The video monitoring system had been a challenge for several years.
Even before my employment, each campus had its own legacy NVR system. By the time COVID arrived, the organization had four campuses, each running a different system with its own quirks and limitations.
One of the biggest challenges was accessibility. There was no easy way to view cameras outside the local network at each campus, which made remote monitoring difficult.
Around that time, the organization also hired a new IT Director. Rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars replacing the systems with another enterprise solution, he had an idea to build something modern using commodity hardware.
He started purchasing older Dell OptiPlex desktops from eBay, installing two hard drives in each system using Windows software RAID, and running Blue Iris as the video management software.
For a while, it worked surprisingly well.
By the time I joined the organization, the system had began to show its limits. As more cameras were added and the systems ran continuously, stability started becoming a problem.
Some of the issues we encountered included:
- corrupted video databases
- random application crashes
- consistently high CPU usage
- playback freezing after a few seconds
- missing clips
At that point it became clear that while Blue Iris was incredibly flexible, the way we were using it was starting to push beyond what it was designed for.
To be fair, not all of the issues we were experiencing weren't directly caused by Blue Iris itself. The platform also depends on Windows, which adds another layer of complexity. From time to time Windows would freeze, encounter a blue screens, or reboot during updates and occasionally get stuck in the process. When that happens, the recording system stops as well.
By the time we started planning a fifth campus, we had pretty much decided that we didn't want continue using Blue Iris. During the process of looking for alternatives, someone had recommended we take a look at Hanwha's Wisenet Wave VMS.
It is versatile and can run on either Windows or Ubuntu Linux. The client works on macOS and there's even a mobile app for iOS and Android to view the cameras remotely.
There are different types of licenses depending on your needs. We initially used their trial licenses to evaluate the platform and it worked well for our use case. Because of that, we started purchasing their Pro Recording licenses and decided to standardize on it going forward.
While the Wave Pro Recording licenses (around $120/camera) are more expensive than Blue Iris licenses (around $100 for up to 128 cameras), they do not expire. Blue Iris doesn't require you to do ongoing payments but support and updates are limited after the first year.
Note: When purchasing Wave VMS licenses, you can export your license keys as a CSV file and keep them backed up. This is especially useful if you need to rebuild or migrate to a new server.
I recommend storing a copy of this CSV in a password manager or secure documentation system so it’s easily accessible when needed.
To export licenses, go to:
System Administration → Licenses → Export
We initially started with a “merged” system for campuses 5 and 6. However, because of how the cameras were named, both campuses ended up being mixed together in the viewer, which made navigation confusing. We eventually decided to separate them into individual systems.
One thing to keep in mind when doing this: take note of your license keys before splitting systems. In our case, the system did not automatically retain the licenses after the split, and they had to be re-applied.
For the other campuses, the transition was straightforward. We were able to repurpose the existing Dell OptiPlex systems and install Wisenet Wave VMS on it.
The camera migration was just as easy. Wave's auto-discovery feature can detect and add both ONVIF and RTSP cameras. The interface also feels more modern and easier to navigate compared to Blue Iris.
So far, we’ve been happy with how Wave VMS is performing and will most likely continue using it as our standard video monitoring system.