Can a i7 3770 handle this many cameras, etc?

[GregFromUtah]

I have a spare HP Compaq 8300 Elite Compact Mini Tower with an Intel Core i7 3770 @ 3.40 GHz with 8 GB of Memory.

As a dedicated machine, it will pretty much only run Blue Iris and Bitdefender on Windows 10 Professional 64-bit.

Assuming Direct-To-Disc and some Pre-Trigger Video Buffer for all cameras, can this PC handle all these cameras (about 22 MP total) without taking CPU to its knees?

Wireless Amcrest IPM-HX1B 1.3 MP / 960p (with audio)
Wireless Amcrest IPM-HX1B 1.3 MP / 960p (with audio)
Wireless Amcrest IPM-HX1B 1.3 MP / 960p (with audio)
Wireless Foscam C1 1.0 MP / 720p (with audio)
Wireless Amcrest IPM-HX1B 1.3 MP / 960p (with audio)
Wireless Foscam R2 V1 2.0 MP / 1080p (with audio)
Wireless Amcrest IP2M-841 2.0 MP / 1080p (with audio)
Wireless Amcrest IPM-HX1B 1.3 MP / 960p (with audio)
Wireless Foscam C1 1.0 MP / 720p (with audio)
*Wired Logitech C920 Webcam 2.0 MP / 1080p (with audio)
Wired Foscam FI9805P 1.3 MP / 960p
POE Amcrest IPM-743E 1.3 MP / 960p
POE Amcrest IPM-743E 1.3 MP / 960p
POE Amcrest IPM-743E 1.3 MP / 960p
POE Amcrest IPM-743E 1.3 MP / 960p
POE Amcrest IPM-743E 1.3 MP / 960p

All the cameras are at their max FPS (approx 30). I am sure I can lower the frame rate but not sure how far before video quality suffers. Do you have any advice on setting frame rate? Also, should I set it at the camera web interfaces, or in Blue Iris, or both?

And I have the same question regarding bit rate. Should I mess with that and if so, how do I do it?

As per storage, This PC currently has a single hard drive but I have some extra SSD and 7200 RPM drives of various sizes. What is best practice for drives/partitions, and placement of OS, Blue Iris Software, Blue Iris Database, Blue Iris New recordings and Blue Iris Stored recordings?

And one last question... One of the cameras is a usb webcam (Logitech C920) attached to a remote PC and it is streaming (MJPEG) via YAWCAM. Is this impacting performance much? Do I need to get this out of my setup and use something else?

Thanks in advance for your help. I would love to be able to run all these cameras on this PC and still have some room to upgrade some of the cameras to a little higher resolution later on. Any advice would be appreciated. And if this is totally impossible, please advise on what hardware I may need in order to do this...

Thanks!
Greg

 

[aristobrat]

I'm new to all of this, so take this all with a grain of salt.

I'm running the same CPU with a total of 15 MP @ 20 FPS (h.264). Bitrate is variable on all cameras. Most of the cameras have a pre-buffer trigger, as well as zones (for motion detection) setup. In BI, hardware acceleration is enabled, and recordings are direct-to-disk.

CPU runs between 11-15% when the BI client is closed and nobody is connected remotely to the server (or watching videos via the web/smartphone interfaces). Remotely connecting and running the BI client can add 5% to CPU sometimes. Remotely watching videos through the web/smartphone interfaces adds a few percent also.

Regarding FPS and video quality, there are some YouTube videos that show 4 video feeds on one screen, each running at different FPS. Makes it easy to see the difference in motion smoothness between the different FPS values. Seems like most of the seasoned folks on here recommend no more than 15 FPS for recording.

I went with variable bit rate on my cameras as most don't see a lot of activity. They'll stream along at a bit rate of about 1000 kbps until activity happens, then the bit rate will increase until activity dies down again.

I'm sure this isn't best practice, but right now I only have one HDD in my system. I've got it formatted as one big C: drive, so the OS, Program Files, and recordings are all on the same drive. I've 936 recordings (2.28TB) and haven't noticed any performance issues.

I plan to get a faster machine at some point (to help with h.265 decoding). I'll put the OS/Program Files on a SSD, with separate drives for the recordings. I'd like to have two 4TB drives in that machine. The way BI can be configured to move recordings from the New to Stored to Aux folders, I don't think this will be a problem.

 

[GregFromUtah]

Thanks for the quick reply aristobrat.

I must have been doing something wrong when I had about two thirds of my cameras on the 3770 for testing. It was killing CPU, averaging 80-90% and spiking at 100% all the time.

That is when I started looking for answers and found this forum, and began clueing in on using direct-to-disk recording, etc.

It looks like I have a few more total MP (22 vs 15) than you, but it you are only running around 15-20% CPU then there is hope for not only running what I have now, but also for upgrading a few of the cameras in the future.

I will try 15 FPS on most cameras, with a few at 20 FPS and see how the video quality compares. Do you set that on each camera in it's web interface or in Blue Iris? Or in both places?

I'm not sure how to set or adjust bit rate. Maybe someone else can chime in and provide some advice and point me in the right direction.

I'm pretty sure I will use at least two drives, putting the recordings on their own drive. I'm just not sure if it is better to have the BI database on the drive with the recordings, or on the drive with the OS, BI, etc. And I still wonder if using a SSD for the new recordings is needed, or even a good thing to do. I'm hoping some of the guys with lots of experience with BI will let me know what is best.

Any other advice is welcome too!

Thanks!

 

[aristobrat]

When you were testing, was it the trial version? Direct-to-disk doesn't work in the trial. Also, enabling hardware acceleration in the options should help too (if you don't already have that on).

The FPS and bit rate need to be adjusted on the cameras. BI will record at the rate the cameras send.

Curious to see what others say about the SSD. My guess is that putting the OS, Program Files, and BI database on the SSD makes the most sense, and letting the video recording and archiving happen on the HDD.

 

[GregFromUtah]

Nope, licensed version... And intel quick sync was turned on too. But cameras were all at30 FPS and not all were using direct to disk.
I'll be starting clean with a fresh installs of Windows 10 Pro and Blue Iris and then add one camera at a time.making sure to configure with direct to disk, etc. So hopefully it will be able to handle it.

I would love to hear from others on much they have been able to run on an i7 3770 and what CPU utilization was like....

 

[Xeddog]

I can't help you with your CPU loading since I am using an NVR to record, but my $.01 on frame rates. I have about 10 cameras right now and they are a mix of 2MP, 3MP, and a couple of 4MP cameras. When I started, I was insistent on running all cameras at full 30FPS, or at least the maximum they produce. But I started playing around with different frame rates and finally settled on 10FPS. I still might even try 5FPS, but 10 is good. I am, after all, watching surveillance video and not IMAX 3D. Think about it. If some [censored] enters your property you are still taking 10 photos of them each and every second. I decided that was enough for me. It still gives me plenty of data to identify any [censored] ( at least as well as 30FPS would), and although the action isn't smooth it's still all there. A couple of added pluses for you would be less video traffic on your LAN so your computer devices would potentially have better network performance, and more days of recorded material for playback.

Wayne