4.6.9 - January 31, 2018 H.265 hardware decoding added

crc2004

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WOW, only 2%. That is crazy.
I have an i5-7500, with 4 x 4MP (h265) IPcams and one 2MP (h264) Doorbell cam. My system is running at 50% CPU load. I even have them all set to record direct to disc. I must be doing something wrong if you only have a load of 2%.
A clean reinstall of BlueIris my improve your CPU utilization. I was at 70% a couple months ago, did a un-install/install. Redefined my cameras and now I'm at 33% with 6 cameras. I must have screwed up some settings during my initial setup or maybe some installation defaults have changed since my original installation.
 

giel

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Given my setup I would _love_ working H265 hardware support. I'm available for debugging and beta testing (in case Ken reads this - just PM me).
 

jmg

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ok, so I walked through this post; what's the status of h.265?
I went to each setup page on my cameras, and set them to h.265, and I still get a stream, regardless of whether I check or uncheck "h.264" in camera properties.
is h.265 decoding working? Should I keep the h.264 unchecked in camera properties?
 

fenderman

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ok, so I walked through this post; what's the status of h.265?
I went to each setup page on my cameras, and set them to h.265, and I still get a stream, regardless of whether I check or uncheck "h.264" in camera properties.
is h.265 decoding working? Should I keep the h.264 unchecked in camera properties?
Not working..
 

jmg

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huh... I switched all my cameras to h.265, and I still see the video. weird.
 

fenderman

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huh... I switched all my cameras to h.265, and I still see the video. weird.
It may be working for you... test and see gpu and CPU usage..do you have hardware acceleration enabled?
 

jmg

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yeah, the streams work regardless of the settings in BI.
I have dual titans, both are at idle. 7700k cpu, running around 30-35% usage, running 8 streams, all 4k, 15fps.
 

fenderman

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yeah, the streams work regardless of the settings in BI.
I have dual titans, both are at idle. 7700k cpu, running around 30-35% usage, running 8 streams, all 4k, 15fps.
Didn't answer the questions...can easily tell if it's actually working
 

jmg

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thought I did... I'm running 8 cameras. one of them now is running h.265 ( switched to h.265 in the camera's web setting)

est and see gpu and CPU usage..do you have hardware acceleration enabled?
* In camera properties on the camera that is streaming "h.265," , I switch "h.264 HW decode" to "off." CPU usage is vacillates between 35-40%. Afterburner reports both titans less than 5% usage.
* I switch "h.264 decode" to "on," no difference, cpu usage still hovering round the 40% ish After burner same.

Is there something else you want me to check?
BI must be decoding the stream, the camera is set to h.265 only-- it has one main stream and one substream, both are set to h.265.
 

bp2008

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If hardware acceleration is working, then turning it off should result in higher CPU usage and lower (or zero) Intel GPU usage. You can use TechPowerUp to easily get GPU usage specific to your Intel graphics.

Your Nvidia graphics only get used by Blue Iris to draw the local console on the screen, and they have nothing to do with hardware acceleration.
 

fenderman

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Bi has no issues with h.265 ..it's the Intel hardware acceleration that does not work with h.265...
 

jmg

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ahh, ok, I get the distinction now.
I'll try the techpower up app... also, I'm going to try nvidia console and setting BI to use integrated graphics.
 

jmg

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how much better cpu utilization would there be with hardware? Right now I'm at 40%, running 4k streams at h.265. how much lower, ballpark, would cpu use be with hardware decoding?
 

bp2008

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H.264 hardware acceleration could provide an improvement of 2-3x assuming other Blue Iris settings were optimal. For example a system running at 40% could end up at 13-20% after changing from software decoding to hardware decoding. I would guess that H.265 hardware acceleration is similarly effective, if not better.

You do not need to set Blue Iris to use integrated graphics. It sounds to me like your intel GPU isn't even enabled, and you'll need to check the BIOS to see if it can be enabled while you have PCI-E graphics installed. GPU-Z will make it obvious if the integrated graphics are enabled or not, since it has a dropdown list for choosing the GPU to monitor.

Also, you should be aware of this: Memory Leak: Quick Sync (Hardware Acceleration) | IP Cam Talk
 

jmg

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Yeah, I realized the same thing as I was trouble shooting. Tried to install the intel drivers for 630, kept saying it wasn't supported.
Turned out I had integrated graphics switched off in bios.
Turned it on, installed the drivers and then... all video streams disappeared.

I turned off hardware acceleration in BI, and the streams came back on (no surprise). What's interesting though is that after I turned off HW acceleration, cpu usage for BI did drop (I'm only looking at the BI usage, not total usage, too much other crap going on). Not an enormous amount-- before turning on integrated graphics I was running 35-40% cpu usage, after I'm running 25-30% (8 cameras, 7 running at 4 k resolution, 1 running at 2k). I may switch back to h.264 now to see if having hardware acceleration properly enabled makes any difference.
 

bp2008

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What's interesting though is that after I turned off HW acceleration, cpu usage for BI did drop (I'm only looking at the BI usage, not total usage, too much other crap going on). Not an enormous amount-- before turning on integrated graphics I was running 35-40% cpu usage, after I'm running 25-30% (8 cameras, 7 running at 4 k resolution, 1 running at 2k).
Interesting, I wonder what is responsible.

I may switch back to h.264 now to see if having hardware acceleration properly enabled makes any difference.
It certainly will if it works at all! Blue Iris doesn't even try to tell you if hardware acceleration is working though so you always have to figure that out for yourself.
 

jmg

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Interesting, I wonder what is responsible.
I think it's close enough that it could be a number of things, not necessarily that hardware decoding is actually working on h.265. Now that I know that I actually have intel integrated video properly activated, I'll drop all the cameras back down to h.264, and see if there's a more significant decrease in processor load.



It certainly will if it works at all! Blue Iris doesn't even try to tell you if hardware acceleration is working though so you always have to figure that out for yourself.
Yup.. no idea why I just assumed I had it enabled, though, even at 40% cpu usage, that's not too bad in my book for a dedicated machine tracking 8 (soon to be 10) 4k streams.
 

bp2008

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No, 40% isn't bad at all. Though you have to consider for a machine with hyper-threading, the last 50% gets sucked up a lot faster than the first 50%. So 40% is a lot closer to the limit than it seems.
 

jmg

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true. the machine isn't doing anything else other than Pandora, some occasional movies and mining. Only thing taxing the CPU really is BI-- which is itself very responsive. I may see whether using h.264 makes a dent just for kicks and giggles, but likely will just leave it at h.265 even if hardware decoding isn't being used.
 
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