5.2.7.0 - RTSP sub-streams for high-MP cameras

I had one camera that just didn't like the substream set-up - weird things would happen in the recording - speed up play, lose sound, time not correct, etc. No consistency or repeatability in the errors.

The most recent update took care of that.
 
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wittaj said:
I had one camera that just didn't like the substream set-up - weird things would happen in the recording - speed up play, lose sound, time not correct, etc. No consistency or repeatability in the errors.

The most recent update took care of that.
Click to expand...
me too, on 1x 8MP dahua, I followed someones advice and de-selected "use RTSP/stream timecode" in BI and that seems to have fixed it.... time will tell.
 
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hotbrass said:
How do I know if it is stable or even the right version? My system is not connected to the internet anymore so I cannot run updates automatically.
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Downloads from the BlueIris web-site are the "Stable" versions with the "Critical Updates"
You only get "latest" updates if your device is connected to the Internet and you select "latest updates". For a production deployment should be left on "Stable and Critical Updates"
So if you check your BI version against the BI downloads page, if yours is higher then you are not on a stable release.
Keeping in-mind that if you adopt new features early that always is a risk and you need to accept there will be issues.

PS: Version on their web site
Version 5.2.9.12 (June 7, 2020)
 
Since upgrading to 5.2.9.18 my system is in great shape running 20 cameras with CPU varying from 25-35% where without sub streams enabled it ran from 70-80% (Generation 1 i7)
I had lots of issues with the time stamps and strange and missing recordings before the .18 release. I am so pleased at this point that I decided not to chase updates any more.
 
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I'm relatively happy with sub streams in version 5.2.9.19. It has been nearly 5 days since the last time Blue Iris crashed, and there aren't as many signal loss / restore events in the log anymore as there were a week ago. But stability is still not where it was in 5.1.x, and for that reason I am still not upgrading most of the other systems I run. I would not be nearly as willing to run unstable versions like this if I did not have a second BI box running an older version as a backup.
 
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bp2008 said:
I'm relatively happy with sub streams in version 5.2.9.19. It has been nearly 5 days since the last time Blue Iris crashed, and there aren't as many signal loss / restore events in the log anymore as there were a week ago. But stability is still not where it was in 5.1.x, and for that reason I am still not upgrading most of the other systems I run. I would not be nearly as willing to run unstable versions like this if I did not have a second BI box running an older version as a backup.
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Since turning off the rtsp timecode I have had zero issues
 
I haven't tried turning off RTSP timecode in a while. Ken told me it was intended to be on for sub streams, so I figure that is how he runs it himself.

My main system which I have been doing all the testing on is an i7-8700K. Before sub streams, I had it running 26 cams at about 1189 MP/s, which ran the CPU as high as 45-50% with the local console open, and well into the 70s and 80s with a UI3 or two open as well.

Now, I have configured sub streams on 9 cams (mostly the higher resolution ones) and on most of those I doubled the frame rate from 15 to 30 FPS. Now the system is running 674 MP/s and at half the CPU load as before. If I did the same thing for all the remaining main-stream-only cameras, I would probably be down to 300 MP/s or below, with CPU usage under 20% most of the time. But at this point I have no compelling reason to do so. I was seriously considering a PC upgrade, but now that isn't going to happen for the foreseeable future even as I upgrade cameras over the next few years.
 
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bp2008 said:
I haven't tried turning off RTSP timecode in a while. Ken told me it was intended to be on for sub streams, so I figure that is how he runs it himself.

My main system which I have been doing all the testing on is an i7-8700K. Before sub streams, I had it running 26 cams at about 1189 MP/s, which ran the CPU as high as 45-50% with the local console open, and well into the 70s and 80s with a UI3 or two open as well.

Now, I have configured sub streams on 9 cams (mostly the higher resolution ones) and on most of those I doubled the frame rate from 15 to 30 FPS. Now the system is running 674 MP/s and at half the CPU load as before. If I did the same thing for all the remaining main-stream-only cameras, I would probably be down to 300 MP/s or below, with CPU usage under 20% most of the time. But at this point I have no compelling reason to do so.
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If I turned it on for substreams the entire system gets unstable and does not record useful footage randomly. Sometimes for hours at a time on random cameras until the service is restarted. I'm also not sure at what point hardware decoding was added to the web server but I've now enabled that as well.

My systems max out around 150-200MP because I only run 15FPS at 2Mbps on the main and 1Mbps on the sub, maximum, VBR high. This produces acceptable results for me.
 
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bp2008 said:
.....................
Now, I have configured sub streams on 9 cams (mostly the higher resolution ones) and on most of those I doubled the frame rate from 15 to 30 FPS................
Click to expand...

Curious what your thoughts are for increasing the FPS on the substreams?
 
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My system is stable with 5.2.9.19 using substreams and hardware decoding with a mix of cameras running H264 and H265 (3x8MP, 1x5MP, 1x4MP, 2x2MP). All cameras are configured for 15FPS (main and substreams) with matching frame interval of 15. The bit rates , but they're set to provide the best picture without creating too large of a recording since I have several cameras recording continuously.

I had to turn off rtsp for the 5MP camera due to the weird timestamp issue.
 
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anijet said:
Curious what your thoughts are for increasing the FPS on the substreams?
Click to expand...

It really depends on your preference. It is important that sub and main FPS match. But typically you save so much CPU time by enabling the sub stream that you can use whatever frame rate you want and still be saving a ton of CPU. For example, you could take a camera that is 2 MP at 15 FPS, enable the sub stream at 704x480 resolution, and then be operating at about one sixth of the CPU load as before. You could increase frame rate (main and sub streams both) to 30 FPS and you'd double the load but it would still be only a third of what you had before the sub stream was configured.

The performance difference grows as the main stream resolution grows. To help understand the difference in CPU cost, consider this table that I just put together.

IP Camera Resolutions - Frame Size Difference

This table lists common IP video stream resolutions and their relative size compared to other resolutions. This is roughly equivalent to the amount of work Blue Iris must do to process a video stream of this resolution (assuming the same frame rate and video codec is used).

ResolutionCompared to 4KCompared to 4 MPCompared to 2 MPCompared to 1 MPCompared to D1 - PALCompared to D1 - NTSC
3840x2160 (4K)100%203%400%900%2045%2455%
2688x1520 (4 MP)49%100%197%443%1008%1209%
1920x1080 (2 MP)25%51%100%225%511%614%
1280x720 (1 MP)11%23%44%100%227%273%
704x576 (D1 Sub Stream - PAL)5%10%20%44%100%120%
704x480 (D1 Sub Stream - NTSC)4%8%16%36%83%100%

For example, a D1 resolution sub stream is about 4% or 5% as much work as a 4K main stream. To put it another way, a 2 MP stream is 5 to 6 times as much work as a D1 sub stream.

IAmATeaf said:
Anybody else getting edgy about the length of time that has passed since the last update.
Click to expand...

LOL. 5 days is quite a while considering how often he's been updating lately. :) But I'm pretty sure BI has gone as long as a month or so without an update in the past (not counting when he's working on a new major version).
 
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Hi, just want to confirm that in later versions, live view (through apps) uses the full resolution stream. My current version uses the substream for live view. Not too nice at 480p
 
What is your current version? 5.2.9.7 was the first to include main streams when remote viewing, I think. It was not listed in release notes when the main stream started getting used when remote viewing.
 
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bp2008 said:
What is your current version? The version cutoff was around a week or two ago. Maybe even 3 at this point. It was not listed in release notes when the main stream started getting used when remote viewing.
Click to expand...
5.2.7.9
 
I updated my post above. Based on my email history with Ken, it was 5.2.9.7 that started using the main stream when live viewing. Over the next several minor releases, Ken got it to start with the sub stream (so the UI can be more responsive) and transition to the main stream, and later he got it to do that reliably.
 
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