Blue Iris Hardare Requirements

fenderman

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Ok, thx a lot for advice. I wasn't aware of these drawbacks.. I've seen your recommendations on i5 refurbished business systems, however, those aren't sold in Finland unfortunately. So do you have any recommendation in my situation? :/
Make sure the system is at least gen2 i5 (sandy bridge) or newer.
 

bp2008

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Ok, thx a lot for advice. I wasn't aware of these drawbacks.. I've seen your recommendations on i5 refurbished business systems, however, those aren't sold in Finland unfortunately. So do you have any recommendation in my situation? :/
I'm sure you can find some place selling refurbished or used systems at a reasonable price. Through ebay perhaps? You might not get a warranty, but that is rarely needed anyway. Just don't overpay for some underpowered or very old machine like that one you linked. If in doubt, link here and someone can probably tell you if it is any good.
 

bp2008

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That is an "Ivy Bridge" model, one generation older than Haswell. I don't know what the market is like over there in finland but for that price in the USA you could get a haswell i5.

That said, its Quick Sync does work for Blue Iris hardware accelerated decoding, and it would be a lot better than the Xeon for sure.
 

fenderman

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Okay, perhaps this one, i5-3470? https://www.vstore.fi/tuote/528/dell_optiplex_9010/ (that is a site selling used business systems)

Wikipedia says about Haswell: "This generation of Quick Sync supports the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, VC-1 and H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 video standards." are these essential/recommended for blue iris?
Yes. That is not haswell, that system is ivy bridge (3rd gen) haswell processors begin with a 4.
EDIT: BP beat me once again :)
 

bp2008

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I think the site says that price includes 24% VAT tax. If that is in fact included in the 290.00 € then the price isn't so bad. Oh by the way you do want Windows 10 on it, not 7. 7 won't let you use hardware acceleration when Blue Iris is in service mode.
 

olli

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Thx to both again. :) yeah, sorry for not being specific. I just meant to ask, would it be fine with Ivy Bridge (i5-3470, which seems to support quick sync but not H264 which most Hikvision cameras use??) or would I really benefit from a Haswell one? I may not even be able find a ready-installed Haswell one at all. Can Ivy Bridge and Haswell changed directly, or does that require a motherboard change, too? Prices are higher in Finland than in USA :/

EDIT: bp2008, yeah it includes VAT tax & shipping too + 12 months warranty. and,yes Win 10 definitely =)
 

bp2008

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Ivy Bridge and Haswell do not work on the same motherboards. It would not be worth buying a Haswell CPU anyway if you already had an Ivy Bridge.

Ivy Bridge's quick sync does support H264. I've used it on i7 and i3 models and know it works.
 

olli

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Okay, thanks... would I be fine running 5-6 4MP cameras recording 24/7 without motion detection with i5-3470? What would be a "maximum" amount of cameras for that processor? I know it's hard to say specific, but just a rough estimate would be nice =)
 

bp2008

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Should be fine. You could probably run at least 12 of them, though probably at reduced frame rate. (10-15 FPS) You really don't want to go near 100% under normal circumstances because you need some CPU left over for remote viewing, clip exports, Windows defender (ugh), and other stuff like that.
 

olli

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That's nice :) thx for advice again.
 

CaliGirl

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I read the entire thread and I'm a bit out of my element on windows computer.

Canon someone please suggest a Desktop computer to run Blue Iris, 4-8 4mp cameras? and remote login using my macbook pro from far away to see recordings. Been using Macs at work for video editing last 5years so don't have a lot of windows experience. I have no idea what is strong enough and what would be a waste of $. $500 would be a good price for my budget.

 
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millek05

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Should be fine. You could probably run at least 12 of them, though probably at reduced frame rate. (10-15 FPS) You really don't want to go near 100% under normal circumstances because you need some CPU left over for remote viewing, clip exports, Windows defender (ugh), and other stuff like that.
bp2008 quick question for you. I have a single 1080 p camera running Blue Iris full version on a Beelink BT7 "Media TV" pc deal: Specs: Intel Atom X7-Z8700 Quad-core with a maximum clock speed of up to 2.40GHz (2M cache) 4GB DDR3 RAM. Windows 10 64bit. Writing out to a 5400 USB 3.1 drive. (soon to be SSD Drive) Anyway I am running this thing at 90% CPU load and had to modify it to run it cooler. Still crashes weekly. My main reason for this little guy is I didn't want to listen to a loud fan as all my cat 5 home runs come into wall behind my entertainment center in living room. I just read writing out direct to disk setting may solve my issue wondering if any other options may work. My camera is a IMPORX Mini dome PTZ 20x zoom 1080p. I fully realize I have undersized my system with low power compute PC but just trying to make it work as I only need the one camera. I love how small and quiet this thing is and it has a 4k HDMI output to my LCD 60" and with blue tooth little keyboard it is excellent little deal. It does have Intel Graphics. Throw it in google to see what it is. Anyway question is camera performance setting recommendations etc.. to get this baby to work would be greatly appreciated. I just ordered an SSD external drive hoping to get CPU cycles down a bit. I have "issues" in my neighborhood and as such I must record front of my property 7/24 preferably in High Def. Thanks for your help or anyone else that wants to chime in on the topic.
 

bp2008

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bp2008 quick question for you. I have a single 1080 p camera running Blue Iris full version on a Beelink BT7 "Media TV" pc deal: Specs: Intel Atom X7-Z8700 Quad-core
Hello. Lucky I noticed this post :)

That CPU does not have the Quick Sync feature so hardware accelerated decoding won't work (you should turn it off in BI if you enabled it). Direct to disk you should definitely enable. You can also reduce CPU load by reducing the camera's frame rate in the camera's web interface. 15 FPS is the highest I would go. If you have Blue Iris sized anywhere near 4K resolution it will be using a huge amount of CPU time just drawing the video to the screen. Go into Blue Iris Options > Cameras tab (same place the hardware acceleration option is) and limit the live preview rate as necessary to reduce your CPU usage. Start with, say, 10 FPS and go from there. This may be the most important thing you do for performance, actually. Blue Iris is really slow at drawing video on screen. Although if you only have one 2MP camera, I may be overestimating the impact of drawing that video.

An SSD won't help reduce CPU usage in the slightest.
 

Zanthexter

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I just read writing out direct to disk setting may solve my issue wondering if any other options may work.
Recompressing video is very CPU intensive.

Direct-to-disk recording does not recompress video. Therefore it is not CPU intensive.

Try recording direct-to-disk before looking for alternatives. You'll maintain original video quality and reduce your CPU usage.

It's also worth noting that even at 90% it shouldn't be crashing regularly. Do you have it in a cupboard by any chance? sounds like it's either poorly ventilated or using a heatsink without a fan.

An SSD won't help significantly with your CPU usage because he hard drive is not the bottleneck. Recompressing video is. Waste of an SSD unless the HDD is a bottleneck. And it isn't likely to be with one camera.

I have a 3MP (2688x1520 @ 20FPS) camera running on an old Pentium E5300 system and it's only hitting 50% CPU utilization.

Personally it drives me crazy that to get BI to work you have to dial things down or replace an entire machine instead of just adding hardware. But it is what it is.
 

millek05

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Recompressing video is very CPU intensive.

Direct-to-disk recording does not recompress video. Therefore it is not CPU intensive.

Try recording direct-to-disk before looking for alternatives. You'll maintain original video quality and reduce your CPU usage.

It's also worth noting that even at 90% it shouldn't be crashing regularly. Do you have it in a cupboard by any chance? sounds like it's either poorly ventilated or using a heatsink without a fan.

An SSD won't help significantly with your CPU usage because he hard drive is not the bottleneck. Recompressing video is. Waste of an SSD unless the HDD is a bottleneck. And it isn't likely to be with one camera.

I have a 3MP (2688x1520 @ 20FPS) camera running on an old Pentium E5300 system and it's only hitting 50% CPU utilization.

Personally it drives me crazy that to get BI to work you have to dial things down or replace an entire machine instead of just adding hardware. But it is what it is.
Thanks guys one last question. Up to this point I have not turned on the PTZ Zone Sweep deal in BI. If I was to do this would this consume a bunch of CPU? Additionally a link to white paper on how to configure the zone sweeping would be nice having a hard time figuring that part out. Again thank you guys very much for your feedback greatly appreciated!!
 

jpbutler

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I have an iMac 2.93 GHz Intel i7 with 8 GB 1333 MHz. Not sure if this is important but the graphics card is a ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024MB. I currently have a Windows 7 VM running Blue Iris. I've dedicated 6 processor cores to the VM. I have been running one Hikvision bullet and just plugged in another. Once i plugged in the second my CPU temps are in the 180s. Does my iMac have enough processing power for 2-3 Hikvision cameras?
 

bp2008

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I have an iMac 2.93 GHz Intel i7 with 8 GB 1333 MHz. Not sure if this is important but the graphics card is a ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024MB. I currently have a Windows 7 VM running Blue Iris. I've dedicated 6 processor cores to the VM. I have been running one Hikvision bullet and just plugged in another. Once i plugged in the second my CPU temps are in the 180s. Does my iMac have enough processing power for 2-3 Hikvision cameras?
It should be fast enough, but you will need to keep the frame rates sane, use direct to disc recording, and maybe limit the live preview rate.
 

essjay

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bp2008 quick question for you. I have a single 1080 p camera running Blue Iris full version on a Beelink BT7 "Media TV" pc deal: Specs: Intel Atom X7-Z8700 Quad-core with a maximum clock speed of up to 2.40GHz (2M cache) 4GB DDR3 RAM. Windows 10 64bit. Writing out to a 5400 USB 3.1 drive. (soon to be SSD Drive) Anyway I am running this thing at 90% CPU load and had to modify it to run it cooler. Still crashes weekly. My main reason for this little guy is I didn't want to listen to a loud fan as all my cat 5 home runs come into wall behind my entertainment center in living room. I just read writing out direct to disk setting may solve my issue wondering if any other options may work. My camera is a IMPORX Mini dome PTZ 20x zoom 1080p. I fully realize I have undersized my system with low power compute PC but just trying to make it work as I only need the one camera. I love how small and quiet this thing is and it has a 4k HDMI output to my LCD 60" and with blue tooth little keyboard it is excellent little deal. It does have Intel Graphics. Throw it in google to see what it is. Anyway question is camera performance setting recommendations etc.. to get this baby to work would be greatly appreciated. I just ordered an SSD external drive hoping to get CPU cycles down a bit. I have "issues" in my neighborhood and as such I must record front of my property 7/24 preferably in High Def. Thanks for your help or anyone else that wants to chime in on the topic.
My BI machine is an i7 4790, 32GB RAM, 6 or 7 spinning drives, 2 or 3 SSD's etc etc.... I have a Seasonic fanless PSU and a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Air CPU Cooler in the PC. The machine itself is located in our spare bedroom, around 4ft or 5ft from the bed, and on occasion when I sleep in that room I can't hear a thing (plus I'm a very light sleeper).

PC's can be made very quiet.
 

Chuckv

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I read the entire thread and I'm a bit out of my element on windows computer.

Canon someone please suggest a Desktop computer to run Blue Iris, 4-8 4mp cameras? and remote login using my macbook pro from far away to see recordings. Been using Macs at work for video editing last 5years so don't have a lot of windows experience. I have no idea what is strong enough and what would be a waste of $. $500 would be a good price for my budget.

Any HP elite, HP Prodesk, Dell Optiplex i5 4570 or higher performance per PassMark - Intel Core i5-4570 @ 3.20GHz - Price performance comparison. Also usff is always the best fit and are often quiet by design. I have 8 cameras running off of a Prodesk i5 4570 at 60% CPU usage running 25fps. Paid $250 on eBay.
 
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