Advice for dedicated BI build - lots of details inside!

[jkelley]

Hi all, this is my first post but I have been enjoying reading around this site. Tons of great info. I’m piecing together a lot of the Blue Iris build threads for recommendations but before I pull the trigger on anything I would like if some of y’all would comment on my current goals and build plan relevant to what I’m hoping to achieve. I hope I have all details of my goals listed below but if not please let me know and I will answer soon!

My goals:
My BI machine will be dedicated to BI only

I already have a Mini-ITX case that I want to utilize – it’s already built as a test server for linux when I was playing around with that but it does not have server components. A cheap CPU+mobo integrated passive cooled setup. It sounds silly to build the system around a case but my office doesn’t have a lot of space and this fits perfectly where I want it to go with access to my KVM switch (I run other stuff like my NAS,

Plan is 8 to 12 POE cameras. No Wifi on this system.

POE cameras only – I can run any cat5 I need in my house, I’ve already done it for my current 4 camera NVR system (ZMODO junk). My whole system is gigabit and I will be purchasing a larger POE switch to support more cameras.

I don’t care about audio, so video only

Cameras will be fixed, I don’t need or want PTZ.

I really want to be able to read license plates from about 20 meters for (2) outdoor cameras. The indoor cameras I think will be fine at something with a little less resolution to save me some CPU power.

I want to have some good low-light (especially outdoor) resolution and detail.

I’ll probably have 4 outdoor cameras, and at least 4 indoor cameras (up to 8 indoor cameras maybe, just for funsies).

Cameras: I think I’ve picked out my outdoor cameras, HIKVISION DS-2CD2342WD-I 4MP EXIR HDR. They’re $130 for the original English model which I feel is a good value number for a camera of this quality. I may even use these as my indoor cameras unless there is a great priced lower MP camera. I don’t personally care what “type” they are (bullet, dome, etc) but I do like the look of these dome types. I currently have 4 (low quality) bullets which I will sell or throw away when I build my new system.

Storage: is not critical. This is my home system. If the hard drive crashes, it’s whatever. I’ll just replace it. I don’t need to keep a bunch of data. 30 days is my intent but I don’t even really care about that. But I’m not going to do a RAID setup or anything (like I did with my NAS J ). I would like to setup the cameras to do low FPS recording when no motion trigger, but much higher FPS when motion is triggered. Only to save some energy and CPU and lessens the RW on the drive so it might last a little longer.

I’m thinking 30 FPS when motion is triggered. No motion trigger may be down to 1 fps I don’t really care lol (but let’s say 10 fps for now).

It’s imperative that I’m able to view my system on my smartphone but I think that’s the easy part considering it’s a BI build.

I don’t want to run any unnecessary components, to save power. But power isn’t my leading concern.

I want to be able to be able to automatically upload some amount of video data to some “cloud” storage of some type. Like the most recent 20 minutes of video feed from each camera. I haven’t looked into how to do this yet, though. In case someone breaks in and decides to go into my office and jack up all my PCs because they see the cameras. It would be nice to have the most recent 20 minutes of footage for this instance so I can put that mother trucker in jail!

My build plan:

I7-6700 skylake 8M LGA1151 (65W)

ASRock H170M-ITX/DL LGA 1151 Intel H170 (this is a pretty cheap mobo because I really felt I didn’t need a kickass mobo, remember this isn’t a business-critical machine or anything)

2x4GB (8GB) DDR4 2113 (PC4 17000)

450W PLUS GOLD psu (will this be enough? Or should I plan for getting a PSU twice what my average load is so if 300W average -> 600W PSU, to get peak efficiency out of the PSU?)

1 TB Seagate 7200 rpm regular HDD (I will have 3 of these in the build because I already have them… but I’ll probably only use one)

120GB SSD for the OS (64-bit W10)

For the video card I’m thinking of a cheap, low profile, low power, passively cooled 64-bit card? Does anyone see any issues with this?

I will run this PC on a fairly nice UPS. The PC will run 24/7.


Doing stuff like this is a hobby for me. I usually value budget. I get what I NEED, but I don’t blow money on ridiculous parts that I won’t get reasonable use out of. I’m figuring the parts cost of what I’ve said above is about $2,500 so let’s just say my budget is around there? I could really use y’alls recommendations on reasonable cameras and system components that will fit my needs. Are 4MP cameras way overkill? But they seemed like a good bang for the buck? Should I get them for the outdoor cameras but find something else for the indoors?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Q™]

Presently BLue Iris only utilizes Intel HD graphics for hardware accelleration, so the graphics card is presently useless to BI.

 

[jkelley]

Presently BLue Iris only utilizes Intel HD graphics for hardware accelleration, so the graphics card is presently useless to BI.

To clarify, you mean that BI only supports hardware acceleration for the Intel HD graphics so therefor I should use the integrated graphics and NOT use another video card?

 

[PSPCommOp]

I'm new here but from what ive read for that many cameras, your not gonna get much time out of 3 1TB drives. Also, if you're trying to conserve energy, the 5400 rpm will do the same job and save u some power there. I was originally gonna go with 2 4TB WD Purples but decided its better to go with 1 6TB instead. Just something to consider if you're looking to save some energy and also have a decent amount of time for recordings. U said specifically 30 days, from everything ive seen with that many cameras you're only looking at a few days

 

[jkelley]

I'm new here but from what ive read for that many cameras, your not gonna get much time out of 3 1TB drives. Also, if you're trying to conserve energy, the 5400 rpm will do the same job and save u some power there. I was originally gonna go with 2 4TB WD Purples but decided its better to go with 1 6TB instead. Just something to consider if you're looking to save some energy and also have a decent amount of time for recordings. U said specifically 30 days, from everything ive seen with that many cameras you're only looking at a few days

Thanks for the info. That makes sense since my current (crappy) cameras say 30 days for my 1TB drive and they're very low resolution.
Honestly though, I don't really care about how far I can go back. If I can use all 3 1TB drives and get let's say 3-4 days of footage, I'd be completely ok with that.
Also, like I said in my original post (I think? lol) I will probably drop the resolution for the interior cameras. I may get the higher MP cameras but will change their resolutions to be more practical if I don't have the hardware for it. I'm 100% okay with that. The ones that are truly the most important to me are my 4 camera points that are front door, back door, and 2 outdoor cameras where there is some distance between them and a perpetrator (and license plates) that I need to pick up more detail from. Other misc cameras in the house can be 1080p with no issues.

 

[PSPCommOp]

Ive used this website to kind of give me a guideline to how many TB I'll need.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/nvr_selector

 

[Q™]

To clarify, you mean that BI only supports hardware acceleration for the Intel HD graphics so therefor I should use the integrated graphics and NOT use another video card?

Yes. Exactly.

 

[w1zofaz]

I don't know if I misunderstood or not. But shouldn't Cat 5e or Cat6 be the minimum cabling to put in?

 

[Q™]

I don't know if I misunderstood or not. But shouldn't Cat 5e or Cat6 be the minimum cabling to put in?

Yes, he probably meant Cat5e.

 

[jkelley]

Ive used this website to kind of give me a guideline to how many TB I'll need.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/nvr_selector

Thanks, that's a useful calculator website. Look like I'll definitely need more storage or will have to drop the MP down. I'll probably go with 2 cams @ 3MP and the rest at 1080p all at 10 fps. I may still need to bump up the drives to 2TB or 3TB each.

I don't know if I misunderstood or not. But shouldn't Cat 5e or Cat6 be the minimum cabling to put in?

Yes, I always say cat5 but I actually wired my house with cat6. Didn't really NEED to but I figured the price difference for the cabling was negligible so I went ahead and did it anyways.

 

[jkelley]

Ok so a few updates to my plan:

1. I will use the on-chip graphics from the i7 for hardware acceleration
2. I think I'll dramatically drop my FPS from what I stated above, probably 2-3 fps for the 4MP cams when no motion is triggered and only maybe 20 fps during motion
3. I'd like to find a more reasonable indoor camera. Can anyone recommend a good Hikvision 1080p camera that is less than the $130. Since I'm hoping to have up to 8 indoor cameras I could potentially see a good bit of savings going with a more reasonable camera. 1.3MP would probably be plenty but maybe a 2MP if there is a good price difference from the $130 4MP one I picked out.

I've researched the Hikvision models but it seems the prices for the 1.3MP and 2MP cams aren't that far off from the 4MP EXIR HDR 2.8mm models.

Thanks for y'alls help so far!

 

[fenderman]

Blue iris cannot adjust the frame rate based on motion. It will record whatever the camera is sending.

 

[jkelley]

With the hikvision cameras I imagine I can set them up from at the camera itself to record at different frame rates based on motion or no motion?

 

[fenderman]

With the hikvision cameras I imagine I can set them up from at the camera itself to record at different frame rates based on motion or no motion?

no. Frame rate has no bearing on storage capacity. Its all in the Bitrate. With a lower frame rate you can get away with a lower bitrate...

 

[smiticans]

Hi all, this is my first post but I have been enjoying reading around this site. Tons of great info. I’m piecing together a lot of the Blue Iris build threads for recommendations but before I pull the trigger on anything I would like if some of y’all would comment on my current goals and build plan relevant to what I’m hoping to achieve. I hope I have all details of my goals listed below but if not please let me know and I will answer soon!

My goals:
My BI machine will be dedicated to BI only

I already have a Mini-ITX case that I want to utilize – it’s already built as a test server for linux when I was playing around with that but it does not have server components. A cheap CPU+mobo integrated passive cooled setup. It sounds silly to build the system around a case but my office doesn’t have a lot of space and this fits perfectly where I want it to go with access to my KVM switch (I run other stuff like my NAS,

Plan is 8 to 12 POE cameras. No Wifi on this system.

POE cameras only – I can run any cat5 I need in my house, I’ve already done it for my current 4 camera NVR system (ZMODO junk). My whole system is gigabit and I will be purchasing a larger POE switch to support more cameras.

I don’t care about audio, so video only

Cameras will be fixed, I don’t need or want PTZ.

I really want to be able to read license plates from about 20 meters for (2) outdoor cameras. The indoor cameras I think will be fine at something with a little less resolution to save me some CPU power.

I want to have some good low-light (especially outdoor) resolution and detail.

I’ll probably have 4 outdoor cameras, and at least 4 indoor cameras (up to 8 indoor cameras maybe, just for funsies).

Cameras: I think I’ve picked out my outdoor cameras, HIKVISION DS-2CD2342WD-I 4MP EXIR HDR. They’re $130 for the original English model which I feel is a good value number for a camera of this quality. I may even use these as my indoor cameras unless there is a great priced lower MP camera. I don’t personally care what “type” they are (bullet, dome, etc) but I do like the look of these dome types. I currently have 4 (low quality) bullets which I will sell or throw away when I build my new system.

Storage: is not critical. This is my home system. If the hard drive crashes, it’s whatever. I’ll just replace it. I don’t need to keep a bunch of data. 30 days is my intent but I don’t even really care about that. But I’m not going to do a RAID setup or anything (like I did with my NAS J ). I would like to setup the cameras to do low FPS recording when no motion trigger, but much higher FPS when motion is triggered. Only to save some energy and CPU and lessens the RW on the drive so it might last a little longer.

I’m thinking 30 FPS when motion is triggered. No motion trigger may be down to 1 fps I don’t really care lol (but let’s say 10 fps for now).

It’s imperative that I’m able to view my system on my smartphone but I think that’s the easy part considering it’s a BI build.

I don’t want to run any unnecessary components, to save power. But power isn’t my leading concern.

I want to be able to be able to automatically upload some amount of video data to some “cloud” storage of some type. Like the most recent 20 minutes of video feed from each camera. I haven’t looked into how to do this yet, though. In case someone breaks in and decides to go into my office and jack up all my PCs because they see the cameras. It would be nice to have the most recent 20 minutes of footage for this instance so I can put that mother trucker in jail!

My build plan:

I7-6700 skylake 8M LGA1151 (65W)

ASRock H170M-ITX/DL LGA 1151 Intel H170 (this is a pretty cheap mobo because I really felt I didn’t need a kickass mobo, remember this isn’t a business-critical machine or anything)

2x4GB (8GB) DDR4 2113 (PC4 17000)

450W PLUS GOLD psu (will this be enough? Or should I plan for getting a PSU twice what my average load is so if 300W average -> 600W PSU, to get peak efficiency out of the PSU?)

1 TB Seagate 7200 rpm regular HDD (I will have 3 of these in the build because I already have them… but I’ll probably only use one)

120GB SSD for the OS (64-bit W10)

For the video card I’m thinking of a cheap, low profile, low power, passively cooled 64-bit card? Does anyone see any issues with this?

I will run this PC on a fairly nice UPS. The PC will run 24/7.


Doing stuff like this is a hobby for me. I usually value budget. I get what I NEED, but I don’t blow money on ridiculous parts that I won’t get reasonable use out of. I’m figuring the parts cost of what I’ve said above is about $2,500 so let’s just say my budget is around there? I could really use y’alls recommendations on reasonable cameras and system components that will fit my needs. Are 4MP cameras way overkill? But they seemed like a good bang for the buck? Should I get them for the outdoor cameras but find something else for the indoors?

Thanks in advance!

Whats the make and model of the UPS? It looks like with that power supply you're gonna need a UPS that supports Active PFC (CyberPower Active PFC series or APC Smart ups)

 

[jkelley]

Whats the make and model of the UPS? It looks like with that power supply you're gonna need a UPS that supports Active PFC (CyberPower Active PFC series or APC Smart ups)

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. It's an APC. I bought it for like $150, I don't remember the specs. But this will be the only thing running on it 24/7. My PC will also be on it but I only have it on a couple hours a day max.

 

[smiticans]

Could you post the model numbers of both the power supply and APC UPS? It doesn't matter how much equipment or how long you're running it on the UPS that's the problem. The problem will occur when the UPS switches to battery back-up mode due to a brief 3 second or extended power outage. Most standard UPS's output simulated Sinewave while providing back up power. Cyberpower PFC series (Active Power Factor Correction) and APC Smart ups provide Pure Sinewave power output while on battery. Most new power supplies that require pure Sinewave will shutdown or malfunction when a non PFC UPS switches to battery power and outputs simulated Sinewave.

To sum it up, if you're using a power supply that is Active PFC, and you don't match it with the appropriate UPS (Cyberpower PFC series), your computer could shutdown or have hardware damaged when the UPS switches to battery power.

 

[jkelley]

Could you post the model numbers of both the power supply and APC UPS? It doesn't matter how much equipment or how long you're running it on the UPS that's the problem. The problem will occur when the UPS switches to battery back-up mode due to a brief 3 second or extended power outage. Most standard UPS's output simulated Sinewave while providing back up power. Cyberpower PFC series (Active Power Factor Correction) and APC Smart ups provide Pure Sinewave power output while on battery. Most new power supplies that require pure Sinewave will shutdown or malfunction when a non PFC UPS switches to battery power and outputs simulated Sinewave.

To sum it up, if you're using a power supply that is Active PFC, and you don't match it with the appropriate UPS (Cyberpower PFC series), your computer could shutdown or have hardware damaged when the UPS switches to battery power.

I will look at which one I have when I get home tonight. As for the power supply I hadn't picked out a specific one yet. I'm still working on exactly what cameras I'm going to have. I'm also seeing people successful with AMD 8-core builds which can drive down the cost pretty decently. I don't want to go cheap but I don't want more than I need. My gaming rig only has an i5-6600k because that's all I need. It would be weird if my NVR had a nicer CPU than my normal PC! lol.

I'm going to try building a test system with an Phenom II x4 965 BE I have laying around from my last upgrade. I have an AM3 mobo, ram, a decent PSU, case etc that I can pretty much get a dedicated build going to test BI features and I already have a 4-port POE injector switch going underutilized. I'll get that setup and then buy 4 of my cams of choice.

Back to the battery backup and power surge problem, I actually won't really care much if the system goes offline from a power blip. I don't need it to stay up 24/7. If it gets cut off, I'll just turn it back on when power is restored when I get home. I don't think I want to get all fancy with having a dedicated "mega" battery backup system. I'm familiar with the sinewave stuff and everything and I'm sure that's not what I have in my current system so I'd have to buy all new stuff. Just really thinking I won't care if they system is offline briefly, so maybe just a power surge protector is sufficient for me.

 

[smiticans]

I will look at which one I have when I get home tonight. As for the power supply I hadn't picked out a specific one yet. I'm still working on exactly what cameras I'm going to have. I'm also seeing people successful with AMD 8-core builds which can drive down the cost pretty decently. I don't want to go cheap but I don't want more than I need. My gaming rig only has an i5-6600k because that's all I need. It would be weird if my NVR had a nicer CPU than my normal PC! lol.

I'm going to try building a test system with an Phenom II x4 965 BE I have laying around from my last upgrade. I have an AM3 mobo, ram, a decent PSU, case etc that I can pretty much get a dedicated build going to test BI features and I already have a 4-port POE injector switch going underutilized. I'll get that setup and then buy 4 of my cams of choice.

Back to the battery backup and power surge problem, I actually won't really care much if the system goes offline from a power blip. I don't need it to stay up 24/7. If it gets cut off, I'll just turn it back on when power is restored when I get home. I don't think I want to get all fancy with having a dedicated "mega" battery backup system. I'm familiar with the sinewave stuff and everything and I'm sure that's not what I have in my current system so I'd have to buy all new stuff. Just really thinking I won't care if they system is offline briefly, so maybe just a power surge protector is sufficient for me.

You don't need a "mega" battery backup system for it to work. The Cyberpower PFC series range from $100.00 to $180.00 depending on which model you get. Since you already have the battery backup, why not just pick a power supply that doesn't use Active PFC, such as this Thermltake http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153023

It's not weird for your BI computer to have a better CPU than your gaming computer, BI is a lot more CPU intensive than your games. So you many not need an i7 for your gaming computer, but if you're going to have 12 or more HD cameras, than you may need an i7 for your BI computer. The computer should built according to it's use, not because you don't want it to be better than your gaming computer.

I don't know where you live, but Microcenter offers great deals on Intel CPU's. Last week they had the i7 6700k for $289.00, and when you bundled it with a motherboard, they took off an additional $30.00.

Years ago I use to build computers using AMD chips, however, they have fallen behind the times. Right now they're good for budget systems, however, it's not a smart idea to use them for a BI computer. The power consumption is too high, plus you won't be able to take advantage of Intel Hardware acceleration. In my opinion Intel Hardware Acceleration is a must, especially if you have a lot of cameras on the system. It will significantly reduce you're CPU usage when enabled.

 

[fenderman]

I'm also seeing people successful with AMD 8-core builds which can drive down the cost pretty decently. I don't want to go cheap but I don't want more than I need. My gaming rig only has an i5-6600k because that's all I need. It would be weird if my NVR had a nicer CPU than my normal PC! lol.

I'm going to try building a test system with an Phenom II x4 965 BE I have laying around from my last upgrade. I have an AM3 mobo, ram, a decent PSU, case etc that I can pretty much get a dedicated build going to test BI features and I already have a 4-port POE injector switch going underutilized. I'll get that setup and then buy 4 of my cams of choice.

AMD is a poor choice for blue iris for several reasons.
1) It does not support intel HD with quicksync, which blue iris uses for hardware acceleration
2) they are power hungry and generally required a dedicated gpu which adds to the power consumption. Any savings are lost when running the pc 24/7.
Building a pc for blue iris a waster of money when an i5 haswell/skylake business pc can be had for 300. An i7 haswell for 300-500.