WilsonJ

first, honestly i don't think luxriot is anywhere close to milestone. second, "more analytics features, approaching Milestone abilities, at a lower cost." is obviously a sales pitch. you get what you pay for. if you are looking for more affordable low channel NVRs you can give Qnap a try. their NVR supports a good list of cameras, onvif, too, and has most of the analytic and features you will ever need.

I have used it with qnap, nuuo, and exacq. Had to update the firmware for some of the cameras but in general i think panasonic has pretty good products. If you are installing all IP cameras I would recommend you to give qnap a try. Not saying geo is bad but i usually avoid it unless i have to to build hybrid systems.

I personally never think I simply offer choices and for some "stupid" reason guess what customer is picking ....? course of human Sociology can really help just my 2 cents lol ak relax it was meant to offer a different perspective/"choice". I'm not your competitor so no need to get aggressive here. I do have a different philosophy on this tho because people do pay me to think for them and tell them what to buy. And I certainly hope people who buy your products are not because of some "stupid" reason.

I was about to post the same thing lol. are you looking to build your own system? because if not, i know a few manufacturers that have linux based stand alone system such as Qnap. life is much easier with stand alone systems.

I see that you are pretty cost conscious. What is the budget you have in mind and what cameras do you plan to use? I personally think for a grocery store Exacq or Avigilon is a pretty expensive investment. Nuuo is probably more fairly priced. We have install multiple Qnap systems for some residential and SMB projects and it's been pretty good. It has most of the features you need and a 4ch system is available under $800 on amazon. It's a stand alone system like Nuuo mini which means very easy to install and supports generic cameras. On a side note, I do believe using two separate systems is a good idea not only because it's cheaper but the system generally runs smoother in the long run IMO. just my 2 cents.

If you have a NVR already, why don't you pull the video stream from the recorder instead of pulling dual stream from the camera? The advantage of viewing from the recorder is you will avoid clogging the bandwidth between the recorder and the camera which might lower the quality of video recorded. I know most of the NVR such as Qnap supports multi-stream live view while recording.

ACTi, Vivotek, or Messoa are some reliable mid range IP camera manufacturers that you can take a look. For recording, I would recommend you to use a stand alone recorder such as Qnap's stand alone NVR. It provides a lot of features and is really affordable.

price per channel: Milestone > Exacq > Qnap. They are all very good products so it all comes down to what kind of budget you have and the project spec. if it's big porjects with hundreds of cameras, i'll go with Milestone. if it's home/mom and pop shops/smb projects, i will probably go with Qnap.

I am going to assume you meant NVR since all you mentioned are IP cameras and Cat5. Maybe you can take a look at NVR stand alone such as VS-2004 Pro from QNAP. It meets your budget and supports both Cisco and D-Link cameras.

It depends on the project spec. You mentioned you used to install analog. Are you looking for hybrid systems? If you are looking for IP-cam-only systems, QNAP has some decent stand-alones that fit your needs. It is Linux based and supports all the big manufacturers such as Axis, Mobotix, ACTi, and etc. Since you are new to the IP world, I'd recommend you to start with the stand alone systems instead of the software because stand alone systems are easier to install.

I know QNAP has a JPEG CGI command interface to allow users to get video streams from cameras that are not on their support list right now. Maybe that is something you can try?

If your budget is limited and you really need expensive cameras such as Mobotix, I'd go with QNAP, too. Remember Qnap is originally a NAS manufacturer!

It still depends on what kind of IP cam you get. I think most of the IP cams allow you to view the live video at least thru the web browser. If you are looking for NVR that supports iPhone, a 4ch or 8ch QNAP NVR stand alone is a good choice for your house, http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=196. hi it depends on what system you have /// camera make software used on pc. there are so many types of cameras out there that you need to give us a bit more info Well im planing on getting new cameras just for the house....what would you recommend??

Personally I would prefer not to use a hybrid system if I don't have to. Depends on your budget, Arecont Vision, Axis, ACTi and other manufacturers all have pretty good MP cameras. If you decide to use a separate system, which you will eventually need because of all the MP cams, there are PC-based and stand alone NVR you can choose from. My company installed a lot of QNAP stand alone NVR systems. They are affordable and have all the features SMB and home users usually need.

You need to provide more details so we can help you, buddy. If you happen to switch to IP cameras and NVR, my company has been installing many QNAP stand alone NVRs lately. They are pretty good bang for the buck.