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Anybody use Vitamin D, looks like they are now Sighthound?

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I think I've been using Vitamin D with my cameras since 2011, but the lack of updates and some features has made me start looking at other software. This weekend I noticed that http://www.vitamindinc.com redirects to http://www.sighthoundlabs.com.

 

Has anyone here tried the beta?

 

I have used Vitamin D software in the past, and I really enjoy it. The only thing I didnt like about it, was that it didnt support better cameras with a higher resolution. 2mp, 3mp, 5mp, etc.

 

This new software states "upgrade to the paid versions and get any resolution your camera supports."

 

I may check this out. Their motion tracking is great...

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Always liked the concept of VitaminD, my only reservation is CPU needs. They claim a fast dedicated quad core PC can handle 4-6 1.3MP cameras, which scares me because I have mostly 3MP cameras. So does that mean I can run 1-2 cameras on say a modern day i7? What would I need for 8 cameras or maybe that's not even possible with consumer grade PCs.

 

I would download the demo and try it but it's limited in resolution, so it doesn't help me prove out if it's feasible or not.

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They claim a fast dedicated quad core PC can handle 4-6 1.3MP cameras, which scares me because I have mostly 3MP cameras. So does that mean I can run 1-2 cameras on say a modern day i7? What would I need for 8 cameras...

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"Each XK6 node is made up of a 16-core Opteron 6200 CPU and an Nvidia Tesla x2090 GPU co-processor, an embeddable card designed to work in tandem with a CPU based on the GPU design. The Cray system can be scaled from a single integrated cabinet — which can contain up to 96 CPUs and 96 GPUs — up to multiple cabinets linked together. Theoretically, it could deliver a maximum of 50 petaflops of raw computing capacity if it is upgraded with later generations of CPUs, GPUs and interconnect hardware, Cray said. A petaflop is equal to a thousand trillion floating point operations per second."

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Always liked the concept of VitaminD, my only reservation is CPU needs. They claim a fast dedicated quad core PC can handle 4-6 1.3MP cameras, which scares me because I have mostly 3MP cameras. So does that mean I can run 1-2 cameras on say a modern day i7? What would I need for 8 cameras or maybe that's not even possible with consumer grade PCs.

 

I would download the demo and try it but it's limited in resolution, so it doesn't help me prove out if it's feasible or not.

 

I would email them regarding a trial that supports your true camera resolution. I have done this in the past, and VitD gave me a user name a password and a week to play around with the full software.

 

Its worth a shot....

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They are asking $250 for the full version, so 6x the price of BlueIris. I don't think I have a fast enough PC to even do 1 camera. I thought about getting a Cray for this, but it doesn't run Windows. I'm thinking for my 8 cameras, I'll need a dual socket server with 8 cores per CPU, 16 cores total, 2 cores per camera = 8 cameras. BTW, ACTi is rolling out their 10MP cameras this month at great prices, oops, now I need a quad socket server.

 

What I don't understand is why can't software like this use the substream at D1 resolution to do it's magic but record from the main stream, just saying. Then it wouldn't matter what resolution you have.

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Absolutely or even process video at 720P but record in 3MP. Why process the video at the full resolution?

 

They are asking $250 for the full version, so 6x the price of BlueIris. I don't think I have a fast enough PC to even do 1 camera. I thought about getting a Cray for this, but it doesn't run Windows. I'm thinking for my 8 cameras, I'll need a dual socket server with 8 cores per CPU, 16 cores total, 2 cores per camera = 8 cameras. BTW, ACTi is rolling out their 10MP cameras this month at great prices, oops, now I need a quad socket server.

 

What I don't understand is why can't software like this use the substream at D1 resolution to do it's magic but record from the main stream, just saying. Then it wouldn't matter what resolution you have.

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Absolutely or even process video at 720P but record in 3MP. Why process the video at the full resolution?

 

They are asking $250 for the full version, so 6x the price of BlueIris. I don't think I have a fast enough PC to even do 1 camera. I thought about getting a Cray for this, but it doesn't run Windows. I'm thinking for my 8 cameras, I'll need a dual socket server with 8 cores per CPU, 16 cores total, 2 cores per camera = 8 cameras. BTW, ACTi is rolling out their 10MP cameras this month at great prices, oops, now I need a quad socket server.

 

What I don't understand is why can't software like this use the substream at D1 resolution to do it's magic but record from the main stream, just saying. Then it wouldn't matter what resolution you have.

 

Because if they have to transcode the video they will need even more processing power. Dual stream is the way to go.

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Yeah, that would be a good approach to conserve CPU. Use the D1 (or whatever) substream for motion detect and viewing/setup, and record direct to disk for the full resolution. It wouldn't be able to add overlays, but that's one of the trade-offs.

 

If your substream was only D1 and the main stream was 1080P (or any 16:9 ratio), you wouldn't be able to do motion detect on the whole image, only the D1 portion, so having a 1/4 res substream tied to whatever your main stream was would be a useful feature.

 

You'd still need to transcode for full-res viewing, but if you did that on a client PC, you'd avoid loading down the NVR.

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I think right now the software records one video stream from the camera full time and makes bookmarks based on the rules you have setup. I like the idea of doing the processing/motion detection on D1 stream, and then recording the higher resolution stream.

 

Any idea how Sighthound/Vitamin D and Axxon Next compare when it comes to CPU usage?

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I have used VitaminD to monitor the second stream on some cameras. The primary stream is recorded by my primary NVR.

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Always liked the concept of VitaminD, my only reservation is CPU needs. They claim a fast dedicated quad core PC can handle 4-6 1.3MP cameras, which scares me because I have mostly 3MP cameras. So does that mean I can run 1-2 cameras on say a modern day i7? What would I need for 8 cameras or maybe that's not even possible with consumer grade PCs.

 

I would download the demo and try it but it's limited in resolution, so it doesn't help me prove out if it's feasible or not.

 

They told me the beta version includes a Pro license until 10/31 so give that one a try for us Buellwinkle.

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I downloaded the beta version. I like the interface and the motion detection is the best I have seen so far. I did not see a big issue with CPU load running the software, watching live and recorded clips (I only tested with 2 cameras), the big issue came when using the browser, even from the same computer, it is slow and when trying to replay a clip bring the CPU load to 95 % on an I7 core.

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I would like to try the beta version with my ACTi E42 but can't get it to connect. Does anybody kniow how to connect an E42 to it? I think I need the direct URL to video feed but don't know what it is.

 

Thanks

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Does it support ONVIF? If so, you can turn the ONVIF feature on in the E42 (off by default) and try that. If not you can try RTSP.

I don't see where it supports ONVIF. It does do RTSP and there is a stream path field. Do you know what it would be for an ACTi E series camera?

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I think it might be this.

rtsp://IPADDRESS:7070/

 

 

Kenny

 

Thanks. That is what I tried but no luck. I asked ACTi too and they said the same thing just listing the user name and password as part of it. I've gotten with Ryan at Sighthound and he had me check the URL to see if it works in VLC and it did so then he had me send him a bug report. Hopefully he can figure out my problem so I can check it out.

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