Several years ago, I looked for an ip camera system that would help reduce noise (false positives), install simply and work with a wide variety of cameras and encoding formats.  I wanted a software package that I could install on flexible computer hardware without any specialized camera needs acting as a central recording hub.  Vitamin D Video fit the bill and we used this system with various cameras from Panasonic, Axis, & Sharx.

In dealing with Vitamin D Video, I felt that we were one of their fringe customers using a higher number of cameras than typical. I scaled our hardware with a high end processor and respectable raid array for the job.  This system worked well for years until moving to a larger facility this year with some new cameras.  The HD video revolution has pushed resolutions higher quickly and at low cost.  Mid-tier cameras in 2013 ($350) are dramatically better than some expensive ones in 2008 ($1500).

The new cameras came with new Codecs and some new requirements. Sadly Vitamin D Video was not continuing development.  I got everything working using some older codecs and using reduced resolution.  After contacting Vitamin D for news about development, I found that Sighthound Video was picking up the project where Vitamin D left off.  Initially I thought this might be a rag-tag group of former developers until they really started to push the platform development at an unexpectedly rapid pace.

Now I have most of the features necessary for our multi camera environment with an excellent platform that is seeing active development again.  I highly recommend this platform as it takes a lot of the work out of similar options (even the free ones and the more expensive ones).  http://sighthoundlabs.com