BlueIris Help with alerts and storage

[jjp44343]

Hi Everyone,

I've had success putting BlueIris behind OpenVPN and setting up just about everything.

I'm very happy with BlueIris and have much admiration for the developer as I've been writing software for many years and respect the time and effort this software must've taken. The software is very mature.

I just have a quick question regarding storage and setup.

I want to be able to go back 31 days to view footage that is timestamped on motion.

Here is my setup,
2 4 MP continuously recording. Trigger on motion.
2 8 MP continuously recording. Trigger on motion.
10 TB Storage for recording, SSD for Windows 10, BlueIris and DB.

Limit clip age: 31 days

For New, Stored and Alerts, what should I set Limit size and Delete,Recycle,Move to folder and queue for cover/backup settings to?

I believe 10 TB should be adequate however if not I could reduce to 2 week storage or add a second 10 TB.

Sorry if the question is very basic and thank you.

 

[awsum140]

Drop the limit for clip age and just use space for the determining factor, deleting when the limit is reached. Usually, you'll need to leave some "free" space since file sizes can force BI to go over the limit by a little at times. 10TB is a little lean for those kinds of resolutions, especially if your running over 10FPS and at high bit rates. I'd add another drive and split the cameras between the two drives, one 4MP and one 8MP per drive.

 

[jjp44343]

Drop the limit for clip age and just use space for the determining factor, deleting when the limit is reached. Usually, you'll need to leave some "free" space since file sizes can force BI to go over the limit by a little at times. 10TB is a little lean for those kinds of resolutions, especially if your running over 10FPS and at high bit rates. I'd add another drive and split the cameras between the two drives, one 4MP and one 8MP per drive.

The 4mp are setup for h264 and 8mp at h265 does BI compress to these formats or does BI have a less compress or more compressed format?

 

[SouthernYankee]

The formats h264 and h265 are already compressed. BI does not compress the files any more.

Reduce the frame rate for more data storage or reduce the resolution. Make sure that the cameras (in the camera) are set to VBR (not CBR) will also save storage. Also in the camera you can reduce the bit rate, but this reduces the quality of the video.

 

[jjp44343]

Am I safe to enable the h264+ and h265+ since I'm having BI detect motion etc?

 

[SouthernYankee]

NO do not use the + , h264 and h265 are good. Turn smart codec off in the camera.

A side point, If using a newer intel processor in BI it can offload the processing of the H264 but not h265. This should not be an issue with the number of cameras and there bit rate. If CPU utilization is high please read the wiki. Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage | IP Cam Talk

 

[Walrus]

Reduce the frame rate for more data storage or reduce the resolution. Make sure that the cameras (in the camera) are set to VBR (not CBR) will also save storage. Also in the camera you can reduce the bit rate, but this reduces the quality of the video.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only thing that affects file size and storage amount is the bitrate (ignoring h264 vs h265 and VBR).
A cam set at 2MP, 15FPS and CBR 4096 bitrate, recording for 1 hour, will produce the same size file as 2MP, 30FPS and CBR 4096 bitrate also recording for 1 hour. The latter will have less quality in each frame.

Changing the frame rate and resolution does open up different options for the bitrate you can select. On my 2MP 2231s, when I select 15FPS, 6144 is the max standard bitrate I can select without going custom. If I up the FPS to 20/25/30, 8192 and higher bitrates become available.

Edited to add 'CBR' and 'VBR' to the above.

 

[SouthernYankee]

Moving off topic....

No, you are wrong, I have a number of cameras with the exact same setting, they record complete different file sizes. A lot has to do with the amount of picture changes and motion. A video of a white wall is a lot smaller than a video of a street with cars and trees blowing.

 

[awsum140]

My system runs ten, 2MP, cameras. All are set to 10FPS, 4096(max) VBR, H264. I'm using Nvidia acceleration, although that has no effect on storage requirements. With a 4TB drive I get about two weeks worth of video. Hence my comment that a single, 10TB, drive might be a little lean without knowing frame rates, resolutions and bit rates.

To echo SouthernYankee, during the day the bit rate runs around 270MPs and at night it drops to around 200MPs, depending on motion. Again, less information per second means smaller files sizes for any given time period. As an aside, you may want to set combine and cut to one hour intervals. It makes location and reviewing things a lot easier.

Storing more frames per second, especially at higher bit rates, takes more drive space, IE the file size increase just as if you used a camera to take a shot at 2MP versus 8MP. More information for each picture, aka frame.

 

[Walrus]

You said to reduce the frame rate or resolution for more storage.

Moving off topic....

No, you are wrong, I have a number of cameras with the exact same setting, they record complete different file sizes. A lot has to do with the amount of picture changes and motion. A video of a white wall is a lot smaller than a video of a street with cars and trees blowing.

That is VBR at play. I shouldn't have said bitrate was the only thing. Bitrate and VBR affects file size.

I was questioning your broad statement about frame rate and resolution affecting storage. It's too general and is ignoring bitrate.

 

[jjp44343]

NO do not use the + , h264 and h265 are good. Turn smart codec off in the camera.

A side point, If using a newer intel processor in BI it can offload the processing of the H264 but not h265. This should not be an issue with the number of cameras and there bit rate. If CPU utilization is high please read the wiki. Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage | IP Cam Talk

I'm hovering at 19%, I've seen it go as high as 66% when there is a lot of motion. I'm considering adding a discreet 6 MP fish eye near the street, I'm thinking that may put my CPU utilization and storage at a bad place.

 

[Walrus]

Like SouthernYankee said, if you have a capable CPU with Quick Sync, you can change the 8MP cams from H265 to H264 (I use H264h) to make full use of hardware acceleration. This will reduce your load. The two 8mp cams running H265 are using CPU only, no GPU.

 

[jjp44343]

Like SouthernYankee said, if you have a capable CPU with Quick Sync, you can change the 8MP cams from H265 to H264 (I use H264h) to make full use of hardware acceleration. This will reduce your load. The two 8mp cams running H265 are using CPU only, no GPU.

I change FPS to 15 from 20 and got CPU down to 12% from 19%.

I have this processor, Intel® Core™ i7-2600 Processor (8M Cache, up to 3.80 GHz) Product Specifications

Right now I think the onboard intel video is being overridden by an AMD Radeon 5450 that is plugged into a slot (it came with the machine), should I remove?

 

[Walrus]

Although that processor is very old, it says it has quick sync. Yes, I'd remove the video card. It's not doing anything except heat up the case.

If you pull up task manager, look for a GPU column (you might have to right click and add it). See if there is a GPU % beside the Blue Iris process and a GPU engine. Like this (beside the parthardgame, it's the only picture I could find).

You also need to go into your Blue Iris settings and change the hardware accel to Intel (not Intel+VPP):

 

[jjp44343]

Although that processor is very old, it says it has quick sync. Yes, I'd remove the video card. It's not doing anything except heat up the case.

If you pull up task manager, look for a GPU column (you might have to right click and add it). See if there is a GPU % beside the Blue Iris process and a GPU engine. Like this (beside the parthardgame, it's the only picture I could find).

You also need to go into your Blue Iris settings and change the hardware accel to Intel (not Intel+VPP):

No real difference after pulling the card as far as CPU. It seems the live views quality is not as good. GPU engine and GPU percentage are blank in Task Manager.

 

[Walrus]

Did you turn on Intel as above, and restart the blue iris service/restart the computer?

Also right click on each cam, and make sure on the Video tab, the hardware decoding is set to default:

 

[jjp44343]

Did you turn on Intel as above, and restart the blue iris service/restart the computer?

Also right click on each cam, and make sure on the Video tab, the hardware decoding is set to default:
View attachment 42090

I forgot that bit. I added the AMD card back in since. But I did just enable default hardware encoding and I'm at 6% CPU at idle now, 5.4% with console closed, 36% if using iPhone app.

 

[Walrus]

What does task manager show now?

When you said the live view is not as good, is this remotely, or on a monitor connected to your BI PC, through the AMD video card? (and when you removed the card, you connected to the onboard video)

 

[jjp44343]

What does task manager show now?

When you said the live view is not as good, is this remotely, or on a monitor connected to your BI PC, through the AMD video card? (and when you removed the card, you connected to the onboard video)

Yes on the monitor connected via vga to onboard video card. When I connect to AMD with DVI it looks better. Also I noticed running it without the AMD card motion seems to spike the CPU higher.

 

[Walrus]

VGA vs DVI is probably where the quality drop is. Does the motherboard only have VGA out?

Not sure why running off the AMD card drops the CPU. Is this during live view with the BI program open?

When you said 'you forgot that bit' what was each cam set to for hardware decode? Or did you forget to restart?