Smart PSS is driving me nuts, what to do?

[charlesaf3]

I have 8 dahua cameras and an NVR. Quality is good of course, but searching for videos in the SmartPSS software drives me around the bend. It's the opposite of intuitive.

Today I can't search by IVS. It's like it all vanished. I might have done it on the NVR, can't remember.

What can I do? Is there a consultant out there that can help me? Or should I use something like Synology or Blue Iris?

 

[tigerwillow1]

Pretty hard for anybody to answer what you can do without knowing more about your system and level of expertise. I can offer some hope telling you that I view recordings regularly with smartPSS and other than a few bugs it works pretty well for me. I record 24x7, and IVS events show up as orange bars on a mostly green timeline. Should you use Synology or Blue Iris? You will likely get a lot of responses telling you to use Blue Iris. If I viewed via the NVR interface I might have switched by now, but I find it fairly easy to use smartPSS. Maybe somebody can help with more info, like is smartPSS connecting to the NVR, and exactly what are you able to view.

Timeline with all records selected:


Timeline with IVS-only selected:

 

[charlesaf3]

I can usually get PSS to work but the fact it's a battle every time it's frustrating to me. I'm a casual user but in the middle of a city so I often see or rather have to search through for interesting things.

Every time I do it PSS drives me nuts.

In this case I have the sneaking suspicion my Ivs settings vanished probably because I used PSS to set them. I mean giving it an option on the software you'd think it would work...

But in general once again I'm just thinking something must have better search

 

[wittaj]

Since you mentioned BI, 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, it gives a green timeline with 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.

 

[charlesaf3]

That looks great. I wonder if it is possible to run Blue Iris and the NVR at the same time?

 

[wittaj]

That looks great. I wonder if it is possible to run Blue Iris and the NVR at the same time?

Yes it is - many of us run BI and and NVR at the same time.

BI does have a 14 day free demo trial, so crank open a windows computer and download it and give it a try.

You can use your NVR and feed the cameras right from the NVR into BI.

In BI, you select add camera and put the IP address of the NVR into the IP address location. Put in username and password and hit find/inspect and let BI do its thing.

Then about halfway down is a pull down for Camera number and pick camera 1 and then hit ok. The camera should show up. Then add camera and the select copy and copy this camera and then change the number 1 to a 2 and repeat for your cameras. OR depending on your NVR, it may populate all the cameras in the main and substream pulldown boxes and you just select a camera number and then add another camera and select the next pulldown.

 

[charlesaf3]

That seems like something I should try, then. I guess the cost would be an additional windows computer, I have a surface laptop 2 but it probably can't run things... And I assume I should dedicate a computer to it, not use my desktop

 

[wittaj]

That is correct - a laptop isn't made for the 24/7 use of a surveillance VMS, but it is fine to do a quick test with and see if you like BI.

While the recommendation isn't to use your daily desktop as the BI computer, many have. Depends on your situation and what else it is used for. Folks that simply do light web browsing and email can probably get away with it. If you are streaming Netflix then maybe not.

If you do go the dedicated route, you can find a used/refurbished i5 8500 for under $200 and will be more than enough.

 

[bigredfish]

FYI while true that SmartPSS doesnt show event trigger thumbnails as a means of browsing footage, If you have the right NVR (in my case a 5216-16P-4KS2E), the NVR itself does have a similar visual thumbnail browsing feature.. Its found under 'AI"

 

[charlesaf3]

Thanks for all your help.

It might be a good idea to do the test. I should probably swap the questions over to the BI forum, but I have a Lenovo ideacenter gaming5 with i7-12700 , 16 gigs ram, and a 3060 graphics card that I only use for the usual business stuff, do you think that could handle a blue iris running in the background with basic email and web stuff?

If it works I will happily switch ot a dedicated but haven't found anything like the $200 you mentioned in a quick search

 

[charlesaf3]

FYI while true that SmartPSS doesnt show event trigger thumbnails as a means of browsing footage, If you have the right NVR (in my case a 5216-16P-4KS2E), the NVR itself does have a similar visual thumbnail browsing feature.. Its found under 'AI"

View attachment 156501
View attachment 156502

Is that accessed directly through monitor attached to nvr? My NVR is Dahua NVR5216-4KS2

 

[bigredfish]

No, I never use the direct NVR Machine interface other than initial setup. It sucks.

This is via a web browser. Your NVR can be accessed via a web browser on your local network via its IP address. If you didnt change it, its probably 192.168.1.108

 

[wittaj]

Thanks for all your help.

It might be a good idea to do the test. I should probably swap the questions over to the BI forum, but I have a Lenovo ideacenter gaming5 with i7-12700 , 16 gigs ram, and a 3060 graphics card that I only use for the usual business stuff, do you think that could handle a blue iris running in the background with basic email and web stuff?

If it works I will happily switch ot a dedicated but haven't found anything like the $200 you mentioned in a quick search

That is a screaming machine so it should be fine. Just keep in mind the recommendation is to use a dedicated machine, so if you start to notice issues, consider getting a machine just for BI.

ebay

 

[wittaj]

No, I never use the direct NVR Machine interface other than initial setup. It sucks.

This is via a web browser. Your NVR can be accessed via a web browser on your local network via its IP address. If you didnt change it, its probably 192.168.1.108

+1 on this LOL. You think they could make it better. My neighbors go crazy in disbelief when they need help with their NVR and I go in this way via web browser instead of the NVR hooked to a monitor. They are shocked how much more is available.

 

[bigredfish]

Login page using your web browser


Main Menu screen

 

[charlesaf3]

Login page using your web browser
View attachment 156503

Main Menu screen
View attachment 156504

Thanks.

I had used that before, but thought pss was the preferred way.

My issue with all of it is that it feels like windows before windows 95 - you need to know all these back asswards things to get anything done. I used to be a techie, but I just have too much to do these days, so I want much more of an iphone experience, where it just intuitively works.

 

[bigredfish]

I guess its all about how much you need to review video and how many events. That will dictate what you need to manage the review process and how you go about it. For many, RING is enough.

I use SmartPSS for live view and playback every day. I rarely have the need to use that NVR thumbnail search I showed you.

I review 10 cameras each morning for events that happened after midnight. It takes me about 15 min over coffee. If you have so many events occurring that it takes you longer than that, you might look into hiring a security service,. I really dont give 2 shits about every dog, car, Amazon truck or human that passes my house each day. And if its been 24 hours and nothing is missing, I really dont care to review video to verify that nothing happened. I generally store 3-4 weeks of video, and after that i dont really care.

 

[looney2ns]

Thanks for all your help.

It might be a good idea to do the test. I should probably swap the questions over to the BI forum, but I have a Lenovo ideacenter gaming5 with i7-12700 , 16 gigs ram, and a 3060 graphics card that I only use for the usual business stuff, do you think that could handle a blue iris running in the background with basic email and web stuff?

If it works I will happily switch ot a dedicated but haven't found anything like the $200 you mentioned in a quick search

Currently one for $120.

elitedesk i5-8500 sff in PC Desktops & All-In-Ones for sale | eBay

www.ebay.com

 

[charlesaf3]

Currently one for $120.

elitedesk i5-8500 sff in PC Desktops & All-In-Ones for sale | eBay

www.ebay.com

How do I tell if it's any good? I don't trust ebay for things like this, but maybe I'm wrong?

 

[wittaj]

Most of us have bought our BI computer used.

If it doesn't turn on or when you pull up the specs it isn't what you purchased you send it back. Otherwise it will be fine LOL.