From a previous discussion named Mac vs Windows, a poll of 258 IPVM members showed 55% use Macs either exclusively or along with Windows PCs. Sometimes I find it hard to find a good hardware or software tool for Mac, to help with my video surveillance job, compared with what's available for Windows.
So I'd like to ask members what are your favorite tools for Mac which help you in your job in video surveillance? Also, what tools do you wish you could find on Mac OS X?
Here are a few of my favorites:
• Angry IP Scanner - (free) for finding IP cameras, servers, routers, switches and other devices on a LAN.
• Remotix - for remotely accessing Mac and Windows computers, especially VMS servers.
• DiskWarrior - for repairing corrupt directory structures on storage including RAID storage. It ships on a bootable USB stick. Unlike other disk repair utilities which can further damage already damaged directory structures, DiskWarrior builds a completely new directory structure in RAM and allows you to preview the changes before you replace the old directory structure. It is the only disk repair utility that I completely trust.
• Blackmagic Disk Speed Test - (free) for checking storage speed.
• Smart_Player - (free) for playing back Dahua .dav files locally on a Mac. If you export .dav files from a Dahua NVR or DVR, you won’t be able to play them on a Mac without this utility. Strangely I cannot find this utility for download on Dahua’s website but found it on a third party website. While the interface looks to be a Dahua product, there is no reference to Dahua and I don’t know whether there will be updates to this application. If you know where to look for future updates, please let me know!
• Canvas - for marking up site photos and creating or editing site plans. I find this old graphics application faster than using three applications for photo editing, technical illustrations and page layout. It hasn’t been updated on Mac for several years so I run it on an older Mac. I’m looking forward to the new Mac version due by the end of 2015.
• Apple Pages - (free with new Macs) for word processing and especially the inclusion of graphics. While I am used to using Microsoft Word, I find Pages runs much faster and allows me to use all kinds of graphics without slowdowns and crashes. I only use Word if I need to collaborate on documents with other Word users.
Do you know of Mac tools that can do this?
• Import measurements from a Leica Disto Laser Distancemeter.
• SNMP software to monitor the health status of IP cameras, managed switches and other IP devices. I've looked hard but haven't found a Mac one and so am using PRTG for Windows.
• DRF (detail removal factor) Utility. I haven't been able to find a H.264 stream / video analyzer for Mac and so use AVInaptic for Windows.
Thank you for any tips and links!