(2) Camera's at remote location - Blue Iris Centralized

C

cbell1611

n3wb
Aug 13, 2019
6
2
US
I wanted some opions on how I should address two locations. I currently have Blue Iris(version 5) running at my house but we have a second property that I would like to install two wired cameras.

Option 1:
- Install broadband internet connection.
- Setup Site-to-Site VPN.
- Configure local LAN accordingly.
- Back-haul video over VPN to Blue Iris
Server, peferrably H264 but would use
H265 if necessary.

Option 2:
- Install broadband Internet.
- Install second Blue Iris server on premises.
- Configure zone alerting as required with
video stored locally.

Option 1
PROs:
- Infrastructure is already installed. It would
be a matter of just installing cameras and
configuring alerts. The storage and mobile
app stuff is done.

CONs:
- Not sure how stable streaming that video
over a VPN connection would be.

Option 2
PROs:
- Local infrastructure reduced the potential
issues frames dropping or video quality
with the over-head from the VPN.

CONs:
- duplicate infrastructure; Blue Iris, and / or
Storage.

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I would set up a 2nd install of BI at the remote location.
If internet ever was down, recording would still occur.
Nothing about option 2 would prevent you from being able to still stream cameras/video to your main BI via vpn as well.
Option 1 would have the major downside of any interruption in internet at the 2nd or primary location would result in no video being stored.
 
Good point. Essentially install BI at remote location with a nominal amount of local storage and then I can have Blue Iris move the Alerts and Recordings every 24 hours. If the VPN is down for whatever reason, the "move" job will resume once the tunnel is restored. In the unlikely event the tunnel is down, I should be okay with the appropriate planning.

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I basically have a setup like your option #1 for past 2.5 years to monitor a property in another state without significant issues. It is doable, but double check your monthly data cap and UPLOAD bandwidth, with my Comcast connection I always had to stay under 1000Gb/month. I had a 10/3Mb fiber connection installed and can only get 3 feeds over VPN at pretty low frame rates or else I saturate the 3Mb connection, and instead of increasing that to 25/5 it will be more economical to just buy a used desktop to install at remote location.

My plan is to move more to your option #2 (when I can get back onsite) and install a local, smaller Blue Iris machine to do local recording at a higher frame rate (locally) and so I can record more cameras 24x7. My plan is to push a low fps stream to remote location so I have some record as a backup, and create smaller files remotely so I can pinpoint any incident and download the appropriate video file over VPN. There is also a thread here explaining how to have one Blue Iris machine record streams from another (in our case over VPN).

If you decide to hybrid #1 and #2 like I plan to do, just make sure that one of your endpoints can be an OpenVPN CLIENT, as some routers only have the OpenVPN server by default, and you will need to setup a client>server configuration or VPN in whenever you get an alert to that remote site.
 
Perfect... Thank you all for the input. I currently have Business class Service at my home so there is no data cap here. I will have to see what service we'll end up doing at the other home. As for the Tunnel, I currently have Cisco ASA 5520 at home and will install a Cisco ASA 5505 which has two POE ports onboard, so I can power the Camera's. Although I have static Public IPs with the primary location, the second location is most likely going to be dynamic, but I will just configure Easy VPN, which will connect without the need to have a static public at the secondary. Zone Trigger Alerts and 24x7 Video recording will occur locally, and I will move them to the NAS at an interval yet to be determined. As for access to the Video... I was thinking of assigning a public from my primary loction address pool , NATing it to the private address located at location number 2, essentially back-hauling Blue Iris Mobile client interaction through Location 1 to Location 2 over the VPN Tunnel. The impact should be negligible because the secondary stream of BI seems pretty forgiving.

However... I think the method of sending Blue Iris location 2 Video and Alerting to Blue Iris Location 1 has some merit. Too bad Blue Iris doesn't have an implementation option whereby; you can have multiple BI servers, with some behaving as the "engine" handling the processing (video / audio), with another deidcated BI server handling the logic, essentially sending the alerts and handling video access and move jobs. Kind of like a front and backend setup.

In either event, I'm definitely going to be doing a lot of tinkering in the near future. I will try to post a follow-up after the dust settles.

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