hamada76

Thanks for the WD drive suggestion, I did not know about the Purple line. I agree with you especially I have certain cameras set to record continuously. I will look into a the NAS solution. Thanks again!

Hello CCTV Experts, I would like to get your opinion and advice on a medium home surveillance solution I am currently putting together... So far, I have the following setup NVR: Lenovo ThinkCentre M93P Tiny - INTEL I5-4570T/2.9GHz - 8GB RAM - 320GB HD OS: Windows Web Server 2008 R2 (64-BIT) - SP1 VIDEO STORAGE: Seagate 4TB External HD POE: D-Link DES-1018MP 18-Port Unmanaged POE (IEEE 802.3 AF) Switch OUTDOOR CAMERAS: 8x AutoIP GV-NC-201VA (Were there by previous owners. Not happy with them at all and will probably replace in the future). INDOOR CAMERAS: TBD (May be 4 Hikvision DS-2CD2432F-I(W) VMS: TBD (may be Luxriot Pro) Here are my questions: 1- I have been researching VMS solutions out there and the good ones from Milestone, Exacq, Avigilon etc...) are very expensive and have complicated licenses. I also looked at lower end solutions such as Blue Iris, Ispy, Geo Vision etc. and was not very impressed. So far, I am leaning towards Luxriot Pro which is around $500 for 16 cameras. Are there any other VMS solutions that are comparable to Luxriot at the same price level or less expensive? 2- What is the best outdoor day / night camera to buy that will survive brutal south Florida heat and torrential rain. 2 of the GVI models I have outdoors are collecting water although they are IP66 rated and despite all my attempts to seal them properly! The 8 outdoor cameras are mounted vertically on concrete out in the open. Picture attached. Thanks in advance for your help!

I am having issues with Milestone Express 2014 and ONVIF conformant cameras that I cannot figure out. Can someone please help me with this. Camera Model: GVI AutoIP GV-NC-201VA - 8 Cameras in total I could not find the specific camera model or the comapny in the drop down so I put the IP Address, Port 80, Credentials and either auto detect or onvif device connect fine and I see a preview for a couple of seconds or so. I then go to the next step and see choppy preview, then I get the following errors: "Server lost connection to the camera" and sometimes I get "cannot retrieve preview". I connected to the server via the Smart Client then I may see the live footage for a second or two and then the same error again... "Server lost connection to the camera". Same thing with the mobile client. I connected to the camera directly in the browser and the footage is fine. I also connected with VLC via RTSP. I disabled the windows firewall and it did not make any difference. I tested the actual cable for any errors and it seemed fine. Reset the camera to factory defaults and nothing changed. Same errors. I tried all remaining 7 cameras and got the same errors. Could it be possible that these cameras are just not going to work with Milestone? They are onvif conformant and Milestone actually auto detects them as that. Is there any settings that I can fiddle with to get these cameras to actually work reliably? Your help is appreciated. Thanks in advance. UPDATE 1: I SET THE CAMERA TO RECORD ALL THE TIME AND IT SEEMS LIKE THERE ARE GAPS IN THE RECORDING WHERE THE FOOTAGE IS SKIPPING TIME AND NOT RECORDING, THUS TO CONFIRM THAT IT KEEPS LOSING CONNECTION TO THE SERVER... ALSO THE PICTURE QUALITY IS TOO GRAINY; UNLIKE IN THE BROWSER OR VLC. UPDATE 2: AFTER THREE HOURS OF TRYING TO FIGURE THIS ISSUE OUT, THE SOLUTION SEEMS TO BE IN USING THE UNIVERSAL DRIVER AND SETTING EVERYTHING MANUALLY FOR THE CAMERA. NO CONNECTION DROPS SO FAR. HOPE THIS HELPS SOMEONE OUT THERE!

Thanks for the reply Jester, really appreciate it. You must be telepathic since I did buy Milestone Express since it came with 2 camera licenses to start. Its interface made the best sense to me. I am still playing around with the trial on a guinea pig PC for now. I do like it, but that is not to say it is perfect. One thing I noticed is that it may be complicated for the average home user. For example, getting the mobile server to work if the default ports are taken is a bit tricky. Also, there seems to be issues or bugs in the management console and it crashed on me a couple of times. In specific, when adding my old GVI Auto IP cameras, I kept getting "connection time out" and "connection lost" errors on the previews yet the camera(s) was streaming fine from the client software and if accessed directly via the browser directly. The 2 crashes happened as I tried different profiles for the camera from the camera settings... Anyways, I will most likely post a different topic in the appropriate sections if I hit any issues or hurdles. I come from IT/ Web Development background and I think I can manage fine. The software looks like it's solid and built on a good foundation. I also like the low CPU utilization so far. One thing that kinda sucks is Millstone sort of closed their forum to new users. Finally, when you mention IOPS, are you suggesting internal storage is the way to go? I see that many systems actually store footage to NAS drives so I thought USB 3 would be a faster choice since NAS systems usually run slower than USB 3.

You are correct Alex. I am torn between Luxriot and Nx Witness. What I found that TrendNet now gives away a similar version of Luxriot Pro with their cameras but it will not work as a Windows service. I am not sure how much Nx Witness costs and I do like its search features and overall simplicity. Another VMS that I like a lot is Axxon Next which is actually free but it is limited to a 1 TB archive. It did not work on the Lenovo since it needs a better graphics card and the latest Open GL. I installed it on a workstation and was very impressed by it. I have not made up my mind yet and I am open to try other VMS systems that are affordable.