Stratagem

I use Windows Server 2008 R2 with NVR software like HikVision's iVMS-4200 to record and stream. I use a separate machine to view live or playback recordings. iVMS-4200 uses sqlite as a DB backend. DO NOT use an SSD to run iVMS-4200. AMD Athlon II X4 620e 8 GB ECC RAM 1 WD Velociraptor 320GB SATA3 system drive 3 Seagate 2TB SATA3 On-board 1Gb NIC Currently motion recording six bullet VBR (8192 Kbps max. per main stream) 1080p 30FPS streams with 28-45% CPU utilization, 1-2 GB physical memory usage, and about 12% network utilization. The media server process (streaming server) uses more processor time than the NVR server process. Edit: to change Mbps to Kbps

Download ST7501 from the Vivotek site. It's free. The package has three main components: recording server, live viewer, playback. Install the recording server on a low-end Windows box with plenty of storage and a decent NIC. Your concerns here will be bandwidth and I/O throughput (hard drive(s)). The recording server does not decode, just records and (optionally) streams. Install the live view and playback components on a dedicated desktop with sufficient processing power and a passable (DXVA2) PCIe video card. The F8174V can put out 15 fps at 1920x1920 or 30 fps at 1920x1080, according to the specs. I can't really help with CPU requirements for live playback - for what it's worth, an AMD Athlon II X4 645 can run ST7501 live view with three cameras streaming 1280x800 @ 15 FPS and a fourth streaming 1280x720 @ 60 FPS without breaking a sweat. The same machine can be used for playback with live view running in the background.