Blue Iris

Blue Iris makes it easy to get more control over your security systems when you need to watch them remotely and provides you with the option to combine all of the cameras at your property into a single, interconnected ecosystem. It's not the only piece of surveillance software around, but it is one of the best. Its streamlined interface makes the process of managing and configuring your security systems easy; and, unlike many of its competitors, it's compatible with a whole host of security cameras from some of the most well known manufacturers in the game. Setting up your cameras is easy and made doubly so by the inclusion of set templates that will walk you through the process of registering your specific brand of camera. Even if you're dealing with a variety of different models from a diverse range of manufacturers, you can trust them all to work effectively in tandem with one another. It's worth noting that you won't have to pay out the nose for security coverage just because your property is heavily equipped with cameras. Many companies that offer the same services charge extra for each camera you add. Blue Iris instead offers up to 64 cameras to be hooked up to the same dashboard through the use of a single license. Once you dig into the user interface for Blue Iris, you'll find a variety of appealing options that can help you make the most out of your camera systems. This user interface allows you to arrange multiple cameras in a grid so you can see the results all at once, and live streaming is fully supported for IP connected cameras. The layout is highly visual and neatly designed. A camera grid in the main panel allows you to see a detailed view of the cameras you pick, while smaller thumbnails on the right show you the action on other cameras and allow you to switch them in at will. Pan tilt and zoom options are supported for some cameras, while zooming can be handled with just a flick of the mouse wheel. Any live or recorded footage can be easily saved and archived for later use. You can do this by storing them in local files or uploading them online or to a private server. All of this is smartly handled through the desktop application. The clip viewer provides you with an even more granular level of control over your video. Frame by frame playback is supported as well as navigation using a proper timeline which displays just underneath the viewer. From here, you can trim and edit video as you see fit or export it to other sources. Users can also control video playback feed and audio volume with the simple adjustment of a pair of toggles.

The major downside with this product is it has time lapse gaps, so if your hoping to catch someone getting out of a car for instance you wont! You will see the car stop and then you wait and wait until you realise they're left the vehicle as it encountered as time lapse gap. Hardly useful security. Secondly when you buy the lifetime licence they seem to fail to mention that you only get support for 12 months unless you continue to pay out for further maintenance. All in all a waste of time and money. In summary - look elsewhere.

...encountered as time lapse gap.... It's depend on the computing power of the PC / video card and hardware generally speaking (and of course on the number of cams and the frame rate of each cam). Most cams record itself the video on build-in media (i.e.sd-card or similar), either in case of motion/alarm or continuously. So you can additionally utilize these records in case of missed frames from BI video record.