Caveat emptor. Synology's Surveillance Station is frankly an appalling piece of software. It relies on old, no longer supported NPAPI browser plugins to work. Image quality is questionable when you use decent cameras; the direct stream from my Axis cameras at low CBR looks better than what I get from Surveillance Station at much higher CBR. It seems to transcode h.264->h.264 and mangles the quality in the process.
Supposedly here's a new version coming out soon that drops web browser access in favour of native Windows/Mac clients. Still, check the synology surveillance station forums before you buy this.
As in this application the NAS is just being used as a low power PC why not just use a cheap PC (eg a secondhand Dell or HP from eBay) running Linux with the ZoneMinder software.
The reasoning is power consumption. I do not think you can get a PC to consume low power unless it is built using mobile components, like the expensive NUC. Also, setting up a GNU/Linux distribution is somewhat more complex than setting up an appliance. OK, not by a large margin in this case.
I've used Surveillance Station for almost 2 years now, and it has been near unusable for most of that time. Stay as far away as possible if you want to view your cameras on a mac. I gave up after multiple support tickets with Synology (whose support is almost as bad as the Surveillance station software).
After buying a new windows desktop to use solely to access Surveillance Station, problems still persisted. For starters, Internet Explorer is your only browser option. If they are going to force you to use only one browser anyway, why not just make a standalone app?
The timeline is buggy and constantly freezes, requiring a page refresh. Changing playback speed has no effect. If all you want to do is view live cameras, it's a decent setup. But if you think you will need to scrub through recording to find things, be ready to pull out a lot of hair. I've found it easier to mount the folder containing the recording and just open the video files directly.
We are opening a new location, and because of my experience with Surveillance Station so far we've decided to use a different solution (Unifi by Ubiquiti, but I haven't installed it yet so I can't make any comparisons)
That is an interesting perspective on the Mac side. Can't comment on that since I don't personally use Macs.
Ref. IE being the only browser option - that is definitely not the case. Firefox (32-bit) also works. Firefox 64-bit doesn't work because of the NPAPI plugin incompatibility (mentioned in an earlier comment and also in the article itself). Anyways, with 8.0 beta, they are making a standalone app for the desktop.
FWIW, I haven't had too much trouble with the timeline, but, I have never had the need to do it on a frequent basis. While not claiming that Surveillance Station is bug-free, I believe a lot of the issues could be browser-dependent also. In any case, the tip about accessing the video files directly will surely be appreciated by many readers.
Ubiquiti is good, and the Unifi micro has been on my watchlist for some time now. But, note that they either supply you a NVR or run your own server with their software. Synology's Surveillance Station is a value-add to the primary purpose / core features of a NAS.
The interesting thing is my IP cameras have decent software with most of the Synology functionality built-in. Basically all one needs is some kind of storage, and the only downside is it's per camera, although the maker does have DVR software, but it's Windows only.
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ydeer - Thursday, December 22, 2016 - link
Caveat emptor.Synology's Surveillance Station is frankly an appalling piece of software. It relies on old, no longer supported NPAPI browser plugins to work.
Image quality is questionable when you use decent cameras; the direct stream from my Axis cameras at low CBR looks better than what I get from Surveillance Station at much higher CBR. It seems to transcode h.264->h.264 and mangles the quality in the process.
Supposedly here's a new version coming out soon that drops web browser access in favour of native Windows/Mac clients. Still, check the synology surveillance station forums before you buy this.
supdawgwtfd - Sunday, January 1, 2017 - link
It definitely doesn't transcode anything... The CPU would not be able to handle that at all.Duncan Macdonald - Thursday, December 22, 2016 - link
As in this application the NAS is just being used as a low power PC why not just use a cheap PC (eg a secondhand Dell or HP from eBay) running Linux with the ZoneMinder software.sanf780 - Friday, December 23, 2016 - link
The reasoning is power consumption. I do not think you can get a PC to consume low power unless it is built using mobile components, like the expensive NUC.Also, setting up a GNU/Linux distribution is somewhat more complex than setting up an appliance. OK, not by a large margin in this case.
Myusernameisedward - Thursday, December 22, 2016 - link
I've used Surveillance Station for almost 2 years now, and it has been near unusable for most of that time. Stay as far away as possible if you want to view your cameras on a mac. I gave up after multiple support tickets with Synology (whose support is almost as bad as the Surveillance station software).After buying a new windows desktop to use solely to access Surveillance Station, problems still persisted. For starters, Internet Explorer is your only browser option. If they are going to force you to use only one browser anyway, why not just make a standalone app?
The timeline is buggy and constantly freezes, requiring a page refresh. Changing playback speed has no effect. If all you want to do is view live cameras, it's a decent setup. But if you think you will need to scrub through recording to find things, be ready to pull out a lot of hair. I've found it easier to mount the folder containing the recording and just open the video files directly.
We are opening a new location, and because of my experience with Surveillance Station so far we've decided to use a different solution (Unifi by Ubiquiti, but I haven't installed it yet so I can't make any comparisons)
ganeshts - Thursday, December 22, 2016 - link
That is an interesting perspective on the Mac side. Can't comment on that since I don't personally use Macs.Ref. IE being the only browser option - that is definitely not the case. Firefox (32-bit) also works. Firefox 64-bit doesn't work because of the NPAPI plugin incompatibility (mentioned in an earlier comment and also in the article itself). Anyways, with 8.0 beta, they are making a standalone app for the desktop.
FWIW, I haven't had too much trouble with the timeline, but, I have never had the need to do it on a frequent basis. While not claiming that Surveillance Station is bug-free, I believe a lot of the issues could be browser-dependent also. In any case, the tip about accessing the video files directly will surely be appreciated by many readers.
Ubiquiti is good, and the Unifi micro has been on my watchlist for some time now. But, note that they either supply you a NVR or run your own server with their software. Synology's Surveillance Station is a value-add to the primary purpose / core features of a NAS.
Threska - Monday, January 2, 2017 - link
The interesting thing is my IP cameras have decent software with most of the Synology functionality built-in. Basically all one needs is some kind of storage, and the only downside is it's per camera, although the maker does have DVR software, but it's Windows only.BrokenCrayons - Friday, December 23, 2016 - link
1080p cameras seem like overkill for an in-home surveillance system.