → Switch → Router → CPU ?
Click to expand...

Depends who you ask. The important thing is these IP cameras should be treated as very insecure devices, same like the self-contained NVR's and Internet of Things devices.

Basically,
  • Dont port forward, period.
  • Disable UPnP on your router
  • Either configure your network with VLAN's (if supported by your hardware) or physically separate your cameras from your main network with dual-nic in your recording PC.
    • different schools of thought, but either can work depending on your interest level in VLAN. Separate NIC physically separates the vulnerable devices, VLAN logically segregates all the traffic too and from them but you need VLAN aware switches & router.
My recommendation if you are new to networking would be:

Router ------ Switch (optional) ---------gaming PC (main NIC) gaming PC (cams NIC)-----POE Switch-------(Cameras)

And you would eventually move to something more like (note it is important your lan ip address is something different than your cams ip network, which I would recommend be 192.168.1.x):

[10.x.x.x or 172.x.x.x or 192.168.2-254.x] Router ------ Switch (optional) ---------gaming PC , Blue Iris PC , all other network devices
[192.168.1.x network] BI PC (cams NIC)-----POE Switch-------(Cameras)

As a working example, in my case my network is configured like this (just an example you dont need to do it this way):
  • Wired gaming network 192.168.20.x
  • Camera Network (just Blue Iris PC now) 192.168.33.x -- (dual nic) ---- to multiple POE switches --- to cameras
  • Cameras recorded remotely (over VPN): 192.168.77.x / 10.0.8.x
  • Four additional wired and wireless networks (trusted wifi, guest wifi, IOT devices, RADIUS authenticated wifi)
Others will chime in to point out that this level of OCD network separation could be done easily & logically using one network (i.e. 192.168.20.x) and VLAN for each. I am learning VLANs and slowly upgrading to VLAN capable equipment, but don't trust myself just yet to only use VLANs (plus my custom router has 1 GBe WAN & 4 dedicated 1GBe LAN ports).
 
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I honestly believe it is a solid choice, I have no regrets after buying a couple Blue Iris licenses myself. I haven't ever owned a self contained kit, but recognize the risks associated with unpatched devices (and there are headlines even about the same topic you can find easily in regards to the federal government etc.)

At least with a Windows PC you can choose to keep it patched, it's a "devil you know" type of situation (Windows isn't always the most secure but at least you can get patches). And placing the cameras on an isolated network remedies most of the risk associated with those unpatched devices.
 
WhoKilledBambi said:
Okay guys here we go just returned my Lorex kit at Costco and bought Blue Iris right here.

Now waiting for Andy ! :)

Finally feel like i've made the right decision
Click to expand...

Hi @WhoKilledBambi

There has been some good improvements in IP PoE camera tech, and thus the cameras you're picking up from Andy now should perform significantly better than the particular cameras in that kit.
( in the USA Costco B&M stores are now carrying newer versions of that kit by 2 "generations" - so even by that standard those cameras have been upgraded a couple of times at Costco )

I think you will be very happy with the end result.

Do have fun setting it up, and remember to check out the cliff notes and the Blue Iris thread section for additional information to help you get up and going.
 
Thank you @mat200 !

Yesterday i spoke with Andy and ordered this;
3x IPC-HDW2231R-ZS
1x IPC-HDW5231R-ZE

And some mounts and junction boxes. The 2231s will be watching the two entrance, i have a U-shaped entrance. Also a 2231 to watch my garage doors. The 5231 is going to watch my front door and i chose this camera for the audio option. Also would like to fiddle with the IVS but not sure i can do that with BI? Facial Recognition? The front door camera i didnt order any junction box or wall mount i'm just going to install in in my soffit with a wood backing or the aluminium plate i've seen in the Cliff Notes!

Anyone got anything to say about the switch i chose? TP LINK TL-SG1005P. Also have 1000ft of Cat6 cable and crimps and all the goodies. This is going to be a fun project!
 

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WhoKilledBambi said:
After some reflexion i think i will have better coverage this way
Click to expand...

Hi @WhoKilledBambi

Looks good, you're doing some good thinking.

Look for the "test rig" setup here and mount some of the cameras up and test your ideas.

imho I think you'll want to add a couple more cameras down the road - so when you're ready to run the cat6 don't be shy to run it to locations you'll want to add cameras to at a later date.
 
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