New Blue Iris build

A

Averof

n3wb
Apr 7, 2020
7
0
Cyprus
My current setup NVR is a Lenovo RS140 1U server. That little guy cannot handle my 10 reolink IP Onvif cameras.
So Im in the process of building a custom 2U NVR. This is my first ever setup so I would like your tips.

What I have in my mind is:

256GB M.2 for the OS
6TB WD Purple
Any 2U rack-mounted case will be fine.
2* Noctua NF-A8 80mm (In&Out)

and now the big boys

i5-9600K
MSI Z390-A Pro ( or any Z390)
Corsair CX450
Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB DDR4 3200Mhz (They advertise them as low consumption, why not? :) )

Question 1:

Do you think that the 9600K would be an overkill or just right? I came up with that by following your example: For two 8MP cameras each at 15 FPS you have 2 (cameras) * 8 (MP) * 15 (FPS) = 240 MP/s.

- Hence, 10 Cameras * 4 (MP) * ~20 = 800MPs
**500-800 MP/**s --- 3rd-7th gen i7 desktop CPU (4 cores + hyperthreading) or 8th-9th gen i5 desktop CPU (6 cores) OR 800-1100 MP/s -- i7-8700 (6 cores + hyperthreading) or i7-9700 (8 cores) or the K edition of either.

Ideal solution is a system that will be able to handle a couple additional cameras in the future.

Question 2:

If we need such powerful CPU for an NVR build, how come and the retail NVR appliances are so small and can handle 8 IP cameras + POE ??

Question 3:

Do I really need 16GB of RAM? HDD is for storage, CPU for frame processing, where the RAM is used for?
 
Reolink cameras are a complete PIA. They are nothing but problems. They use non standard data formats. If you can send them back. Search reolink on this forum. Use google site:ipcamtalk.com reolink


I use an i7-4790 with 16GB memory to process 16 2MP cameras , 8 to 15 Frame per second at about 25% CPU load.
 
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Hi @Averof

Q1

I tend to buy the best CPU the socket can take when I build a machine. But I do expect i5-9600K to be fine for 800 MP/s. You might want to cut frame rates down a little if you add more cameras later. Don't forget the K edition CPUs don't come with coolers.

Fast RAM is good to have for BI too, and 3200 MHz isn't bad.

Q2

Blue Iris decodes the incoming video at all times, even if you have it running as a background service with nobody watching. The one exception to this is if you enable the "Limit decoding" feature, then BI will only decode keyframes which cuts CPU usage down tremendously. The developer has indicated that in the future, BI may take advantage of sub streams to reduce constant CPU usage while retaining a higher frame rate.

Anyway, many NVR appliances and indeed other NVR software for PCs has a lot bigger development budget and more engineers so they are able to use specialized hardware to decode the video more efficiently, and in many cases not decode the video at all, instead relying upon the cameras themselves to do motion detection and other analytics.

Q3

You could probably get away with 8 GB of RAM, but I'd go with 16 for that size of load just to be safe. Windows is a pig and uses ever larger amounts it seems like. Blue Iris uses RAM mostly to buffer video frames. Since BI processes so many video streams at once, having fast RAM is almost as important as having enough RAM. In my experience, faster RAM actually reduces CPU usage, I guess because the CPU doesn't need to spend as much time waiting for RAM, so the CPU can return to idle faster.

If you go with 8 GB of RAM, make sure it is a kit of two 4 GB DIMMs so you can run it dual channel. You could always add another identical kit later to up it to 16 GB if needed.

Oh, and also, enable the XMP profile in the BIOS so your ram runs at its full advertised speed.
 
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SouthernYankee said:
Reolink cameras are a complete PIA. They are nothing but problems. They use non standard data formats. If you can send them back. Search reolink on this forum. Use google site:ipcamtalk.com reolink


I use an i7-4790 with 16GB memory to process 16 2MP cameras , 8 to 15 Frame per second at about 25% CPU load.
Click to expand...

As I already mentioned Im new to this CCTV world. My current experience so for:
  • Pretty easy to install (maybe cause Im a network engineer), Separate them in a /27 VLAN, no outgoing connections through WAN, and the only way to access them is through VPN. Im missing the notification features but I dont want an attacker to be notified for a non-secure network either.
  • Their Software looks nice and clean, though very limited features compared to BI.
  • Not very happy with the image quality
  • Their zoom is not very good, even though its advertised with x4 Optical zoom. I couldnt manage to make that work with BI. I does wotk if connect straight to the camera with HTTPS but, again is not that good IMO.
  • I see a lot of glitches on the recordings, and the trigger response is delayed. Maybe cause of my NVR hardware resources?

I dont have in my mind a good baseline to compare, as I said this is my first ever setup.

I bought them straight from their website. Reading from this forum they are not really on customers site. How can I make them accept the return without questions? I already opened a ticket with them.
I also read that Dahua is pretty good but they do not sell to consumers. Any gateway on that?
 
bp2008 said:
Hi @Averof

Q1

I tend to buy the best CPU the socket can take when I build a machine. But I do expect i5-9600K to be fine for 800 MP/s. You might want to cut frame rates down a little if you add more cameras later. Don't forget the K edition CPUs don't come with coolers.

Fast RAM is good to have for BI too, and 3200 MHz isn't bad.

Q2

Blue Iris decodes the incoming video at all times, even if you have it running as a background service with nobody watching. The one exception to this is if you enable the "Limit decoding" feature, then BI will only decode keyframes which cuts CPU usage down tremendously. The developer has indicated that in the future, BI may take advantage of sub streams to reduce constant CPU usage while retaining a higher frame rate.

Anyway, many NVR appliances and indeed other NVR software for PCs has a lot bigger development budget and more engineers so they are able to use specialized hardware to decode the video more efficiently, and in many cases not decode the video at all, instead relying upon the cameras themselves to do motion detection and other analytics.

Q3

You could probably get away with 8 GB of RAM, but I'd go with 16 for that size of load just to be safe. Windows is a pig and uses ever larger amounts it seems like. Blue Iris uses RAM mostly to buffer video frames. Since BI processes so many video streams at once, having fast RAM is almost as important as having enough RAM. In my experience, faster RAM actually reduces CPU usage, I guess because the CPU doesn't need to spend as much time waiting for RAM, so the CPU can return to idle faster.

If you go with 8 GB of RAM, make sure it is a kit of two 4 GB DIMMs so you can run it dual channel. You could always add another identical kit later to up it to 16 GB if needed.

Oh, and also, enable the XMP profile in the BIOS so your ram runs at its full advertised speed.
Click to expand...

Q1

Since its a new build I dont want adjustments later on. I preffer to have an extra buffer for additional cameras. Do you think an i7-8700 will give me that extra buffer?

Q2

Thanks I understand the technical part. But now another question has been raised in my mind. Using another software or even appliance will reduce the cost of the build and also the cost of power consumption. Why to stick with BI? Is there any better solution?
I dont mind the cost (saying a reolink guy :D I wish I knew before) . I just want to get the best possible solution without paying more than I should.

Q3

Ram is quite cheap at the moment. 2x8GB would not hurt me or my wallet. If you say its better, no need to say more
 
Averof said:
I also read that Dahua is pretty good but they do not sell to consumers. Any gateway on that?
Click to expand...

you can buy from @EMPIRETECANDY on this site. He sells international dahua models. Good pricing and fast shipping.

for more info see the ‘dahua purchasing information’ section here:

IP Cam Talk Cliff Notes

Information in this section was contributed by [URL='https://ipcamtalk.com/members/mat200.29441/'][COLOR=#0000b3]@matt200[/COLOR][/URL] and [URL='https://ipcamtalk.com/members/giomania.36271/'][COLOR=#0000b3]@giomania [/COLOR][/URL] [/LIST] Any dedicated manufacturer NVR should match...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
I meant to post this this morning, but got distracted with other things.


To give you a better idea of what an i7-8700 would handle, I am currently using an i7-8700K for my home BI machine, running 1120 MP/s, and I consider it to be close to the limit of what this system will handle well. A big part of this is because I use a 4K TV for the local console.

It runs at around a 22-25% CPU load when running as a background service with nothing viewing the video streams. That makes it sound like there is tons of spare capacity, but for my usage patterns there is not.

Opening the local console (Blue Iris graphical user interface) on a 4K TV increases CPU usage to 40-50%. Usage is doubled just by needing to scale and render the live video on screen. It would be tripled if I connected the TV to an HDMI port on the motherboard, but I connect it to a discrete Nvidia card because it makes Blue Iris render the local console more efficiently. It isn't nearly as bad on a 1080p display -- 4K is really demanding here.

If I also open the web interface on one computer, CPU usage rises again, settling around 60-70%. A second remote viewer and can bump it up further, and then there are other processes on the computer to worry about. So my system often gets into the 80%+ CPU utilization range even though its low point is 25% or less. Whatever you do, you don't want Blue Iris to start falling behind because that is where you start getting delayed video streams, dropped frames, and other problems.

Here is a graph from my system showing overall CPU usage in red, Blue Iris CPU usage in dark blue. Overall CPU usage is always a bit higher because some of Blue Iris's workload is handled by "System" and "System interrupts" which isn't counted as Blue Iris usage.


1586353977382.png


There are tons of alternatives to Blue Iris out there. Some free, some with subscriptions, many with very expensive licensing (more expensive than the computer you run it on), but nothing that I know of which offers as good a value as Blue Iris in my opinion.
 
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Hi @bp2008,

Thanks for your reply, very informative.

Considering you are running your 8700 at 1120 MP/s and a 4K monitor, in my case will be well bellow the limits. My setup will be a headless machine with local RDP.
Also there are 2 Web Interface users that will connect every now and then for a few minutes.
Conclusion according to your experience, the 8700 will give me that extra buffer that I need. A bit pricy but, if its gonna be a one-off cost, let it be.
 
Right, just make sure you have the live preview frame rate properly limited when doing RDP and it sounds like you would be fine.

I would hesitate to buy a previous-generation CPU at retail. The price has not gone down in a meaningful way since it launched in October 2017. Something comparable from the 9th generation like an i7-9700(K) should be a slightly better value. Or if you wait a couple of months, 10th gen CPUs are just around the corner and are likely to offer a more meaningful price/performance improvement because AMD is being extremely competitive these days.
 
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bp2008 said:
Hi @Averof

Q1

I tend to buy the best CPU the socket can take when I build a machine. But I do expect i5-9600K to be fine for 800 MP/s. You might want to cut frame rates down a little if you add more cameras later. Don't forget the K edition CPUs don't come with coolers.

Fast RAM is good to have for BI too, and 3200 MHz isn't bad.

Q2

Blue Iris decodes the incoming video at all times, even if you have it running as a background service with nobody watching. The one exception to this is if you enable the "Limit decoding" feature, then BI will only decode keyframes which cuts CPU usage down tremendously. The developer has indicated that in the future, BI may take advantage of sub streams to reduce constant CPU usage while retaining a higher frame rate.

Anyway, many NVR appliances and indeed other NVR software for PCs has a lot bigger development budget and more engineers so they are able to use specialized hardware to decode the video more efficiently, and in many cases not decode the video at all, instead relying upon the cameras themselves to do motion detection and other analytics.

Q3

You could probably get away with 8 GB of RAM, but I'd go with 16 for that size of load just to be safe. Windows is a pig and uses ever larger amounts it seems like. Blue Iris uses RAM mostly to buffer video frames. Since BI processes so many video streams at once, having fast RAM is almost as important as having enough RAM. In my experience, faster RAM actually reduces CPU usage, I guess because the CPU doesn't need to spend as much time waiting for RAM, so the CPU can return to idle faster.

If you go with 8 GB of RAM, make sure it is a kit of two 4 GB DIMMs so you can run it dual channel. You could always add another identical kit later to up it to 16 GB if needed.

Oh, and also, enable the XMP profile in the BIOS so your ram runs at its full advertised speed.
Click to expand...

Nice. Great info on the RAM. Would 3200 MHz be a big difference of 2400 MHz RAM or at a certain point will you not see a difference.

and if you go up to 16gb. Would 4 sticks of 4 be better or 2 sticks of 8?
 
Last edited:
There is a little more to ram performance than the MHz. There are also "timings" to worry about. When I compared 2133 MHz with 3600 MHz I saw a noticeable CPU usage difference. However keep in mind I only tested memory speeds briefly on one system under one particular camera load. I did not try other PCs or lighter or heavier camera loads, different codecs, hardware acceleration, etc. There is a LOT of testing that could be done to better understand the effect of RAM speed on Blue Iris.

Assuming the RAM sticks are the same speed, then 4 sticks of 4 should be practically indistinguishable from 2 sticks of 8, assuming it is a dual channel system and the 2 sticks of 8 were installed in the appropriate slots for dual channel operation.
 
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bp2008 said:
There is a little more to ram performance than the MHz. There are also "timings" to worry about. When I compared 2133 MHz with 3600 MHz I saw a noticeable CPU usage difference. However keep in mind I only tested memory speeds briefly on one system under one particular camera load. I did not try other PCs or lighter or heavier camera loads, different codecs, hardware acceleration, etc. There is a LOT of testing that could be done to better understand the effect of RAM speed on Blue Iris.

Assuming the RAM sticks are the same speed, then 4 sticks of 4 should be practically indistinguishable from 2 sticks of 8, assuming it is a dual channel system and the 2 sticks of 8 were installed in the appropriate slots for dual channel operation.
Click to expand...

Nice. I might try it for $80 I can pickup 2 3200MHz on amazon and see if I notice any CPU difference.

@ 310MP/s on a i5-8500 I am seeing 30-40% with console opened and 2 UI3 streams.
 
bp2008 said:
G.SKILL TridentZ Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Intel Z170 / Z270 / Z370 / X299 Desktop Memory Model F4-3600C17Q-32GTZ - Newegg.com

This is the kit I used in my most recent build. Better timings and likely better prices do exist -- I picked that kit because I was building for AMD and that kit has "Samsung B-Die" modules which are known for excellent AMD compatibility and stability.
Click to expand...

Ah beautiful. I was thinking something cheaper like this:
 
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It should still be called XMP. Some motherboards don't support it, which could be a pain in the ass because entering all the RAM timings manually is often a recipe for disaster because you don't know what they actually are supposed to be.
 
bp2008 said:
It should still be called XMP. Some motherboards don't support it, which could be a pain in the ass because entering all the RAM timings manually is often a recipe for disaster because you don't know what they actually are supposed to be.
Click to expand...

Yeah.. I would not even know what that means "entering RAM timing manually" - do you know if the HP elitedesk G4 800 BIOS has any settings? Would buying better RAM matter without being able to set it up correctly?
 
Faster RAM wouldn't matter if you can't set it up correctly in the BIOS.

Load up the BIOS and look for XMP settings. Although its possible your current RAM might not have an XMP profile at all and the BIOS might hide it then.
 
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