ck42

Appreciate the feedback! I'll amend my needs a little here then, although, there is one area where I still do want to have 2-way audio (even 1-way audio if it comes down to that) For the other cameras, I can do w/o the audio portion (or, if I can still at least get 1-way audio -mic on the speaker). Still in the process of looking and inviting comments.

No suggestions?

I've been lurking and playing around and am sending back a Foscam I bought. " title="Applause" /> I think I like the XProtect software that I've got installed and evaluating and am now looking to start outfitting the house with cameras. I'm gonna just throw this out there and see what kind of responses I get (while I'm trying to figure it out on my own at the same time). I'm looking for at least 2MP cameras (no higher than 3MP is needed!) 2MP is fine. I have a mixture of wants/needs - nothing special, but I'm looking for 2 way audio, IR, and one of them I'd REALLY like to be PT(Z) to cover the main living area. (Need to cover a pretty wide angle FOV) For outdoors, I'm not sure if I need to step up to 3MP or not....but looking to cover the front and back areas. I'm HOPING to stay under $250 per camera, but if one of them ended up be little more, I can stretch it. Cameras really need to be on the supported XProtect list too. I'm done with trying to figure out/hack settings to try and make cameras work. The brands I'm looking at are: Hikvision, Dahua, ACTi, Vivotek...and love the Axis cameras, but they get spendy real fast!

Thanks, fasteddy. Already getting started. I've got Xprotect Go download and will be installing on a dedicated test system this weekend. Thanks for the heads-up on Avigilon too. Looks promising.

Appreciate the feedback. The desire for a Linux system is because I have a better familiarity with them...and I also save the cost of having to purchase a Win OS. Otherwise, totally agree the you don't inherently get a more stable app just because it's running on Linux vs. Windows. So given this, if we prune the short list down to these because they should be less hardware intensive: Milestone - XProtect Essential Exacq - ExacqVision Pro Acti NVR3 Of these, I still go back to my original question which really circles around trying to be able to compare these systems with each other in a meaningful way. I know these systems have a LOT of capabilities that I'm probably not going to use, so I guess I am more interested in knowing how well them recognize cameras of various types, ease of use/setup, things like that.

I've at least got it narrowed down to this short list: Milestone - XProtect Essential Blue Iris Exacq - ExacqVision Pro Xeoma Acti NVR3 (new one found recently: Network Optix - HD Witness 2.0) I'm just getting started with all of this and am pretty new to the whole concept. I expect when all is said and done, I MIGHT have about 8 cameras total, with most of them being at least 720p. Number of cams that will be greater than this will be minimal, maybe 2 will be 2MP or 3MP. This is for a home installation (mine) Being able to install onto a Linux OS is a big plus. " title="Applause" /> Remote viewing app needs to be decent. This seems to be a real weakness with some VMS. The price and costing structures of each of the ones I've listed are acceptable to me. Don't want to have to build out a Core i7 system just to run the VMS is pretty important. I don't want a power-hog system that has to run 24/7 to be required. I'm not having a lot of luck so far finding reviews or information that allows me to make a good direct comparison of these systems. I can find specs and some reviews of the individual systems, but it's difficult to do A<->B comparisons this way. Hoping for some insite from this forums!