Running Hikvision's iVMS 4200-PCNVR & Milestone's XProtect Go on the same machine

[perpetual nomad]

I'm interested in getting a low-wattage recording station setup and tucked away someplace in my home. The i3 Gigabyte BRIX system caught my eye as an alternative to an Intel NUC or home-built mini-ITX machine.



I've been sampling the reduced-featured XProtect Go, and while there are some things I really like, others (such as massive opaque watermark over exported video, susceptibility to continued feature reduction, expense of XProtect Essential) turn me off. I've got a lingering FOSCAM that I'd like to continue to support in a low priority area, but want to leverage the CPU and energy-saving benefits of camera-driven motion detection for a low-watt PC.

To that end I'm curious if these two NVR solutions can run side-by-side, for different cameras. I'd leverage XProtect (or perhaps another software you might suggest) for the legacy FOSCAM (motion recording only), while utilizing iVMS for the two (soon to be three) HKs running @ 3MP/20FPS (motion recording only).

 

[pcmcg]

Yes, I have iVMS 4200 and Xprotect running on the same box. I am only recording with iVMS at this point but I can use the Xprotect to view the live streams at the same time.

 

[perpetual nomad]

Yes, I have iVMS 4200 and Xprotect running on the same box.

Great, I've got the box coming this week and should have some performance stats to share in the next few days.

 

[pcmcg]

ok, it will interesting to get that data. For the record I have an i5 NUC w/ 4gigs of ram.

 

[perpetual nomad]

Disappointed

A long, frustrating weekend fighting so many different aspects of these software packages. I'll have to articulate in more detail when I get some time.

XProtect absolutely hates the legacy FOSCAM that I've got setup. It seemed to constantly be expecting better communication quality than the fi8910w could provide. Debug showed constant disconnect/reconnect issues, and unable to stream. The port overlap between the Milestone and Hikvision was complicated, and not worth the time to configure given the inability for XProtect to support the FOSCAM. It was uninstalled.

Hikvision's PCNVR is a mess, and a total hog. I'm likely going to uninstall it this week.

The system running overnight, screen capture taken around 8:15am. This is recording two full resolution 3MP streams continuously. There was zero CPU performance savings for continuous recording versus alarm trigger only.



Can't get the bower preview to work in MSIE/Firefox/Chrome via localhost or from another machine on the internal network. Can't play back recorded clips via the browser.



App alerts don't work on my Nexus 5. Recorded clips played back via app are full resolution and have considerable framerate problems.



I pretty much loath the PCNVR interface. Seeking within clips is practically nonexistent, and given the app and browser limitations I'm forced to max out the processor to do any reviews via remote desktop connection.

In the midst of my frowning I tossed the evaluation of Blue Iris on last night to get a quick idea of the stats. With the app minimized (no preview) and recording continuously direct to disk with the 3MP streams from the HKs PLUS the 640x480 from the FOSCAM (on monition detect only) the CPU load was generally the same as the PCNVR at night.

As an IT guy, I'm frustrated to no end at the software limitations and interfaces that this sector presently has.

 

[pcmcg]

Sorry to hear that. FWIW I also have a Nexus 5 and the PCNVR apps have been acting stangley. I found that the live playback on the iHIK app stutters, but recorded playback is smooth. With the ivms 5400 app, the live view is smooth, but recorded playback stutters. I don't know why this is, and a few months ago the 5400 app was working fine in both modes.

I have my recording set to 1080@ 15fps. With 4 cameras the CPU usage is minimal. What version of PCNVR-4200 did you install. I think there are some old versions floating around on the site. I think one of the newer versions is here http://www.hikvision.com/en/download_more.asp?id=1388

 

[perpetual nomad]

What version of PCNVR-4200 did you install

The page you linked to is "Hikvision iVMS-4200 v2.02.00.04 (Windows)" -- is that actually the PC-NVR? HK seems to go out of their way to make this as unintuitive as possible. I pulled my version off of the FTP site.

 

[pcmcg]

Yes its the same thing. I agree its poorly done. This is a business that is not targeting consumers. I would recommend the Xprotect if you are looking for something more polished. However, even that company does not really do retail support either.

 

[perpetual nomad]

So I downloaded what's being labeled as the client and did indeed have it link up as such to the PCNVR running within the network. This was the same process as the Android app.

Oddly, the "client" software is attempting to run as a webserver as well, and appears to have a more refined version of what I've got running on the Gigabyte BRIX. I can at least stream recorded video off the BRIX using this as a client.

From what I read the PCNVR flavor is engineered to run 24/7 as an NVR, while this (iVMS v2) should just be a client -- although it appears you can configure it to run just like the NVR.

Lord...