Experience and Questions with Trial
Background: I’ve run several video surveillance systems at my home over the last few years and currently running Blue Iris on a PC in a closet. It’s not ideal, and would prefer to run a system like SS from a Mac Mini that sits on my desk and can be used for other things and realtime viewing. I run about 12 cameras (1080p-4k) from many vendors. Despite what seems like a high price of entry to SS, I downloaded the trial and ran 4 cameras for a few days. Very interestingly, I ran it on my M1 MacBook Air over 802.11ac. Actually smooth as silk! Kudos.
Questions/Observations:
1.) I don’t see a slower than 1x speed option for playback. Slowing down playback speed on BI is available and has been useful. Am I missing this somewhere?
2.) I’m not sure about sub-stream recording. BI allows for a low-resolution sub-stream to be used for the Continuous recording while flipping to high-resolution for Motion or Alert recording. I do see an option in camera setup on SS for “number of streams” but haven’t been successful in nailing down if that’s related or how it’s used. Advice?
3.) I don’t see an option in playback windows to zoom in on a face or object via GUI. I see I can zoom to full screen, but it’s not the same. Again, am I missing it?
4.) In the browser, if I view a cameras motion events, there is a clip for every second where motion occurs, as opposed to a single clip for an entire motion event. Is there a better way to review motion events?
5.) If I do find a motion event in the browser I want to export, I don’t see a way to do that without opening a finder window for the entire folder and hunting through all the files to find the one that matches the event seen in the browser. Again, missing something?
6.) App organization: looking through forum looks like people like the fact that there are several windows to the app and not a single interface. I’m not sure I like that, but maybe that would grow on me as it does seem utilitarian in many ways.
I have a few more questions about the iOS app and mobile experience, but I’ll start a different thread.
Again, these are just honest questions from someone interested in jumping ship on BI, but looking to ensure the product fits my uses. Would love to hear from anyone on how they tackle these tasks or differences.
Overall, very happy with the experience and feature set. Looking forward to discussions.
Questions/Observations:
1.) I don’t see a slower than 1x speed option for playback. Slowing down playback speed on BI is available and has been useful. Am I missing this somewhere?
2.) I’m not sure about sub-stream recording. BI allows for a low-resolution sub-stream to be used for the Continuous recording while flipping to high-resolution for Motion or Alert recording. I do see an option in camera setup on SS for “number of streams” but haven’t been successful in nailing down if that’s related or how it’s used. Advice?
3.) I don’t see an option in playback windows to zoom in on a face or object via GUI. I see I can zoom to full screen, but it’s not the same. Again, am I missing it?
4.) In the browser, if I view a cameras motion events, there is a clip for every second where motion occurs, as opposed to a single clip for an entire motion event. Is there a better way to review motion events?
5.) If I do find a motion event in the browser I want to export, I don’t see a way to do that without opening a finder window for the entire folder and hunting through all the files to find the one that matches the event seen in the browser. Again, missing something?
6.) App organization: looking through forum looks like people like the fact that there are several windows to the app and not a single interface. I’m not sure I like that, but maybe that would grow on me as it does seem utilitarian in many ways.
I have a few more questions about the iOS app and mobile experience, but I’ll start a different thread.
Again, these are just honest questions from someone interested in jumping ship on BI, but looking to ensure the product fits my uses. Would love to hear from anyone on how they tackle these tasks or differences.
Overall, very happy with the experience and feature set. Looking forward to discussions.
Comments
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To answer your questions:
1. I presume you mean in the Browser feature - this allows realtime and faster-than-realtime playback, but not slower-than-realtime playback. No one has actually requested this before! This wouldn't be difficult for us to add though, we'll see what we can do. Currently, if you find a segment of interest, you can drag the time cursor left/right, or you can use the left/right arrow keys on the keyboard in order to view the segment frame-by-frame for fine details.
2. SecuritySpy basically does not support substream recording - a single stream is received from the camera, and this is recorded in all cases. Substream recording increases network bandwidth (because two streams need to be obtained from the camera, not one) and increases processing load on the server (because two streams have to be processed), so we have judged that it's not a great mechanism for recording.
3. To zoom in live video windows or in the Browser, position the mouse cursor over the point you want to zoom in, hold the Command key on the keyboard and scroll up/down on the mouse/trackpad. When zoomed in, release the Command key and scroll on the mouse/trackpad to pan around the zoomed image.
4. There should be one clip per motion event, with the default settings. Under Preferences > Cameras > Motion Capture, check the following:
- "Capture movie in response to motion trigger" is ON
- Capture type is "One movie per event"
- Pre-capture is 0 or a few seconds
- Post-capture is 15 second or more
Note that when you set the browser to view motion events, you may get a list of multiple events per movie - this happens when motion is continuing while SecuritySpy is already recording. So one file can contain lots of motion events. Instead, to list movies, change the file filter at the top of the window to "All Files" or "Motion Capture Movies".
5. You don't need to go looking for files in the Finder - the Browser can display all the files. Set the filter menu at the top of the Browser window to "All Files" or "Motion Capture Movies", as appropriate.
6. This is a common difference between Mac vs PC applications, I hope you will come to like it!
Let me know if you have any further questions. -
For #5 let me clarify. I looked through the browser and found a clip i wanted to export. I could not find any “export” command. The only method I could find that worked to export a clip was to navigate to that folder in Finder. Is there a command or method to export a clip from the Browser window?
For #6 I understand this, and have been a Mac user (exclusively) for about 10 years. BI is the first and only PC app I’ve run in this time. My first reflection on the design choice of SS is that this “several windows available to choose from” style was much more common years and years ago. I understand the utility of it, but the usability feels out-dated. Just one voice of preference.
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply. I’ll try out all of these suggestions and see if they ultimately work for me. I’m in the 12+ camera group and the current pricing matrix would make this a large investment comparatively.
The iOS app is very much updated and designed very well. Love the simplicity.
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To export a clip from the Browser, select the file in the list on the left or the timeline at the bottom, click the Browser menu at the top of the screen, and you will see export options here.
As for #6, I understand what you are saying, and you are right that many Mac apps have moved towards fewer windows that each provide more functionality. It's not clear the direction we should go with SecuritySpy in this regard - the current setup allows great flexibility, and this is especially useful when multiple monitors are in use (many users do this, for example to create "video walls"). Thanks for your feedback. -
Thanks for the help navigating this. Very appreciative.
I haven't gotten into the mobile/remote setup too much, but on LAN it works well. Do you have a preferred method of connection for remote (off LAN) use? I have a Wireguard VPN setup back to home so would probably use that.
Also, I have yet to find a platform that does iOS notifications well. Unifi didn't show me previews. BI shows nice animated GIFs but doesn't allow me to pause notifications for an hour. My use case for controlling notifications is this:
I don't want to get 1,000 notifications when the kids go ride their bikes in the driveway, but I do want to get notification when a car drives up, or when a stranger walks up when we're all in the house.
How does SS handle this use case? I would think that ability to pause notification for this specific object (person vs vehicle vs any motion) for 5 min/30 min/60 min would really allow perfect control. -
For remote access, our recommended method is port forwarding in your router, and this is something that SecuritySpy can set up for you automatically in most cases (depending on the router) - please see SecuritySpy Remote Access.
Our SecuritySpy iOS app allows you to receive notifications that include preview images - see Notifications.
These can be paused for a specific time (e.g. 1 hour) using "Schedule Overrides" that can be set in SecuritySpy either directly or via the iOS app - see Recording and Schedules for information about schedule overrides.
