CCTV on PC / Server

[ibby 0]

Hi guys,

 

Just wondering if someone can give me some guidance please.

 

I currently have a Dedicated Micros DS2 DVR with 4 cameras. My setup is Anolog and I am looking to expand my system in the near future.

 

The I have had the Micros DS2 DVR for a while now and have been pretty happy with it, untill recently, it sounds like one of the two hard drives inside has started to "wine". It is rack mounted into a full height rack.

 

Within this rack I have a very powerful always on server, Its a server 2012 128gig ram, SATA and SAS hard drives and a 2x Quadcore cpu.

I have a raid 1 and 2x raid 10.

The Raid 1 is the server OS and the raid 10s are data storage. Each raid 10 is able to push through around 300MBS.

 

Since all of my CCTV equipment is aging I have been thinking recently to start to replace it all with IP based system and my anolog cctv qauality isnt fantasic.

 

My house is already wired to CAT6 and I have a dedicated PSU for the cameras. What I would like to do is to setup a Virtulised CCTV recording system. I have already build a Windows 7 x64 bit os machine with 8 gig of ram (i have around 20 gig free) and assigned 8 virtual processors (this is the maximum ammount i can assign).

 

When benchamarking the virtual machin on horsepower on the cpu side is around 50% utlisation, I currenltly have 2x qad core 1600 cpus, on the shelf I have 2xquad core 2500 cpus that can be inserted if needed.

 

I have have a google around and have seen freeware cctv recorders like zoneminder ispyconnect blueiris and various others.

 

So the question is how should I go about doing this ? I have plenty of space on the server, its a quiter running machine and I have plenty of capacity.

 

I am looking for software suggestions, I dont mind paying alittle for software to get better functunality, I want something thats going to be robust and not crash every 5 minutes..

 

Has anyone done what I am looking at doing ?

[ibby 0]

maybe my topic smells 28 views and no input!

[Kawboy12R 0]

Can you live with 5 days of video storage? Milestone XProtect Go works nicely with much of the functionality of the more expensive XProtect versions and it's free. Blue Iris is cheap and has better motion detection but you pay for it with cpu cycles. If you're anti - Microsoft then Zoneminder is a good choice. I haven't tried it or ISpy Connect though.

[gb5102 0]

Since I am a 'Geovision guy', I would suggest a GV-VS14 video server which will basically convert your analog cams to IP, then you can use the free GV-NVR software on a Windows virtual machine.

[RandyParlee 0]

We've got Aimetis running on several virtual servers and it's stable. The basic lics are $99/cam. Download a trial to get a taste. Heck, try out several VMS' to see what you like.

[GeorgeJohn 0]

Hello Ibby:

 

Lucky man to have all that horse power available. IP cameras are really good and for the cost generally more capable than analogue cams but one does need the always on system to record motion or action. During the days I experimented with IP cameras, I have decided to go analogue for my own in house system with DVR, I discovered Blue Iris software, This is just a great package and will allow you to display IP cameras AND analogue cameras from any DVR at the same time, Blue Iris does require a little extra horsepower from your system. Mine is a 16 gbyte, Win 7, 3.5 gig htz AMD four processor CPU and it runs blue Iris displaying 16 cameras (4 IP 12 Analogue from 2 different DVRs) with motion detect on all and full frame count recording. The CPU loading is around 18%, memory loading is about 12% and network loading is at 16%. My LAN is a full gigabit LAN. The advantage of having a DVR system as well as IP cameras is that the DVR keeps running longer during a power failure if on UPS than a full system so you still have some security protection.