Substreams and Murphy's law?

[Philip Gonzales]

Isn't using substreams just inviting our bad friend Murphy to our setups?

I've been away from BlueIris for about 1 year since I purchased a new house and took a while to get around to installing some cams. It seems all the advice when I was left was to do everything to prevent Ol' Murphy from popping his head up (24X7 recording, SDCard for redundancy, multiple cams for high traffic locations, etc.). I can't help but notice how hard substreams are being pushed and I can't really wrap my ahead around why we would want to record in such poor quality. Maybe it's just my FOMO talking, but wouldn't I want to record in the highest quality possible to ensure I don't miss anything? It's also kind of annoying exporting a clip and having it go from good resolution to poor quality in the middle of the clip.

I only have a few cams right now, so I'm thinking of just going back to Mainstreams 24x7 and doing away with the substreams. Is there a way to use substreams ONLY for Deepstack analysis? This is the only place where I can see the benefit of substreams outweighing the negatives. Thoughts?

Regards,

Philip

 

[Mike A.]

You can use substreams for multi-cam viewing, motion, and other purposes and, separately, record in a variety of ways either using substreams or just the mainstream. I don't use Deepstack so I'm not sure but I think the same applies - it can be used and recording can be done using the mainstream only if you want.

Look under the Record tab, under the pull-down for Video and you'll see the various options:

Continuous. Record video all of the time the camera is online and active.

Continuous + alerts. When used with a dual-streaming camera along with direct-to-
disc, the result is a BVR file which will contain the sub-stream continuously
recorded, but the main-stream only recorded when the camera is in an alerted state.
During main-stream playback, the sub-stream will be upsampled whenever the main-
stream is not available. This dual-stream hybrid may be exported only when re-
encoding is selected, although you may still export the main-stream in segments
when not re-encoding. When not using dual-streams or direct-to-disc, recording of
the sub (or only) stream is continuous.

Continuous + triggered. Similar to Continuous + alerts, but main stream recording
occurs upon trigger, not just alerts, ensuring that the main stream is recorded even
for canceled alerts

 

[Swampledge]

Using sub streams doesn’t mean recording only sub streams. I record continuous to always record the main stream, but using the sub streams provides a way to minimize CPUusage and allows me to test/tune motion detection using sub streams. I see it as win/win.

 

[Philip Gonzales]

You can use substreams for multi-cam viewing, motion, and other purposes and, separately, record in a variety of ways either using substreams or just the mainstream. I don't use Deepstack so I'm not sure but I think the same applies - it can be used and recording can be done using the mainstream only if you want.

Look under the Record tab, under the pull-down for Video and you'll see the various options:

Ah I see, so "Continuous" is needed if I want to record the mainstream 24x7 (optionally substream can be also recorded with "record dual-streams if available".

Also in regards to Deepstack, I believe the same applies through Camera Settings> Trigger> Artificial intelligence and the option "Use main stream if available". Going to run like this for a bit and see what happens.

 

[Philip Gonzales]

Using sub streams doesn’t mean recording only sub streams. I record continuous to always record the main stream, but using the sub streams provides a way to minimize CPUusage and allows me to test/tune motion detection using sub streams. I see it as win/win.

I see, that makes sense! Thanks for the info!

 

[wittaj]

Ah I see, so "Continuous" is needed if I want to record the mainstream 24x7 (optionally substream can be also recorded with "record dual-streams if available".

Also in regards to Deepstack, I believe the same applies through Camera Settings> Trigger> Artificial intelligence and the option "Use main stream if available". Going to run like this for a bit and see what happens.

That check box for Deepstack "use main stream if available" is useless because the first thing that the AI program does is downrez it, which is valuable ms lost. Simply let it do AI with the substream.

Plus, you realize you can up the bitrate and get a darn good image and not consume a ton of CPU%. Check out this thread I made. This is in relation to LPR, but the same applies.

How much resolution is really needed for LPR

We have folks come here all the time thinking that more MP is better, whether it be for general purposes or for LPR. Those of us that have been around long enough know that sensor size is more important than MP. Those that have been here awhile know that I share a representative sample of...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Philip Gonzales]

That check box for Deepstack "use main stream if available" is useless because the first thing that the AI program does is downrez it, which is valuable ms lost. Simply let it do AI with the substream.

Plus, you realize you can up the bitrate and get a darn good image and not consume a ton of CPU%. Check out this thread I made. This is in relation to LPR, but the same applies.

How much resolution is really needed for LPR

We have folks come here all the time thinking that more MP is better, whether it be for general purposes or for LPR. Those of us that have been around long enough know that sensor size is more important than MP. Those that have been here awhile know that I share a representative sample of...

ipcamtalk.com

The Check box reverts to checked when changing from Continous+Trigger to Continuous in the Record tab. Thus having the ability to uncheck the checkbox could be useful.

Blue Iris is also using a whopping 2% CPU usage so I'm not worried about it.

 

[jaydeel]

That check box for Deepstack "use main stream if available" is useless because the first thing that the AI program does is downrez it, which is valuable ms lost. Simply let it do AI with the substream.

This post provides a reason for checking ”Use main stream if available”.

Lo-Res trigger JPG

When I have a trigger, I have BI set to save the alert image as a Hi-Res JPG. When I check the images in my Alerts folder, they're all Lo-Res. Any idea what's going on?

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Philip Gonzales]

This post provides a reason for checking ”Use main stream if available”.

Lo-Res trigger JPG

When I have a trigger, I have BI set to save the alert image as a Hi-Res JPG. When I check the images in my Alerts folder, they're all Lo-Res. Any idea what's going on?

ipcamtalk.com

Thanks for sharing. I am so indecisive I have already went from Continuous+Triggered, to Continuous, back to Continuous+Triggered. Probably have checked that checkbox a couple of times also. I have FOMO either way! Lol. If I record the mainstream 24x7 then my retention isn't as long obviously... Sigh... I tend to overthink things sometimes lol.

 

[looney2ns]

Use substreams, adjust the cameras substream bit rate up to what is satisfactory for you.
I choose substream 2 in my 4mp cameras, and 1080p, 2048 bitrate, and there isn't a whole lot of difference in triggered video or not.
But it still saves a ton of storage and CPU cycles.
That's the beauty of BI, set it up the way YOU want it.

 

[Philip Gonzales]

Use substreams, adjust the cameras substream bit rate up to what is satisfactory for you.
I choose substream 2 in my 4mp cameras, and 1080p, 2048 bitrate, and there isn't a whole lot of difference in triggered video or not.
But it still saves a ton of storage and CPU cycles.
That's the beauty of BI, set it up the way YOU want it.

Mind=Blown!

Thanks @looney2ns! I hadn't even realized there was a substream 2!!! This makes the decesion much easier to use substreams, as I thought I was stuck with D1 resolution for the substreams.