Best IP Camera software

[cyborg1024]

In my own tests I have to agree that BlueIris is very powerful and supports a wide variety of cameras with tons of options and features. I've been testing with a couple home camera's and its working very well. I have to say that I work with security systems for 3 hospitals and the features in this app are better than what you get with most 4K-5K security and camera DVR setups. That being said it does require some level of understanding of networking and time to configure the large number of options at your disposal. I give it high marks though as its easy to figure out most of the settings and get the desired result. The only thing I could add would be that the vendor might consider hosting recordings to a secure paid site so that customers dont need to save their own data to a local machine which might get stolen. I have mine set to email me alerts during specific time frames and this is great as you can see a snapshot of whats happening and if needed jump in and view the camera's direct. This can act as an early warning system for your home and you could hopefully have the Police onsite before a criminal is done looting. You can ofcourse send the data to an offsite FTP and other options in addition to snap shots that you can get SMS, Email, etc.. The package is loaded with features and considering that you get the software equivalent of powerful systems 50$ is a great price point for a multi camera setup solution at home. They have a single Camera license for 30$, but for 20$ more I would go for the full package as you can always expand as you like and I'm betting if you get this package you will want to do just that. I just wish I had this when my kids were babies as I could have spent less than I did on about 5 different baby monitor systems and have much greater functionality!

[pelermon]

I see the BlueIris software is a download.
Can I put the software on more then one computer ?
I would want it on my desktop and laptop.

[TechGuy521]

I've seen alot of programs that claim to be reliable and "fully functional" but when it comes to features, camera side or server side motion detection configuration, H.264 video compression, recording to my network HD (without going through my computer first), and PRICE, I've been using this software for 2 months now, from Kintronics called Tru View IP. It hasnt crashed and is pretty simple along with every feature I need.

i downloaded the 30 day demo and it didnt take long to figure out that it was the best option for me. check it out.

http://www.kintronics.com/neteye/Truviewip/truviewip.html[/url]

[jonehboy]

Hi,

I'm another that votes for iCatcher Console.

http://www.icode.co.uk/icatcher/products/console.html

I use it at home and in the office, it supports a wide range of cameras and I can view both from my iPhone. I've even added some X10 home automation to it. (I use iCatcher to schedule my tortoise sun lamp!)

They're a friendly bunch so give them a call or download a free trial.

Jon

[hughesjm]

[giancai]

Hi all, I have a 8904 IP Camera w Foscam I need a software to record. I'm trying Bluiris and Milestone, but I can not connect my camera. Could you kindly help me to do? In the milestone ip camera Foscam is not present, while blue iris do not find out how.

[mobilespies]

This is a quick addition to this pretty long lived thread.

We use milestone enterprise at work and I know it well. Works nice with lots of features. I just dont have the personal gold mine it takes to buy this.

Their Xprotect Go is free, though limited, its pretty good for home use.

However, tonight I just found out it wont support my bargain bin TrendNet IP410 cameras.

So browsing the webs I came across BlueIris and I must say for $50 its one heck of a program. The only drawback I see is the archive viewing. Going through those clips I sort of dont see a way to pinpoint a time and date without scrolling through them all...maybe Im missing something.

I just thought it strange that I got more camera support from a $50 program than from milestone.

[mobilespies]

Well Blue Iris works fine with a couple of cameras, but I installed it on a dual core athlon with 4gig mem that Luxriot runs fine with 8 arecont cameras recording and 5 mobotix cameras just in display and Blue Iris brought the system to a crawl. Also I cant figure out how to limit the frame size on the arecont megapixel cameras without cropping away the image. But for $50, Blue iris is the ideal home solution so far.

[JohnnyC]

Just for comparison, if any, I recently evaluated i-Catcher on a dual core 2.14 GHz PC using Windows 7 32-bit 4 gb ram and loaded about 8 Axis mega-pixel cameras. I reached 100% CPU and all came to a crawl and at times the PC became unresponsive.

Afterwards I loaded i-Catcher on an i7-2600k 3.40 GHz Windows 7 64-bit with 8 mb ram along with the same 8 cameras in addition to 3 more mega-pixel cameras and the system achieved a max of 25% CPU and it did not break a sweat.

All my cameras are setup to run at highest resolution, highest frame rates and with very little compression.

Regardless, when I see any monitoring/recording package claiming to work with a large number of cameras, I question if most systems can handle it unless the cameras are running extremely low resolution.

John
New Jersey

[mobilespies]

Yea no doubt. Its obvious in order for Blue Iris or pretty much any software to support 64 IP cameras they would need to be on a monster i7 and run at postage stamp size. In my line of work I yell at people who brag they have 4 months of recordings then I explain they have 4 months of useless video because the compression is so high and the resolution is so low. Ive pretty much moved to nothing but Mobotix cameras anyway, but its fun to mess around with the surplus cameras I have left over and to help folks who do not want to drop big bucks on a camera system.

I would have stuck with the Xprotect Go but like I noted, I scored 4 ip410 trendnets for $75 new and they are hard to beat at that price. But no support and Ive not fudged around with trying to make to make it work. I think on the bitter cold days coming up I'll check out Zoneminder.

[adam718]

I switched over to Security Monitor Pro. It is efficient with system resources and it supports around 1500 models of IP camera. Best of all, the interface is much more intuitive than the other software I tried - http://www.deskshare.com/video-surveillance-software.aspx

[WilsonJ]

I'm fortunate enough to have the chances to play with some of the systems you guys mentioned. in my mind, there is really no BEST system out there. I think they are all very good products so it all comes down to what kind of budget you have and the project spec. if it's big porjects with hundreds of cameras, i'll go with Milestone. if it's home/mom and pop shops/smb projects, i will probably go with Qnap. if it's a DIY project, it doesn't hurt to use those free/ <$50 pc-based systems.

[TH3_FRB]

General question for any of these software packages on system requirements. Is a 2.2Ghz Celeron with 1GB RAM and 60GB HDD running Windows XP sufficient for smooth operation? I have an old Dell Dimension that I was going to donate but I could dedicate it to running IP cam software and not need to keep one of my primary computers up and running full time. I currently only have a single ACTi TCM-1231 and at most would add another plus a couple small indoor units.

[JohnnyC]

Happy to hear you did your homework and reported your decision. It helps others that may only lurk in this forum, but also have the same mission you just went through.

One suggestion - get rid of Vista and go XP or Window 7.

John
New Jersey

[samvettel]

According to my opinion EyeSoft is the best software. It is a network video surveillance software. And it supports multiple ip camera, it is easy to use and reliable.