30-35 cameras on PC NVR?

[Bikeordie1]

Hi guys, new member here! As a light introduction, I manage IT for a small corporation and have years of experience in PC hardware and network admin, but new to the surveillance world.

Our plant here is quite large and yet still has no camera system in place, I've been here for a couple years now so it's time to change that. We want to put in 30-35 cameras Indoor/Outdoor to be used with motion detection where it can be used and reviewed at a later time on a case-by-case basis. So very little need for live viewing. Looking at storing around 2 weeks of footage on each cam. From what i've found, POE IP cams somewhere in the 2-3MP range at 10fps should look ok. I'd like to use BlueIris software as it seems to check all my boxes. My concern is the CPU requirement with this many cams on one machine at 2-3MP/10fps with BI. Is this possible with for example an i7-5820k and 16G's ram? From what i'm reading, the CPU overhead is drastic with BI.

Any general recommendations about running this many 2-3MP cams on a homemade PC NVR are welcome as well. For storage I'll probably be running 4-6 WD Purple drives in raid 5

Thank you!

 

[fenderman]

You should be able to handle that many cameras with the 5820 if you use the tips in many of the threads here like recording direct to disk and limiting live preview frames..also since you will not be live viewing you will save some cpu cycles (although live view is a great way to visually confirm that everything is working properly)
Note that if you have areas that a very dark at night or low light during the day you will better off with 1.3mp cameras than with 3mp cams..
Another thing to consider is that since it appears you will not be using any of the advanced options of blue iris like various motion detection and alert schedules...you may be better off using the VMS from the maker of your camera like hikvisions ivms 4200 or dahua pss and use a regular i5 haswell...you will save money on the system and power use as well..the 5820 has a high 140w tdp...
Finally also consider a 64ch NVR...by the same maker of the cams you end up getting...
While Blue iris is awesome and i have many installations, for this purpose you may be better off with the other options mentioned...

 

[Bikeordie1]

Thank you fenderman! Yes I briefly considered simpler VMS options but I will be using some of the more advanced features of BI, specifically alerts and motion detection masking to prevent unwanted recording from known movement that we don't care about.

So more MP isnt always the best bet. Thank you for that tip, there are a handful of the cams that will always be in low light rooms. In that case, should I be trying to go more towards 2MP rather than 3MP to reduce load and still get a "good" picture? Is there a big step up from 2MP to 3?

Thank you again

 

[fenderman]

You can do masking in IVMS/pss or NVR's...as well as alerts...blue iris does offer extra flexibility in that area because it allows using duplicate cameras to have various motion settings for alerts vs recording..but if you want true motion alerts you will want to use pir sensors...
Contrary to popular belief a 3mp will generally not provide a significantly better picture than a 2mp camera...it will just provide a greater coverage area..but interestingly with hikvision, in 2mp mode you get a wider horizontal view and in 3mp you get a bit less horizontal and a much larger vertical fov...
In fact I have most of my hikvisions set at 1080p...
note just setting the camera to 1.3mp will not improve the low light image you need to get a 1.3mp or 2mp camera instead of the 3mp....what i would suggest is getting one of each and testing them in the location you want to use them...you will see that the lower mp cameras have a lower lux rating making them better at night.

 

[Razer]

I am an IT guy as well with a very, very large setup of cameras. I looked at BI but with my number of cameras I wanted less of a PC overhead as I have 80+ separate servers. I looked at a lot of options and ended up with Exacq as my software of choice mainly because I have multiple locations and hundreds of cameras that I needed to be able to monitor all form one app on my desktop or laptop. Yes, I have to pay for the software which would be much more than BI would be, but I also save on the PC hardware side. For a single site you'd be looking at $50 per camera for a years license. $1750 just in software in your case. The upside is you could run it on much less hardware.

Below I will show the CPU usage on a quick sample system, this has 23 Hik 3mp cameras from LTS and one ACTi hemispheric. All at least 2mp mode with several running 3mp.

Normal CPU usage with four cameras rotating in the client.

CPU usage with every single camera on screen at once.

And lastly with the client totally closed, but the service still running and cameras recording.

All of the above usage is while I am in the system remotely via a VNC client, and it is hosing the Exacq web client also. The best part is that this is an i3, with only 4gb of ram as you'll see below. I now build my own computers as I am using encoders for the analogs and not purchasing the Exacq DVR/NVR hardware any longer so I use an i5 CPU just because why not. Anyway, my standard systems including the cost of windows, an SSD for the OS, and 6tb of storage is around $1,100 total. Not bad at all.

BI may well be a better choice for your needs and goodness knows it is cheaper! You might try a few things out and see what works best for your specific needs. I tried out over 20 software packages before choosing and while it was a lot of work I do have the best system for our specific needs now. Lots of people here to help you out so ask away!

 

[wozzzzza]

Note that if you have areas that a very dark at night or low light during the day you will better off with 1.3mp cameras than with 3mp cams..

why is this the case??

 

[fenderman]

why is this the case??

My understanding is that because there area fewer pixels for the same size sensor (1/3) each pixel is bigger and allows for more light to enter...
Here is a similar explanation by HTC for their cell phone cameras http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-explains-why-4-megapixels-are-better-than-8/
Bottom line is that when you look at the images side by side you can see a significant difference between 3mp and 1.3mp with respect to low light performance...
You can get very good nightvision out of a 3mp camera if you add regular light or more IR light...the issues is amplified when its pitch black and outdoors where there is little for the IR to reflect off of..

 

[wozzzzza]

ok cool.