Am I calculating this right? MP/s

[tessellated]

Hello all,

I have recently purchased 10 Reolink cameras:

Camera Model	Style	Compression	Megapixels	Main Stream	Sub Stream	qty
RLC-522	Dome	H.264	5MP	30fps	6fps	3​
RLC-511	Bullet	H.264	5MP	30fps	6fps	4​
RLC-423	Turret	H.264	5MP	30fps	6fps	3​

If I understand the purpose of a sub-stream correctly, then I am looking at a total of 300 MP/s? Is that correct?

 

[SouthernYankee]

Return the us!ess pieces of junk. They do not work will at night. They also use a non standard data format. You will have video quality problem. Search the forum for posts on reolnk

 

[tessellated]

Return the us!ess pieces of junk. They do not work will at night. They also use a non standard data format. You will have video quality problem. Search the forum for posts on reolnk

Thanks for the response. I'll look at the feedback on Reolink. Aside from that, can you answer the question as to whether or not I am calculating the MP/s correctly? I'll need to know this no matter which brand of camera I use.

 

[sebastiantombs]

To the basic point, Reolink being junk, there is no effective way to calculate a MbPS output for them because their firmware varies the bit rate, frame rate and iframe rate constantly, to whatever they seem to think is acceptable. You're trying to find a finite aim point for a moving target. I know this from direct experience and wasted money.

To calculate a MbPS rate you need the bit rate. Resolution and frames aren't the way to calculate it even with a decent camera that provides a stable output.

 

[SouthernYankee]

With out an Iframe value, it is not possile to calculate MP/Sec. There is no Iframe value on Reolinks non standard format.
Also need to known if it is VBR or CBR
What is the Bit rate value on the cameras
what is the frame size of the subframe.

Beyond that there is the complexity of each frame, there is also the amount of motion.

On my 5 MP camera running at 15 fps with max quality, Iframe=framerate , it has 85 MP/Sec.
Test do not guess.

 

[tessellated]

Ugh. Let me reframe the question.

I'm trying to decide how powerful of a CPU I will need for BI. I really do no wish to get bogged down on brand of camera. I absolutely will take the above advice to heart.

Let's pretend I had some other camera system whose sub stream was 6fps at 5MP. Let's say I had 10 of them. Would that mean I would have a total of 300 MP/s? Do I understand this correctly?

 

[tessellated]

With out an Iframe value, it is not possile to calculate MP/Sec. There is no Iframe value on Reolinks non standard format.
Also need to known if it is VBR or CBR
What is the Bit rate value on the cameras
what is the frame size of the subframe.

Beyond that there is the complexity of each frame, there is also the amount of motion.

On my 5 MP camera running at 15 fps with max quality, Iframe=framerate , it has 85 MP/Sec.
Test do not guess.

How could I measure the MP/s of the sub streams? I do not have BI set up yet.

 

[tessellated]

For clarity's sake, I'm trying to follow the CPU guidance given here: Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris

It seems as though his basic calculation only hinge upon knowing the MP of the camera and the fps of the stream. Am I mistaken?

 

[sebastiantombs]

If you plan on using Blue Iris a 6th or 7th generation, or newer, i5 or i7 will handle quite a load now that substreams can be utilized for motion detection and console display. Example, 15 cameras, 13 2MP and 2 4MP, running on an i7-6700K are using between 5 and 10% of the CPU. That utilization varies due to color or B&W and motion in the frames. In fact at night it's not unusual to see it drop to 2 or 3%. All the cameras are running the lowest available substream resolution at 10FPS with an iframe interval of 10. Total video load is about 50 MbPS daytime and 35 MbPS night time.

 

[tessellated]

If you plan on using Blue Iris a 6th or 7th generation, or newer, i5 or i7 will handle quite a load now that substreams can be utilized for motion detection and console display. Example, 15 cameras, 13 2MP and 2 4MP, running on an i7-6700K are using between 5 and 10% of the CPU. That utilization varies due to color or B&W and motion in the frames. In fact at night it's not unusual to see it drop to 2 or 3%. All the cameras are running the lowest available substream resolution at 10FPS with an iframe interval of 10. Total video load is about 50 MbPS daytime and 35 MbPS night time.

Yes, I would run the latest, stable version of BI.

 

[wittaj]

And do not run a 5MP substream as your post above assumed you would.

 

[bp2008]

What the actual hell you guys? He's asking about megapixels per second, and you all are talking about bit rates and i-frames and MbPS whatever that is.

One 5MP cam at 30 FPS is 150 MP/s for its main stream. For the sub stream, you need to calculate the sub stream's frame size times its frame rate. If we assume the sub stream resolution is 704x480 also known as D1 (NTSC), that is 337920 pixels per frame. Converting to megapixels it is 0.338 megapixels. You SHOULD run the sub stream and main stream at the same frame rate for best BI compatibility, so if we assume 30 FPS on the sub stream, then you have 0.338 * 30 = 10.14. So just about 10 MP/s for one sub stream.

 

[bp2008]

So if you have 10 of these cams all with the sub streams configured as above, then your Blue Iris workload would be about 101.4 MP/s which will run on just about any desktop made in the last 8 years. Each cam you have actively decoding the main stream will increase your MP/s workload by 150 MP/s, which is where you can run into trouble if you have multiple remote viewers active at once. A refurbished 6th-gen or newer Intel i5 should be plenty sufficient, as that gets you a fairly competent CPU and H.265 hardware accelerated decoding. And if you find that peak CPU loads are too high, you can largely reduce the load by running everything at, say, 15 or 20 FPS instead of 30.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Then there's hardware acceleration which will further drop the load. The original question cited Reolink which is a moving target to try to calculate anything for.

 

[tessellated]

What the actual hell you guys? He's asking about megapixels per second, and you all are talking about bit rates and i-frames and MbPS whatever that is.

One 5MP cam at 30 FPS is 150 MP/s for its main stream. For the sub stream, you need to calculate the sub stream's frame size times its frame rate. If we assume the sub stream resolution is 704x480 also known as D1 (NTSC), that is 337920 pixels per frame. Converting to megapixels it is 0.338 megapixels. You SHOULD run the sub stream and main stream at the same frame rate for best BI compatibility, so if we assume 30 FPS on the sub stream, then you have 0.338 * 30 = 10.14. So just about 10 MP/s for one sub stream.

Thank you!

 

[tessellated]

And do not run a 5MP substream as your post above assumed you would.

Yes, I understand that now. If I understand Reolink's specs correctly, my sub-stream resolution would be 640x480 which comes to about .307 MP.

As for all the Reolink criticism, I'm going to run some tests with the camera to see if the images look good to me. I've seen plenty of favorable reviews elsewhere. My initial survey of reviews suggest that some Reolink models in the past did not play well with BI. I don't think that will be true with the models I've purchased, but the strong opinions elsewhere in this thread have me a little concerned.

 

[wittaj]

Test the Reolink motion at night and not as a still image - have someone walk and run across the field of view and see if you can do anything with the footage like make out details.

And test motion detection in Blue Iris (even in demo mode on a laptop if needed) while you can still return the Reolink (hopefully) and see if it captures the event on time. There is post after post on this forum about people coming here looking for help because BI missed the event from a Reolink camera.

I have not seen anyone be able to capture the event with Reolink and Blue Iris without having to do an extended pre-motion trigger time to catch it because Reolink plays with the I-frame rate to give that nice still image.

I also encourage you to read on here about how many of the Reolink positive reviews get posted...paging @fenderman as he can give you incredible insight.

But at the end of the day, these are cams watching over your property, and if you feel they provide you with sufficient coverage then I guess that is all that matters...

 

[tessellated]

Test the Reolink motion at night and not as a still image - have someone walk and run across the field of view and see if you can do anything with the footage like make out details.

And test motion detection in Blue Iris (even in demo mode on a laptop if needed) while you can still return the Reolink (hopefully) and see if it captures the event on time. There is post after post on this forum about people coming here looking for help because BI missed the event from a Reolink camera.

I have not seen anyone be able to capture the event with Reolink and Blue Iris without having to do an extended pre-motion trigger time to catch it because Reolink plays with the I-frame rate to give that nice still image.

I also encourage you to read on here about how many of the Reolink positive reviews get posted...paging @fenderman as he can give you incredible insight.

But at the end of the day, these are cams watching over your property, and if you feel they provide you with sufficient coverage then I guess that is all that matters...

Does this guy's approach to using AI for reliable motion detection at all mediate the concern?

 

[wittaj]

That really doesn't address the issues with Reolink, plus notice all the video is during the day and when he shows examples they are Annke and Dahua cameras. And he is using AI tools developed by a member of this forum: AI motion detection with BlueIris: an alternate approach

Did you find this: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

 

[tessellated]

That really doesn't address the issues with Reolink, plus notice all the video is during the day and when he shows examples they are Annke and Dahua cameras. And he is using AI tools developed by a member of this forum: AI motion detection with BlueIris: an alternate approach

Did you find this: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

No, I hadn't seen that thread. However, I did rely heavily on one of his review videos in making my decision to purchase the Reolink. Is there some other reference you can point me at? The Reolinks are priced well, but it's not too late to go in another direction.