Blue Iris for Larger systems - Server setup

[David Findlay]

Hi,

I currently use Blue Iris for my home with 7 HD cameras. This is a great setup and I love the system. However this has maxed out my windows 8 PC CPU usage and I switched to direct to disk recording and my CPU is down around 30%. I'm using an i7-4790 4.0GHz, 8GB ram and x64 windows 8 OS.

I am curious to know how much Blue Iris can scale up. I would like to build a completely new system with approximately 20 cameras and some cameras I would like to have re-encoded (not direct to disk). This means that no single CPU system on the market will be able to support this demand. What are my options here? Is there a way that I can set up workstations/servers to distribute the CPU load across multiple machines? I've done some research on load shedding for servers, but I'm not sure if this works with this type of application. If anyone has insight to this, I would really appreciate your help.

 

[fbnoise]

Seems like I've seen people recommend going with your camera vendors software in situations where you have too much for one PC. That way you're shifting the workload to the processor on each camera for motion detection and etc..

 

[David Findlay]

Thanks for the response fbnoise. I'm still hoping there is a solution to use Blue Iris for everything since there are a lot of features I will use that aren't available to the vendors software. Also, I have the cameras set to always record regardless of motion so this would be a constant load on the CPU.

 

[fbnoise]

If you don't mind me asking, why do you need the video files re-encoded?

 

[David Findlay]

Mainly the highlighting/boxing of motion objects. Also I would like to be able to enable the pre-trigger option which also uses more CPU power.

 

[fenderman]

Mainly the highlighting/boxing of motion objects. Also I would like to be able to enable the pre-trigger option which also uses more CPU power.

Generally the highlighting and boxing are only used to test motion detection..its actually blocks part of the video....

 

[David Findlay]

Fenderman, Thanks for your reply, I agree, but on some of my cameras, I like this feature. But either way, my main question is how can Blue Iris be scaled up across multiple computers, or are there other solutions to distribute CPU load over multiple workstations/servers?

 

[fenderman]

Fenderman, Thanks for your reply, I agree, but on some of my cameras, I like this feature. But either way, my main question is how can Blue Iris be scaled up across multiple computers, or are there other solutions to distribute CPU load over multiple workstations/servers?

This cannot be done...in the BI4 release notes there is indication that a pc client is in the works...how that will work and when it will become available is anyone's guess...you can email support and ask..
You mention 20 cameras..what cameras will you be running? what resolution, what frame rate?

 

[fbnoise]

in the BI4 release notes there is indication that a pc client is in the works...

Whoa. I'm a bit excited about that. Had no idea. Hopefully something to view cameras and/or footage that doesn't take up all the CPU full-blown BI does on a remote machine. I know there are some homemade installs out there (I use BlueIris viewer from BP2000 or whatever his username is - sorry if I got your username wrong - love your app) but something directly from Ken sounds exciting.

 

[David Findlay]

Ok great, thanks for your help. I'll talk with support.

 

[dune157]

Hey guys,

I thought I might throw some questions in this, but I'm testing out BI for the first time.

I have it installed, and I currently have 60 cameras on it. So far, it's testing out well. I do have a few problems. One being that the replay of recorded video from the GUI is realllly laggy. Normal streaming seems to be fine.

Anyone have suggestions? I am going to send an email over to BI as well.

--dune

 

[fenderman]

Hey guys,

I thought I might throw some questions in this, but I'm testing out BI for the first time.

I have it installed, and I currently have 60 cameras on it. So far, it's testing out well. I do have a few problems. One being that the replay of recorded video from the GUI is realllly laggy. Normal streaming seems to be fine.

Anyone have suggestions? I am going to send an email over to BI as well.

--dune

What model cameras are you running? Are you trying to playback all cameras simultaneously?

 

[dune157]

Mostly Intellinet models. I don't believe I am trying to playback them simultaneously. I only have 1 camera viewable when it is playing back.

--dune

 

[fenderman]

Mostly Intellinet models. I don't believe I am trying to playback them simultaneously. I only have 1 camera viewable when it is playing back.

--dune

Are they vga cameras? What is the cpu consumption before trying to playback and also during playback?
What are the specs on the system you are running?

 

[dune157]

It was running ~40% CPU usage.

Quad Core - 1.8 GHz Xeon E5-2403
24 GB RAM
Running on Windows Server 2012 R2

Some of the intellinet cameras are running at a VGA resolution, some not.

--dune

 

[paarlberg]

You can get a multiple socket motherboard, some manufacturers like Supermicro support up to 4 CPU. A local vendor has the the dual socket version on their site to give you a reference.

It will cost you a serious chunk of cash to build one of these though.

http://www.apaqdigital.com/main/home/S2011_DP.htm

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X10DRH-CT.cfm

I have considered one of these, the CPU is over $1k each and the mobo is about $700. Add in memory and you are well over $3k. It would handle just about anything you could throw at it though.

If money is not an option, then this would surely do the trick ;-). Expect to spend well over $15k for one of them fully configured though.

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C600/X10QBI.cfm