Seeker wrote:i've been running blue iris (windows) for years. i love it. i run a small i7 PC with 9 cameras and it runs at about 25% CPU. $50 or so for unlimited cameras. iOS app is great, too. i have limited integration with indigo though.
Blue Iris is near enterprise-grade software at an awesome price, The developer is super responsive and features are added all the time. It is powerful enough for SMB use, cheap enough for consumers! (processing power means it tops out at about 40 cams though)
Most people that do IPC cam installations use either HiKvision or Dahua cameras (you can easily source these on ebay or look to ipcamtalk.com for some recommended aliexpress vendors) (a more limited selection is available on amazon). Stay away from all other brands, especially Foscam and Ubiquiti (ubnt are pretty well locked to the UniFi video ecosystem). I think Dahua is the best brand right now.
The Blue Iris iOS app really rocks. Notifications come thru with pics on the phone and watch. Sound and mic work (if the IPC supports them) so you can use a doorbell cam (like HiKvision's) without relying on any cloud services or proprietary apps.
I run Blue Iris on a win10 VM under Fusion with 16 cams on my Mac Pro 6,1., It uses about 40% of the resources in the VM, about 10% of the MP's resources.
Blue Iris has many ways you could integrate into indigo, but so far I really haven't seen a need to integrate the two.
I have tested SecuritySpy and the SecuritySpy app, It basically did the job, but used a LOT of resources, and lacked many of the features I like on Blue Iris, Also I find it very expensive for the number of cams I run,
I would not recommend a package system, there are so many different cams available now, you are better off choosing the best cam for each location.