bcdavis75 0 Posted June 26, 2014 Hi All. I'm relatively new to the forum and have been gradually planning my migration away from Logitech Alert for about a year. Mine is a DIY home project that will likely never exceed 8 cameras. I've been gradually buying a mix of Hikvision models which I'm very happy with (price point v. features) so far. The thing I'm still struggling with is the software end. Milestone Essentials: I've been trialing it. (Thanks to Buellwinkle for answering 1000 questions) +Very stable and pretty intuitive. +Not resource intensive. In fact, I've been trialing it as a VM running on my iMac and and it's been rock steady with 4 3MP cameras streaming. I'll actually run it just like that if I go the Milestone route. Neutral: The mobile apps and web client are ok... not great. Playback I find counter-intuitive. I actually think the clip based approach that logitech uses (and other systems I'm assuming) for playback is much more intuitive then the Milestone mobile search methods. - My biggest issue so far is the number of Motion alerts I get that aren't things I really care about. They aren't "FALSE", just not relevant. I use on camera motion detection but there's nothing in xprotect in terms of analytics that would have thin out the alerts. -There's a lack of customization for the email alerts that's limiting. Ideally, I'd like to get a small transcoded video of the event. BI does this quite well. Failing that, I'd at least like to be able to specify the max size of the attached photos. They average about 800k. Takes to long to download them on a phone. Blue Iris: I've just started demoing this: +It seems like EVERYTHING is customizible. +The motion detection in BI is nice and very easy to fine tune. +I like the Idea of "Camera Groups" as it allows for a many to many relationships between camera events and camera recording. I don't think Milestone has this equivalent. Profiles are also a smart feature. -Upgrades are free? Nice. Also a good support community and a very engaged developer. -On the down side, it definitely uses a lot of processor and would require me to get a dedicated machine. This is, however, offset by the cost assuming I eventually max out at 8 cameras (no per camera licence cost like Milestone... I think). -More of a problem, I've had way more stability issues with BI then Milestone already... this could have something to do with running as a VM. I've also been unable to add certain cameras that has no issues in Milestone. -I have not been able to trial the mobile app because there's no demo version and I'm being cheap. -No simultaneous playback ( I think). I'd miss this feature. -The administrative menus are very deep and take a long time to get familiar with relative to Milestone DigiFort: Downloaded, have not yet installed. So the thing that interests me most about digifort are the advanced analytics. Specifically loitering and face/people detection. Note: I have attempted using face detection in the latest firmware of the Hikvision cameras but have found it extremely erratic. The thing that concerns me about digifort is that it's Brazilian and doesn't appear to have a lot of US resellers... in fact, I haven't really figured out how to buy it at all or get a clear pricing model (are anlaytics extra? Are there camera licences?). Secondly, I don't really see it being discussed often in forums like this which makes me nervous... Does anyone actually use it? I can find no reviews of the Analytic features specifically... although the high level review over at IPVM was helpful. So when I really think about what's important to me as a home owner who likes to tinker but doesn't have time to troubleshoot things constantly: *Stability *Intelligence around informing me of events that I should care about Such as: >Someone hanging around in my alley longer then they should be. NOT just walking through or driving through. >Someone entering my back yard >Someone entering my Front yard *Visibility of alerts. Email is ok but push alert via the about would be better. *OSX friendly... nobody is... except for Logitech oddly enough. But I can get around it with VM's and MOBILE apps for now. *Cost. None of these platform seem to be overly cost prohibitive. Anyway, that's my story... as always, I greatly appreciate anyone's input. Especially if you are like me and mostly DIY guy not looking for enterprise type features. Thanks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iScape 0 Posted September 27, 2016 The thing I'm still struggling with is the software end.... So when I really think about what's important to me as a home owner who likes to tinker but doesn't have time to troubleshoot things constantly: *Stability *Intelligence around informing me of events that I should care about Such as: >Someone hanging around in my alley longer then they should be. NOT just walking through or driving through. >Someone entering my back yard >Someone entering my Front yard *Visibility of alerts. Email is ok but push alert via the about would be better. *OSX friendly... nobody is... except for Logitech oddly enough. But I can get around it with VM's and MOBILE apps for now. *Cost. None of these platform seem to be overly cost prohibitive. I know it;s almost 3yrs since the post, but just in case anybody can contribute:) bcdavis75 or anybody - have you succeeded with finding proper software for mentioned requirements? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
