New to BI - hardware and some Q's

[billv]

Hi. I'm going to be a new user of BI. I currently have a Qsee 8 channel system with 8 HD cameras (QCN8004B) and am running it at full 1080P recording at 30fps. I can get about 3.5 days of recording. I'm not happy with Qsee and want to replace it.

I have a Dell XPS 8700 with I7 processor and nvidia graphics cards - http://www.amazon.com/Dell-X8700-1863BLK-i7-4790-Processor-Windows/dp/B00UDSWXYK/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1462115891&sr=1-5&keywords=desktop+computer&refinements=p_n_feature_seven_browse-bin:3012497011,p_n_condition-type:2224373011,p_n_feature_four_browse-bin:2289792011

I have some questions on the hardware and BI too.

First I assume this system will work fine with the 8 cameras at 1080P @ 30fps? The cameras are QCN8004B. These are not listed in the technology section but they do support ONVIF 2.0 so I think should work.

I need to add a hard drive - I plan to add a 6 TB drive - that should give me about 10 days of recording. What drive is appropriate? I'm partial to WD and I notice that they have a drive for surveillance but it only runs at 5400 rpm. Is that ok or would a different drive work better? The drive is optimized for streaming writes and says it can support up to 32 cameras (but didn't specify resolution or FR). Would it better to get two 3TB drives to spread the write load? And can BI support writing to more than one HDD?

I will add a second NIC to keep the network traffic off my home LAN. It will be an 8+1 Linksys with 8 channels of POE to run the cameras. I assume there should be no problem with that?

Anything else I need to consider on this hardware?

On to BI.
On my current system not only do I have the video, but I also FTP images from all 8 channels every 15 seconds to an FTP server. Does BI have that capability? I can go either to the ftp server or to local disk.

I have a driveway sensor that detects when someone/something comes down my driveway. The receiving unit has a relay that has contacts for both normally open and closed and when the sensor is triggered the relay does the opposite. I have that wired to the NVR and i use that event to trigger an event and send me an snapshot email. How can I duplicate the relay input on the windows machine and get BI to sense it?

Anything else I need to consider either for hardware or software?

Thanks,

 

[fenderman]

@billv welcome to the forum.
That system is way more than adequate. Make sure to set each camera in BI to use direct to disk recording. Camera properties>record>file format.
IF you wish to utilize blue iris hardware acceleration you need to use intel quicksync which is available with the onboard graphics of the 8700. This will further reduce cpu consumption by about 1/3.
For the cams use the dahua RTSP profile or do a "inspect" and ill will pull onvif..
Use a WD purple.
You dont need a second nic, simply connect the pc to the same poe switch as the cameras.
Blue iris can ftp. You can also simultaneously record to a second network drive by cloning the camera (then hiding the duplicate).
As far as the sensor, you can use a sealevel device like the 120e or see post 6 here https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/10651-Blue-Iris-outputs
Note that direct to disk is not operational in demo mode so the cpu consumption will be high until you add the license. Also 30fps is overkill, 15 is way more than enough..remember that its not the frame rate that controls storage capacity but only Bitrate.

 

[billv]

Hey - thanks for the info.

So I didn't need the Nvidia graphics card as suggested in the hardware list? Or is the onboard graphics enabled at the same time (which won't work of course)

WD Purple - I guess I can use either the standard purple or the NV - which is better?

The POE switch will not be connected to my home LAN so I will need the second NIC. I want to keep the video traffic separate from the home LAN traffic.

For the input I found this device http://numato.com/8-channel-usb-gpio-module-with-analog-inputs/ It uses a USB connection and acts like a serial port. Seems easy enough to program. And I can trigger BI with either a JSON command for status to set one of the DIO states or just trigger a camera. Is there a way to distinguish what caused the trigger event?

Looking at the demo mode (haven't set anything up yet), I'm impressed with BI. It makes the Qsee stuff look like it was built by as a student project. On thing I hate about Qsee is the motion detection. I set one camera so it had no sensitive region and I was still getting motion events. And their customer service just didn't understand the issue and could not offer a solution. I get 100's of motion event daily. Hopefully BI will cut that down.

 

[fenderman]

There is a post by @bp2008 where he is able to use both. However, this is not need in most circumstances and the ability to do it depends on your motherboard. Using discrete graphics adds heat and power consumption. You dont need it. You are better off running intel HD. You can simply remove the card from your system and insert a blank plate to cover the hole.

If the pc and the cameras are connected to the same switch there is no traffic on your home network. None, unless you are remotely viewing in which case the traffic is so small it would be impossible to notice.

 

[Stealth22]

It's perfectly alright to use a second NIC for your 'camera' network. I've done the same thing; its best to keep them isolated. Not only for network traffic, but for security reasons as well. My cameras are all VLAN'd away from the rest of the network.

One word of advice...ensure that your POE switch can handle the power load. The marketing verbage may advertise "up to 15W per port!!", but that does not always mean you'll get 15W on all 8 ports SIMULTANEOUSLY. So if the switch only has a max power budget of 65W, that only allows you ~8W per port. So just be mindful of that.

I can't seem to find a spec sheet for your camera that lists the power consumption, but my Hikvisions are rated at a max of 7.5W with the IR on. As long as you have enough for ~10W/port, you should be ok. And yeah, as fenderman said, 30fps is way overkill. I had most of my 8 cameras set at 15 fps, and 3 of them at 30. My computer's CPU, albeit an i7, is a bit older (2600K), but the CPU usage was at ~45%, sometimes going as high as 50%, which I thought was way too much. Once I played with the settings a bit, and turned down all the framerates (the 15's to 10, and the 30's to 15), it's far better at ~28% now. And the video at 15 fps looks fine, really. Even at 10fps, its not bad.

 

[billv]

Thansks Stealth22 for the tip. I checked the switch - it's a Linksys LKS-SG9P8 and the specs say the POE has a budget of a bit over 120 watts for 15W/channel. Says it can also do POE+ on up to 4 channels. The camera label says 6W max so I should be fine.

Once I get things going I'll look at the framerate. If I go to 15 fps I should be able to get 20 days of video.

 

[billv]

Fenderman - you mentioned recording to second drive. I will have the 1TB system drive and a second 6TB drive for data. I'd like to put most of the video stuff on the second drive. It appears I can set the path in the camera record tab. Downsides? Or would it better to just install BI on the second drive? What are the options for using different storage area?

Thanks,

 

[fenderman]

Fenderman - you mentioned recording to second drive. I will have the 1TB system drive and a second 6TB drive for data. I'd like to put most of the video stuff on the second drive. It appears I can set the path in the camera record tab. Downsides? Or would it better to just install BI on the second drive? What are the options for using different storage area?

Thanks,

You want BI on your primary drive, many use SSD's...then you can place the video on the second drive...There are lots of storage options see the clips and archiving tab