SecuritySpy on iMac?
Has anyone deployed SecuritySpy in their homes on an iMac? I'm currently on a very old Mac Mini and need to upgrade*. I was hoping to get a new quad core Mac Mini in Apple's latest refresh, but the new 2014 Mac Mini's are limited to dual cores across the board.
So to get quad cores, I'm looking at an iMac. I didn't want the included display, but now I'm wondering if there could be use for it. I'm wondering if any of you have an iMac and run SecuritySpy in full screen mode in the house somewhere? Many home security kits come with LCD panels to display live camera feeds. I'm wondering if any of you do the same, or have done it in the past, or have any experiences to share.
Thanks in advance.
* My current Mac Mini can't keep up with my 2 Hikvision cameras. I get lots of "Excessive packet loss from network device, the network may be too slow or defective, or this computer may be overloaded" messages.
So to get quad cores, I'm looking at an iMac. I didn't want the included display, but now I'm wondering if there could be use for it. I'm wondering if any of you have an iMac and run SecuritySpy in full screen mode in the house somewhere? Many home security kits come with LCD panels to display live camera feeds. I'm wondering if any of you do the same, or have done it in the past, or have any experiences to share.
Thanks in advance.
* My current Mac Mini can't keep up with my 2 Hikvision cameras. I get lots of "Excessive packet loss from network device, the network may be too slow or defective, or this computer may be overloaded" messages.
Comments
One thing to check is that you are closing all of SecuritySpy's video windows when not using them. On a headless Mac, the system still presents a "virtual screen" to SecuritySpy for it to display its video windows, however this virtual screen is not hardware-accelerated, and so the video display can sometimes use a lot of CPU.
Also, you could try reducing the frame rate of your two Hikvision cameras (log on to the cameras directly using a web browser to adjust their settings).
Hopefully other users can chime in with their experiences of using Mac minis vs. iMacs.
Checking that you are using the latest version of SecuritySpy is also something you should do.
If the above doesn't resolve this, then please email us and include the crash logs if you can, and we'll look into this further for you.
It sounds like your cameras are set to automatically obtain an IP address from your router (via a protocol called DHCP). This is fine for easy setup, however, as you have discovered, this may result in the IP addresses changing from time to time. Please follow our network camera setup instructions and give your cameras manual (static) IP addresses on your network.
Finally, if you'll be viewing lots of cameras at the same time, then a fast graphics card with a lot of VRAM will definitely help, especially if your cameras are particularly high resolution.
As for benchmarks and Mac specs, check out Everymac, which is a great resource for detailed information on virtually every Mac produced in the last two decades.
3 x HIKVision DS-2CD2642FWD-IS(2.8 -12mm)
IP Bullet Kamera, 1/3", 2688×1520, 30fps, IR, WDR,
H.264/MJPEG, IP66, Audio, 12VDC/PoE
and
2 x
Samsung SNV-7084P IP Dome Kamera, 1/2.8", 2048x1536,
60fps, 3-8.5mm, Tag/Nacht, WDR, H.264/MJPEG, IK10/IP66,
12VDC/24VAC/PoE
1 x
D-Link DES-1210-08P
and have following iMac 14,2
Prozessortyp: Intel Core i7
Prozessorgeschwindigkeit: 3,5 GHz
Anzahl der Prozessoren: 1
Gesamtanzahl der Kerne: 4
L2-Cache (pro Kern): 256 KB
L3-Cache: 8 MB
Speicher: 16 GB
Boot-ROM-Version: IM142.0118.B13
SMC-Version (System): 2.15f7
I thought, I could buy a old cheap Mac mini as a "permanent on" mashine but on you Mac-adviser, it tells me, I should get a Mac Pro with 12 cores and 2,7 GHz.
Can I use my present iMac with a little upgrade and what should I upgrade exactly if so?
Is there now way for using old mini mac´s anymore?
best regards
Paul
Yes you can use old Mac minis - the previous-generation 4-core models are the best as they are the most powerful. Also your iMac is a powerful machine and would be suitable.
The calculator is probably recommending quite a powerful Mac, because all your cameras are very high resolution, however if you use a frame rate of 5fps (which is still perfectly good for general-purpose video surveillance), you will be able to use a quad-core iMac or Mac mini.
( The Apple Mac mini "Core i7" 2.6 (Late 2012/Server) features a 22-nm Quad Core "Ivy Bridge" 2.6 GHz Intel "Core i7" (3720QM) processor with four independent processor "cores" on a single chip, a 6 MB shared level 3 cache, 4 GB of 1600 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (PC3-12800) memory, dual 1 TB hard drives, and Intel HD Graphics 4000 which shares system memory.)
which chugs along. it does need a kick now and again.
We run it headless but use a dongle which convinces the Mini that it has a monitor attached, thereby kicking in the graphic acceleration.
we found this by keeping an eyeball on the Apple Refurbished Equipment page.
what dongle are you using in the mini?
thank you for your quick answer. I will use my present iMac and see how far it gets me.
When I download the software to my iMac and decide later to have it all running on the mini Mac that will be connect to this iMac, do I have to buy the software again or is there a way to transfer the security-spy software?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FLZXGJ6/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00FLZXGJ6&linkCode=as2&tag=bgsco-20
and for another box I used the scheme outlined
https://macminicolo.net/blog/files/build-a-dummy-dongle-for-a-headless-mac-mini.html but it really depends on your mini.
If you have an HDMI mini it's better to use a HDMI dongle/spoofer.
BEN - sorry if those are affiliation links, feel free to edit them if you have an Amazon affiliation code.
I believe you can move SecSpy from one machine to another. At least, I did.
I was running SecSpy 3.x for years on a Mini and the disk failed. I'd been backing up my configs so after the failure I just installed SecSpy on a Mac Pro, entered my registration number and moved my configs to the new server and alles gut. The cameras were online immediately and effortlessly.
Hope that helps.
A window with 12 cameras is continuously on display. About half the cameras are doing motion detect recording. All 16 cameras are doing continuous capture.
Free CPU is about 33% with this load.
About four days ago a new neighbor had their car broken into and I was so kicking myself for not being able to assist (3MP HikVision with 12mm telephoto lens can get me license plates from fifty feet away). Anyway I'm currently running on an older Mac Pro with TWO 2.66GHz DUAL core processors and have temporarily disabled three of the cameras. CPU usage is about 50% and I don't get any ghosting in my recordings. My venerable production Mac Pro with TWO 2.8GHz QUAD core processors would probably be ideal for my application although someday I'd like to add more cameras. I was thinking more RAM would help but as I read from Ben in this thread, the real answer appears to be more and faster cores.
I LOVE Security Spy but am currently still using v3 because I liked the camera Text Overlay feature that was apparently done differently, if at all, in v4.
MANY THANKS to Ben and his elves!
The functionality of the text overlay in v4 is basically the same as in v3. If you need any further info about this please let me know.
Average CPU load is less than 5%. I could easily see this system handling dozens or perhaps even hundreds of cameras if needed, provided I added a larger disk array. Quite the improvement over my 10+ year-old Mac Pro!