Best Computer to buy for CCTV monitoring?

[mattstyles]

Hi, I have iVMS-4200 running on various machines. I have just set up a 12 camera system for a friend of mine on a Hikvision NXI (acusense) NVR. He runs a camp site and the NVR is over in the business premises on site, but his house is 100 yards away. We ran a cable and have him able to monitor from there on his Macbook Air (hahaha) but he wants to buy a dedicated PC for monitoring, either using iVMS4200 or (ideally) something better, paid if needed. I have heard of BlueIris so will look into that, any other recommendations appreciated. The reason he wants a Windows machine is because he bought the Hikvision joystick controller (he has 2 PTZ cameras) and unfortunately Hikvision says the joystick is compatible with iVMS-4200, but they didn't say "ONLY IF ON WINDOWS"! Swines!

I have used Mac computers for many years and I am useless with PC knowledge, specs etc.

Could anyone advise a reasonable spec machine to run as a dedicated monitoring station, and maybe as a secondary recording station too. What sort of processor, RAM, graphics card is needed? Also, Windows 10 or will Windows 7 do? Windows 10 is worse spyware than 7, so we would go for 7 if at all possible as I remember some hacks to lock that down from Shill Gates a little

Any tips or recommendations appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Phil]

It's a moot point, we can move up & down the cost/performance scale according to taste & budget.
Something like this desktop PC from Mesh with core i5 and 8GB RAM would be fine for <20 cameras and one user.
Have them build it with a bigger HDD according to your number of cameras / retention requirements.

NB it is a Windows 11 PC, as are the latest we buy for the business - I see little benefit in buying / setting-up a new machine with W7/10 (all vendors have to make their kit work with latest Microsoft).
Add Eset Internet Security to take care of AV and firewall duties.


For software, Blue Iris is very popular with home and SME users; we have it installed on one of our machines for quick checks, but have little experience with it.

Hikvision's iVMS-4200 is FREE, but that's probably the only reason that people use it. I don't think users find it very satisfying to live with.

Vivotek's VAST is nice to live with, but will cost about £45 per camera for a software licence.

Nx-Witness is the new kid on the block, bells & whistles, corporate choice, but will cost £100 per licence.

No ongoing support / annual licence renewal charges with any of those mentioned above.

I would really recommend trying before buying with any of the Video Management Systems (VMS) - they are complex, and not easy to compare. It is important that your end-user 'gets on well with it' - VAST wins praise from schools in this respect; easy to learn, intuitive, easy to do what staff need to do; record, review, extract evidence, pass it to the Police when necessary ...

I've covered the VMS choice topic over a few years whilst helping Schools to choose here:

CCTV Software for schools

Schools often come to us and ask us to recommend CCTV software. Cost is frequently a driver. Many schools had their original system built using corporate CCTV / VMS software, which typically incurs an annual ongoing support cost. Unfortunately, many schools and their IT departments are simply...

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