Probably the biggest plus for me using Luxriot is the negligible PC load. I thought Xprotect was minimal but I run 2 4MP and 4 2MP IP cameras 24/7 and the EVO monitor and my CPU load is between 5-10% on an i5-3570K with built in graphics on the motherboard. This allows me to run Homeseer and 12TB of storage all together without breaking a sweat. I know BI keeps improving its CPU load but what I have read it still isn't that good.
I was just about to pay for BI license, but this might steer me back into trying out Luxriot. I have an HP Microserver Gen10 with an AMD X3418 Quad-Core CPU, and I was getting really high CPU utilization in BI with 9-10 cameras running. BI has some support for GPU decode, but it requires a bunch of manual fiddling and trial and error.
And I just remembered that the "save direct to disc" (e.g. without decoding/transcoding) in BI was allegedly limited to the paid edition, and unsupported in the free trial, despite that option being selectable in the GUI :facepalm:
Do any of y'all BI users know if this is still true? e.g. will my CPU utilization magically drop once I drop $60 for a license?
Seems like a really weird limitation for a trial edition attempting to induce you to pay for a product.
Here's a follow-up on this. Based on some discussion over on https://ipcamtalk.com, I bought myself a BI license and a $400 refribbed Core i7-6700 PC, including a Win10 Pro license, 16 GB, and a 512 GB SSD. I then added a $100 (at the time) external 4-bay USB drive bay, threw in a bunch of leftovers HDDs from the office, and set it up as a ReFS JBOD Storage Space.
It works pretty well, especially the web interface from any PC/Mac on the network. With 12 cameras saving direct-to-disk and QuickSync enabled for all, CPU usage is hovering around 18% if I'm just passively watching it. I currently have 9 of the cameras recording 24/7, and my rolling 7 days' worth of footage is taking up 3.78 of my 7.26 TiB (52%) of storage space on my Storage Space
I haven't set it up for iOS app access, but I'm going to spend the $12 and do that pretty soon.
Overall I will endorse this as a solution.
I'm up to 14 cameras at my house, with 3 more to be added soon, and now I have a second site at my parents' house with 4 cameras (on a separate PC), and it's all working pretty well. I did buy the $12 app, and I can switch back and forth between the 2 sites any time. I likely will add a 3rd site at my office once we move buildings.