PC vs Dedicated?

[brettg 0]

So, I deal with several Dedicated Micros DS2s at work. They work great and I love them.

 

For work I also recently needed to come up with a several camera solutions on the cheap, so I put together a geovision system. I'm honestly quite underwhelmed by it. I really don't like the interface. The event playback limitation, where you can only view 5 minute sections, is quite frustrating (you can't go back and watch a 24-hour span without clicking next event for every 5 minutes of footage). I also don't like that the event viewer is a separate module, and not integrated into the main interface. Perhaps I'm just a bit spoiled after using the dedicated micro though. Perhaps I'm just having trouble getting used to a different system then I've used in the past.

 

At another one of our locations, we also have a leased PC DVR solution from our security company that I don't really care for either, although, I can't remember the name right now.

 

However, I seem to see gas stations and restaurants with what seem to be (without using them) pretty nice looking PC based dvr solutions. So, I know opinoins vary a lot out there, but is it just me that doesn't like PC based DVRs, especially the geovision? I see so many people talking about installing geovisons professionally on here, I'm just wondering if I'm missing something. I'm also not saying that all dedicated DVRs are great, I have run into some really poorly working cheap ones. But are there any PC based solutions that are on par with DMs?

[Sawbones 0]

I switched from a DS2 to a PC-based solution (self-built), and I couldn't be happier.

 

My DS2 didn't do megapixel, was a pain-in-the-arse to upgrade, and the quality of the encoded pictures could have been better.

 

I went with an IBM thinkcentre SFF desktop (core2 duo 2.13mhz) with a couple of 1.2Tb drives, and a couple of axis camera servers. I evaluated Video Insight, Exacqvision, Nuuo, and LuxRiot. I ended up going with the latter, and have been pretty happy with it.

 

I also only run about 40% CPU load with 10 cameras (eight analog sources connected to two axis servers), a megapixel Acti cam, and a VGA Axis vandal dome). That's with running motion detection on about half of the cameras, and it gives me plenty of upgrade room to do a planned addition of a Mobotix or Arecont day/night camera.

 

Embedded is nice if you're not a techno-weenie. If you ARE a techno-weenie, not having control of the hardware gets old quickly, as you look to expand capability, add memory, change out processors, add video cards, upgrade your network to gigabit, change NVR software... whatever.

 

Yes, rolling your own is more work, but in my opinion, it's definitely worth it.

[shentim 0]

Hi Brett,

 

If you would like to sit in front of a monitor and watch a 24-hour long video clip, then you simply would have had to highlight the day's worth of recording from Viewlog and it would play the entire day's worth of video.

 

You could also merge the .avi file to however many days that you would like. There are definitely many differences between DM and GeoVision, and one thing I would like to point out is that their comparable retail quote to our system is $16K vs $6K - I'm sure that taking the time to learn the differences in the interface may be worth $10k per system to many users.