Performance and general questions

[scharnhorst]

First off guys I really appreciate the help and expertise, another tip of the cap to Milkisbad... awesome cameras + great service.

Background: I do IT work so i'm not totally clueless, just enough to be dangerous . I got an opportunity to setup a security camera system at a fairly large office building, but the criteria (thankfully) was quite limited to just the first and second floor lobby; as well as inside entrance first and second floor. Went with: 2132-i dome, 2 cube DS-2CD2432F-IW, and a DS-2CD2332-I. So 4 cameras right now with eventually the max reaching about 8 when its all said and done. Did a custom computer, i5 3570k @ 4.2, 4tb purple hdd, z77 sabertooth, 8gigs of ram.

Right now everything seems pretty solid, except for the fact the cpu usage when all 4 cameras are activated gets up to 100%. Right now all 4 cams are running 1080p was 30fps using Blue Iris compression and format.



So some of the ideas i've got to reduce some of this load on the comp are:
1. Reduce the FPS to 20
2. reduce bitrate from 4k
3. Direct to drive.

Now from what I understand direct to drive should provide a pretty significant boost, the downside being the loss of Blue Iris putting the date and time in the video, etc. Now I don't think that is too big an issue since the cameras can take care of that anyway. As i'm thinking about this, why can't you just have the cameras use their own motion detection as well? If this would work, then I'd schedule blue iris to be on all the time, yet the cameras would only record when they spot movement... does that make sense?


Is there anything else i'm missing or should consider here?

 

[fenderman]

Use direct to disk...you can also reduce the live view frame rate to 10-15 blue iris options>cameras
You will not be able to use the in camera motion detection with blue iris except for the 2432...there are a few of threads on this...only cameras with an alarm out will work with blue iris...the 2332 will not be able to trigger BI...I dont know how much you cpu you will save....also by using in camera motion detection, you cannot have custom motion detection sensitivity based on times of day or whether you are home or away etc...or set various levels of motion detection for alerts vs recording...
member @salesguy put together detailed instructions http://www.ipcamtalk.com/general-bi-talk/942-guide-using-ds-2cd2432f-iw-pir-sensor-blueiris.html
This same ideal will work with other hikvision cameras that have alarm in/out options or using the motion settings on the 2432 (as opposed to the pir)...

 

[scharnhorst]

Thank you Fender reading over that now. Little bit of a bummer with the motion detection stuff, but I in the grand scheme of things I can't imagine BI's motion detection really stressing out the CPU to this point. I mean c'mon this is an overclocked i5, not that many cameras...

 

[fenderman]

Thank you Fender reading over that now. Little bit of a bummer with the motion detection stuff, but I in the grand scheme of things I can't imagine BI's motion detection really stressing out the CPU to this point. I mean c'mon this is an overclocked i5, not that many cameras...

I have not tested the difference so I dont know..blue iris is cpu hungry if you are running hd cameras AND not using direct to disc....some of that is attributed to the motion detection but i have no idea how much..you can test it with your two 2432's..regardless you can easily run 8 cameras at 2MP on that system - just use direct to disk...
Side note: I would not overclock an NVR pc...the power consumption is most likely though the roof..

 

[scharnhorst]

Question, now when switching to direct to disk, does that mean I should change the format of the video files, aka keep it on blue iris or to mp4? Now it seems that if I switch it I won't be able to play back recordings, unless I change it to cut the files after each trigger, is there any downside to do that?

 

[fenderman]

Question, now when switching to direct to disk, does that mean I should change the format of the video files, aka keep it on blue iris or to mp4? Now it seems that if I switch it I won't be able to play back recordings, unless I change it to cut the files after each trigger, is there any downside to do that?

You should leave the container as BVR...it is more efficient than mp4 and provides the playback benefit you mention...

 

[paarlberg]

If someone is not watching the cameras 24x7 the live view could be set a lot lower. I have mine set to 5fps and it seems to work well even for watching 24x7. This won't affect your recording fps. Dropping your recording to 20fps, or even 15 will leave you with a very good video capture.

For reference, I have a 3770k for my system and I am running 10x 3MP cameras (all hikvision running at 3MP). Normal cpu usage is 40-50% and when I have multiple triggers (2-3 usually) the cpu will hit 90-100%. I am not using direct to disk though.

 

[scharnhorst]

Ok so gone to direct to disk, and using BVR as the container, 1080p, at 20fps... seeing the cpu usage drop in range to 30%-40%, which is great. Currently putting everything through the paces, I have noticed that there seems to be a lag/delay in the motion detection/recording, like someone going through the door but no video of them getting up to it. Seems odd just because sometimes it seems to be working great, and other times seems like its missing a few seconds. My initial thought was to increase the "pre-trigger frame buffer size" up to 20 now, since i'm running at 20fps. Worth going higher than that, or am i missing something else?

 

[fenderman]

Ok so gone to direct to disk, and using BVR as the container, 1080p, at 20fps... seeing the cpu usage drop in range to 30%-40%, which is great. Currently putting everything through the paces, I have noticed that there seems to be a lag/delay in the motion detection/recording, like someone going through the door but no video of them getting up to it. Seems odd just because sometimes it seems to be working great, and other times seems like its missing a few seconds. My initial thought was to increase the "pre-trigger frame buffer size" up to 20 now, since i'm running at 20fps. Worth going higher than that, or am i missing something else?

You should go double AND ensure that you match the i-frame interval in your camera to the fps…the reason you are seeing variation is because the subject enters the field of view at various times before the frame is sent.

 

[scharnhorst]

Odd I changed all that, now the footage is choppy and movement is blurry. hmm bitrate issue?

Now I have BI set to 20fps, and I read elsewhere that the cameras should be running at higher, is that correct? Should the I Frame match the cameras output, or match BI?

 

[fenderman]

Odd I changed all that, now the footage is choppy and movement is blurry. hmm bitrate issue?

Now I have BI set to 20fps, and I read elsewhere that the cameras should be running at higher, is that correct? Should the I Frame match the cameras output, or match BI?

The cameras fps should match the cameras i-frame....in blue iris, you need to uncheck "adjust automatically" and set the frame rate to one step HIGHER than the cameras settings...the choppiness will disappear.

 

[scharnhorst]

Thanks for the feedback fender, so after some tweaking per your suggestions i've gotten the cpu usage to around 30% which is definitely tolerable. Been trying to figure out why BI crashed last night seemingly out of the blue, running a few diagnostic stuff now.

 

[paarlberg]

Mine crashed for the first time a couple nights ago. I had several spider webs triggering at the same time that night.

 

[fenderman]

Thanks for the feedback fender, so after some tweaking per your suggestions i've gotten the cpu usage to around 30% which is definitely tolerable. Been trying to figure out why BI crashed last night seemingly out of the blue, running a few diagnostic stuff now.

As a backup you should run something like Blue iris tools so it restarts blue iris in the event of a crash..

 

[bmwhitetx]

The cameras fps should match the cameras i-frame....in blue iris, you need to uncheck "adjust automatically" and set the frame rate to one step HIGHER than the cameras settings...the choppiness will disappear.

When you say one step higher - is this higher fps or the strange unit also in the drop down box (100 ns units according to help). Since they are inverse units, as fps goes up, the other goes down and vice versa. To clarify, if I have my cameras set at 15 fps and 15 frames per i-frame, should BI be set at "500000 [20.00 fps]" or "800000 [12.50 fps]"? I presume higher fps but want to make sure.

 

[scharnhorst]

As a backup you should run something like Blue iris tools so it restarts blue iris in the event of a crash..

Yep went ahead and did that, but haven't had a crash since...

The only real hiccup now seems to be occasionally, very infrequently, the camera recording seems to skip for about 8 to 10 seconds. I can't seem to figure it out, i know there is movement in between that time, and the cpu isn't be maxed... hell nothing else is going on; yet the recording will be fine for a few seconds then this gap will appear. Any advice on what is causing this to occur would be appreciated.

 

[fenderman]

Yep went ahead and did that, but haven't had a crash since...

The only real hiccup now seems to be occasionally, very infrequently, the camera recording seems to skip for about 8 to 10 seconds. I can't seem to figure it out, i know there is movement in between that time, and the cpu isn't be maxed... hell nothing else is going on; yet the recording will be fine for a few seconds then this gap will appear. Any advice on what is causing this to occur would be appreciated.

post in image of your camera record and motion settings...have you lowered your iframes to match your fps? post an image of your camera video settings.

 

[scharnhorst]

 

[fenderman]

@scharnhorst ok, in the camera settings, set the iframe interval to 15 to match the fps
in blue iris, in the motion tab uncheck object detect reject - that is most likely why you are missing motion
you may want to reduce your make time a bit to something like 0.7
also, you may want to set the pretrigger frames to 45 to make it a multiple of 15...this way you get the full 3 seconds of premotion recording..

 

[scharnhorst]

@scharnhorstok, in the camera settings, set the iframe interval to 15 to match the fps
in blue iris, in the motion tab uncheck object detect reject - that is most likely why you are missing motion
you may want to reduce your make time a bit to something like 0.7
also, you may want to set the pretrigger frames to 45 to make it a multiple of 15...this way you get the full 3 seconds of premotion recording..

Correct I was initially running at 20fps but went ahead and dropped down to 15 as many people seem to believe that is the sweet spot. When these hiccups were occuring it was at 20fps with the iframe set to 20. I went ahead and per your suggestion set it to 15 now.

Changed to .7 now

See it how it goes