Subscriber Discussion

Which VMS Is Best For Dahua Cameras?

ML
Marcus Lau
Aug 23, 2013

Hi All,

I would like to discuss about VMS for Dahua cameras. You can discuss about your experience, feedback, pros and cons. If you would like to reply the discussion, please state your reason of choosing the desired VMS.

Which of the following VMS has the best support for Dahua cameras?

You can answer the discussion, in the following example:

1) Axxon- New player in market, free 16 channels + 1TB of storage only, but VMS is not lean,

very CPU intensive program to run on a i3 PC, basically need a i7 CPU to run it.

2) Exacq- More established VMS in the market, but did not like to pay a yearly upgrade fee.

3) Digifort- Never heard of it, but may be very popular in south America.

4) Linovision- Never heard of it, but VMS is really cheap, GUI looks very old.

5) Luxriot- Good choice if you are a budget home user. Configuration steps are kind of confusing.

6) Nuuo-Program is user friendly, but the list of support for Dahua cameras, is somewhat limited.

JH
John Honovich
Aug 23, 2013
IPVM

Marcus, I am a little confused. It's seems you are not just just looking for VMSes that support Dahua well but also compliment it as a low cost, simple VMS offering, yes?

ML
Marcus Lau
Aug 24, 2013

John, thanks for replying. Your question asking me, whether I am looking for a cost effective/cheap VMS for supporting Dahua cameras? In a wayYES, but not necessarily.

I open a discussion for anyone to comment and give feedback on the chosen VMS for integrating Dahua cameras.

I will then decide which VMS should I try base on the feedback given from the discussion.

As you probably know, according to the Dahua VMS partner list, there a list of VMSes in market that supports Dahua cameras.

But I gather that some VMSes are having problem integrating Dahua cameras using ONVIF standard, even though they are listed on the VMS partner list.

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Sean Nelson
Aug 24, 2013
Nelly's Security

If u dont mind promoting digital watchdog, you should try HD Witness. They have a really smooth VMS, cost effective too.

ML
Marcus Lau
Aug 26, 2013

Thanks Sean, I was trying to contacting HD witness via email since last week, but never get a reply so far, must be very busy.

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Nathan Wheeler
Aug 24, 2013

Hi Marcus

Disclosure: I'm a co-founder of Network Opitx, the company that develops HD Witness and Digital Watchdog's DW Spectrum in the Americas.

I second Sean's recommendation to try HD Witness out. It's free to try for 30 days. It's a total download of 65MB and it installs in about 90 seconds. Dahua cameras will auto-discover via Onvif and they will also dual stream properly which enables server-side advanced motion detection in our system. The learning curve for using our platform is very tight and our team is always willing to answer any usage questions. We just released our brand new V2.0 version (Digital Watchdog will release their V2.0 soon as well).

If you want to try it out in advance of their release of DW Spectrum, you can download HD Witness here: HD Witness is now Nx Witness – Network Optix and if you like it, just switch to their skinned version of it, if and when you're ready to buy full licenses. Thanks.

ML
Marcus Lau
Aug 26, 2013

Hi Nathan, thanks for your reply. In fact, I did try to contact your company via email using my business email.

Probably, you too busy reading the email. DW is exactly the same product as HD witness, am I right?

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Nathan Wheeler
Aug 26, 2013

Hi Marcus,

I did not get your message but we are migrating our mail system this weekend and it's still underway. It also appears that it defaults to an extremely strict spam settings and yours wound up there. I'll reply more in depth there but to answer your question here, yes DW Spectrum is identical in all but appearance to HD Witness. DW Spectrum is the version by which our software is distributed in N. America and fully supported and integrated with Digital Watchdog's hardware line. And of course it fully supports most other major lines such as Dahua.

Email to follow shortly.

ML
Marcus Lau
Aug 26, 2013

Hi Nathan, thanks for the prompt reply on my question. I am excited to know more about your company product, especially it also support Ubuntu platform. At the moment, I still considering in making order for Dahua cameras to test. In the mean time, I look forward to your reply on my business email. Thanks again.

ML
Marcus Lau
Sep 03, 2013

Hi All,

This is a side track question.....

Does anyone has the chance of getting audio to work on your selected VMS software working with Dahua cameras?

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Marcus

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Murat Altu
Sep 14, 2013
AxxonSoft

Hi Marcus,

I hope you'll have a chance to try AxxonNext.

It is not CPU intensive in compare with any other VMS. The only requerment is OpenGL support.

If your graphic card has no OpenGL support, than it will be emulated by CPU and in this case system will be very CPU intensive.

But if it supports OpenGL, you can enjoy dewarping on all cameras in layout (for example) without any CPU utilization.

Thank you,

Murat (AxxonSoft)

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Marcus Lau
Sep 16, 2013

Hi Murat,

At first impression the Axxon VMS is good, but when I drilled down and find out more, I slowly lost my focus. The amount of information that I need to know before beginning to process of running the VMS, is just too massive to absorb- meaning HUGH learning curve to any CCTV installer to tackle with, I must say.

I did try to read up the installation guide, and I found it that I need more hours to read it than I expect.

The part with OpenGL video card, was it mentioned on the installation guide that having OpenGL video card will drastically reduce the CPU resource?

Do you need to download approx. 600MB for the installation? I believe the installation is for enterprise market?

MI
Matt Ion
Sep 15, 2013

Well, it's not so much on the "cheaper" side, but I can highly recommend 3xLOGIC Vigil as a VMS with good Dahua support. In fact, they added the Dahua support specifically at our request - I sent them a test camera and some SDK info (courtesy Sean Nelson at Nelly's Security) and they rolled out an update for V6 and V7 of Vigil shortly thereafter. We've been using it successfully now with a variety of Dahua cameras.

Even before that, Vigil V6 and above worked with the Dahuas using its generic RTSP function (they also worked with ONVIF... mostly. A manually-entered RTSP URL was more reliably, though.) Note: Dahua is not on the "supported camera" list because that list doesn't appear to have been updated since the system update... and if you do try it on a V7 Vigil, you'll actually find it listed as "EYEsurv", since it was a Nelly's-branded camera we sent them for testing.

Also worth noting: if a VMS says it supports Dahua, then it SHOULD support most if not all of their models, since AFAIK they all support the same URL string for pulling a stream from the camera. Additionally, their DVRs and NVRs use the same string for pulling individual channel feeds, and in fact, I've successfully tested a Dahua DVR functioning as an "analog encoder" for a Vigil NVR.

ML
Marcus Lau
Sep 15, 2013

Hi Matt,

Because of where I am based, 3xlogic Vigil VMS is very new to me.

Thanks for your input, I am most appreciated. I will keep in mind, about the generic RTSP url string on supporting Dahua cameras.

On the 3xlogic website, I could not find out whether Vigil v7 VMS has got this yearly update maintenance fee (for allowing users to update previous Vigil to higher version at a yearly cost).

Anyway, I know Vigil VMS is not cheap, but I am curious to know what will be the price like, for 16 camera channels? Say for an end user.

MI
Matt Ion
Sep 16, 2013

Vigil DOES NOT have recurring maintenance or license fees. Major version updates (V6 to V7, for example) have a nominal upgrade fee, but in-version updates are (so far) free.

Cost will vary depending on a lot of factors; they only sell complete turnkey systems, so various hardware options are a factor (case style, processing power, analog inputs vs. straight NVR, storage included, etc.). You're generally looking at around $4000 (MSRP) as a starting point though.

Just as an example, I put together this machine in their quoting tool:
2TB HDD Video Storage
Light Tower Style Chassis
60GB Intel Solid State OS Drive (SSD)
Win 7 Embedded
i3 Processor and motherboard
16 IP Camera Inputs

MSRP on this is about $4800.

That's all-in though, with camera license fees and no recurring charges.

Considering we still have a number of eight-year-old Vigil V4 systems out in the field running happily in their little "cube" cases, I'd says the higher upfront cost can be a benefit over annual fees - it's not one of those things that you HAVE to upgrade constantly :)

ML
Marcus Lau
Sep 16, 2013

Hi Matt, appreciated your comment, at this stage, because I am not based in US, a complete turnkey system will not be suitable for my application. This discussion is purely based on VMS that is downloadable separately and use a customised PC hardware system which can be built locally at my country.

If you don't mind asking this side question....does Vigil v7 capable of recording Audio from Dahua cameras? And also hear live audio when running Vigil VMS?

MI
Matt Ion
Sep 16, 2013

Vigil does support live and recorded audio; I've used it before with analog systems (using both the PC's built-in sound card, and the audio inputs on the capture card), and with Axis cameras that have built-in sound. I tried it with a Dahua box camera that required an external microphone, but I don't think the mic itself was working, so I can't say with certainty that it works... but I would definitely EXPECT that it does.

ML
Marcus Lau
Sep 22, 2013

Hi All,

Has anyone roll out any project using Dahua's free VMS = PSS (Professional Surveillance System)? I would like to know the installer's experience in the VMS software, would the installer recommend to customer in using VMS for big projects? Any comment will be most appreciated.

Thank you.

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Sean Nelson
Sep 23, 2013
Nelly's Security

Thats not really an NVR software. Its more of a CMS software meant just for live viewing and playback of NVR's/DVR's. It does have recording abilities but its kind of limited in that respect. Also has no way to remote into the PSS software either.

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