WestPoint · Video software
The software decides what can be done with the cameras.
Twenty platforms we work with, and one of them is ours. Here is what you need to know in order to choose; inside each one, what you need to know about it.
What a VMS is, and why it matters more than the camera.
A VMS —a video management system— is the program that governs the installation: which camera records, how long it is kept, who can see what, how you search backwards and how a recording is exported so that it stands up to somebody outside.
And it decides more than the camera, even though the camera is what you see. An installation with ordinary cameras and a good system behind it works; one with excellent cameras and a system nobody knows how to use ends up as an archive consulted after something has already happened. The difference shows after two years, not on commissioning day.
The other reason it matters is that it is the hardest thing to change. Cameras are replaced one at a time and without drama. The system is changed whole, with its history, its users, its rules and the habits of whoever uses it every day. Choosing badly is not put right the following year.
VMS and NVMS: how they differ.
A classic VMS solved recording and solved it well. What changed was not the VMS: it was the number of cameras. When you go from twelve to six hundred, storing stops being the problem and watching becomes the problem, because a room with forty screens does not have forty pairs of eyes.
An NVMS —Neural Video Management System— starts exactly there: as well as managing the video, it understands what is happening in the scene and applies the rules the organisation has written. Almost every VMS on this list now brings some analytics; the difference is whether understanding the scene is at the centre of the system or bolted on at the side.
You do not have to choose between the two, and in fact in many installations they live together: the VMS governs cameras and recording, and the NVMS contributes what it understands. That gets built too, and it is more common than it looks.
A warning: the first one is ours.
It goes here and not buried away, because this is the page where things get compared.
IRIS Neural, which heads the list, is a product of Infinity Neural, the other company in Upon Group. With the other nineteen we are integrators; with that one, we are also the people who make it.
We say so because a list of twenty where the first one is yours and does not say so is an advert shaped like a comparison — and anyone who works that out for themselves stops believing the other nineteen pages too, which are written seriously.
The seven questions that really choose.
The brand does not ask them. The installation does, and almost always in this order.
- How many cameras are there today and how many will there be? The jump from a hundred to a thousand is not the same system, and the licence model that comes out cheap with twenty may not with two hundred.
- One site or several? Federating sites, with their latency and their crossed permissions, separates one platform from another more than anything else.
- Where does the video have to live? Local, cloud or a mix. And behind that question come four more: what happens when the line goes down, how much bandwidth actually gets uploaded, where the servers are for GDPR purposes, and what you take with you the day you want to leave.
- What does it have to talk to? Access, intruder detection, fire, the HR system, the ERP. An integration the manufacturer calls native is still work, and that gets tested on a mock-up before it is promised.
- Who is going to use it every day? A room with operators on shifts is not the same as a manager who logs in twice a week. The most powerful platform in the hands of somebody who is not going to learn it is the worst possible choice.
- Who is going to administer it? If the client's IT team runs it, there are platforms that allow almost all of it and others that depend on the integrator for almost everything. It is set out platform by platform.
- What is already installed? Cameras, recorders, cabling and existing licences. What is kept and what is not is half the budget, and it is established by looking, not by estimating.
What we do with any of them.
Design and sizing: how many servers, how much storage for the days of recording actually needed, what network holds it and what happens when something fails. Almost every problem with a large video system is a sizing problem, not a software one.
Deployment, commissioning and migration from whatever was there. Training for whoever is going to use it, which is the part most often trimmed and most often missed. And documentation that is useful without us: if you change supplier tomorrow, you take away a system that can be understood.
And maintenance with a schedule. A video system degrades silently —a camera that stops recording does not tell you— and that either gets watched or it does not get known.
The twenty.
Each one with what it is, how it is built, who it suits, who it does NOT suit, and who can administer it after we leave.
What we are not going to tell you.
Which is the best. There is no such thing: there is the one that fits your installation, your people and what you already have. Anyone who tells you which is best without having seen your camera network is telling you which one they work with.
Nor that we are an official partner, authorised channel or certified integrator for these. When we are for one of them, it is said with the paperwork in front of you; on a list of twenty, implying it about all of them is exactly the kind of thing this website does not do.
What people ask about the software.
The ones that come up most. There are 35 on this subject, and the other 29 are in the question index.
All the questions, by subject▸What is the difference between a VMS and an NVR recorder?
A recorder is a closed box that does one thing: record the cameras that fit on it and let people watch them. A video management system —a VMS— is a program installed on servers that separates the functions: one records, another holds the configuration and the users, another serves the clients doing the watching, and each piece grows on its own.
That separation is what changes the behaviour as things grow. A recorder fills up and you buy another, and you end up with six recorders that are six islands with six user lists and six clocks that do not agree. A VMS adds one more recording server and it is still one system, with one user list, one search that crosses every camera and one place to look at what is failing.
The trade-off is that a VMS is a computer system, with its servers, its database, its updates and somebody to administer it. For a shop with eight cameras, a well-chosen recorder is the right answer and building a VMS is making life difficult. The point where the answer changes is not a number of cameras: it is when there are several sites, when fine control of who sees what is needed, or when the video has to talk to other systems.
VMS and recorders: how they differ What an NVMS is, explained in IRIS
▸Do I need a VMS or is the recorder I already have enough?
The recorder is enough as long as three things hold: everything fits in one place, everyone watching can see every camera, and the video does not have to be integrated with anything else. As soon as one of the three fails, the recorder starts costing in hours what it saved in licences.
The signs that it has been outgrown are fairly specific. There are two or three recorders and nobody knows which one the camera you are looking for is on. A shift supervisor has to be given access to some cameras and not others, and the only way is to give them the password to everything. Exports are needed often and it always ends up being the same person doing it. Or somebody asks for the door alarm to bring up the door camera, and there is no way in.
There is also a middle route that gets forgotten: several recorders joined under a management program from the same manufacturer. It solves the single view and the user list without building servers, and it falls short when integrations or a detailed permissions policy are needed. It is a reasonable option when what grates is the scattering and not the lack of functions.
VMS and recorders: how they differ What an NVMS is, explained in IRIS
▸Will the VMS work with the cameras I already have?
Almost always yes, by two different routes, and it is worth knowing which one applies to you. The first is specific integration: the software manufacturer has written support for that particular model and exposes everything the camera can do. The second is ONVIF, the common standard, which guarantees the basics —viewing, recording, moving a motorised camera, receiving events— with any equipment that complies with it.
Over ONVIF you get what is common and you lose each brand's own functions: its on-board analytics, its fine image adjustments, its special modes. If those functions were what justified buying those cameras, you have to check that the system genuinely has them integrated and not just that it «supports the brand», which is not the same thing.
The check is done before signing and with the real cameras: model by model and firmware version included, because a software manufacturer's list of supported equipment refers to specific models and not to whole families. An old camera that no longer receives firmware is the case that most often fails that check.
Video software: what governs the cameras Cameras and software: what talks to what
▸How is a VMS licensed?
The normal way is paying per channel, that is, per connected camera, plus a base licence for the system. On top of that structure each manufacturer adds its own: product tiers with different functions, separate licences for redundancy, for integrations with other systems, for analytics or for each operator position.
There are two details that change the budget and do not appear in the first offer. One: what counts as a camera. A multisensor with several lenses usually consumes several licences, and on a project with many of them that can be a big difference. Two: what is paid for separately. A system that is cheap per channel with site federation, redundancy and the access module invoiced separately ends up somewhere else entirely.
That is why comparing platforms is done with the same scope written down: same cameras, same workstations, same integrations, same redundancy and the same horizon of years of maintenance. Comparing price per channel on its own is the easiest way to get it wrong.
▸Perpetual licence or subscription?
They are two ways of spreading the same cost over time, and the choice depends on how the company buys. Perpetual is a large purchase at the start, you use it for as long as you like, and separately you pay an annual software contract that gives you the manufacturer's updates and support. Subscription is a fee that includes updates and the right to use, and there is no licence left if you stop paying.
Perpetual fits where there is capital budget and the installation is stable, and where it matters that the system keeps working even if the maintenance is not renewed one year. Subscription fits where predictable running costs are preferred, where the number of cameras moves, and on cloud-hosted systems, which are almost always licensed that way.
The sums have to be done over several years and not just the first, because past a certain point the two curves cross. And you have to include in them what usually gets left out: what happens to the renewal price when it comes round, and whether the licences you buy today are valid for the major version released in a few years or have to be upgraded.
▸What happens if I stop paying for the software maintenance?
With a perpetual licence, the system keeps working and recording: what you lose is the right to new versions and the manufacturer's support. With a subscription, what you lose is the right to use it, and there it does stop — each manufacturer defines what happens and for how long you can still get at what was recorded.
The problem with letting maintenance lapse on a perpetual system does not appear in the first year, it appears in the third. Without updates the security patches do not arrive, and the system stays anchored to a version that gradually stops accepting the new cameras you buy and the new operating systems on the workstations. The day you have to extend it, catching up costs more than the years you did not pay.
On top of that, many manufacturers have a rule for coming back: rejoining maintenance after dropping it means paying the intervening years or buying again. It is worth asking before signing, because it is one of those conditions you only find out about when you already need it.
VMS licences: how they are counted Technical support: maintaining the system
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Which one is yours?
Tell us how many cameras there are, how many sites, what is already installed and who is going to use it. With that we can say which ones make sense and which do not — and if none of ours fits, we will say that too.