Another CPU usage reduction trick

fbnoise said:
Wow, awesome. You probably already have hardware acceleration turned on, right?

So if it holds, are you going to test putting the new cameras on the same system?
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Funny you mention hardware acceleration. I started a thread on that very feature as I couldn't get it working and my CPU usage went through the roof when turned on. Seems none of the i7 extreme CPUs have the graphics functions, so it's all software rendering.

The new cams will be on the same system. My goal is to have all 42 cams on one machine.
 
Tincanalley said:
Funny you mention hardware acceleration. I started a thread on that very feature as I couldn't get it working and my CPU usage went through the roof when turned on. Seems none of the i7 extreme CPUs have the graphics functions, so it's all software rendering.

The new cams will be on the same system. My goal is to have all 42 cams on one machine.
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IMO brother, you're going to have to go down to 4 (or maybe 2FPS), or slip your system, to begin to achieve this. You boldly go where no BIer has gone before! Please keep us updated!
 
Truly it is a large camera load, but 4 FPS seems extreme to me. Likewise, 30 FPS is also extreme.

http://ipvm.com/reports/recording-frame-rate--whats-actually-being-used

ipvm.com said:
"Unfortunately, although much less fps are enough to capture all required information, it doesn't look "sexy" for most of our customers. They want to be able to retrieve full motion video."
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As I understand it, there are still 7 cams running at 30 FPS. If those were dropped to 15 or 20 FPS, it should make plenty of room for an additional 8 cams at 15 FPS. No guarantee though. With this much video, you can run into other performance bottlenecks besides CPU usage. I remember a guy tried to install a few dozen 8 MP cameras on a significantly more powerful Blue Iris server, but it became unusable before he even reached 50% CPU usage.
 
fenderman said:
Setting the frame rate in BI does nothing, the software auto adjusts it.
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I am pretty sure BI auto-adjusts it upward, but not downward, so there may be a small waste of memory if a bunch of 15 FPS cams are set as 20 FPS in BI.
 
bp2008 said:
I am pretty sure BI auto-adjusts it upward, but not downward, so there may be a small waste of memory if a bunch of 15 FPS cams are set as 20 FPS in BI.
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I believe if you set it to 15, at some point it will auto adjust it upwards so setting it is pointless if it wont hold.
 
Q2U said:
IMO brother, you're going to have to go down to 4 (or maybe 2FPS), or slip your system, to begin to achieve this. You boldly go where no BIer has gone before! Please keep us updated!
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Well at 63%, I feel I can get the additional 5 domes up and running next month. The last time I added 8 domes, it went up 15%. This time it's only 5 cams and they framerate will be lower for each come (15 instead of 20). I think the last 3, which will be 30fps outdoor bullet cams covering an alleyway might put it over the top. By the end of August, I will know.
 
bp2008 said:
Truly it is a large camera load, but 4 FPS seems extreme to me. Likewise, 30 FPS is also extreme.

http://ipvm.com/reports/recording-frame-rate--whats-actually-being-used



As I understand it, there are still 7 cams running at 30 FPS. If those were dropped to 15 or 20 FPS, it should make plenty of room for an additional 8 cams at 15 FPS. No guarantee though. With this much video, you can run into other performance bottlenecks besides CPU usage. I remember a guy tried to install a few dozen 8 MP cameras on a significantly more powerful Blue Iris server, but it became unusable before he even reached 50% CPU usage.
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The thing about the 30fps cams is they are all in outdoor locations with fast motion. I tried 20, but most cars moved too fast to capture anything useful. Now I am able, most of the time, to be able to pull license plates by going frame by frame.

Since most cams are VBR, I am moving about 80Mbs through 1000Mbs POEs. I know the data moving around is not too much for it, but I don't know what other factors BI might have issues with.
 
bp2008 said:
Truly it is a large camera load, but 4 FPS seems extreme to me...
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Ouch! If all 40+ cameras start recording simultaneously I think not. confused.gif
 
Q2U said:
Ouch! If all 40+ cameras start recording simultaneously I think not. View attachment 11484
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It regularly records between 1 and 5 cameras at a time and sometimes higher. These cams cover an apartment complex consisting of 3 buildings. There are hallway, entry, exit, breezeway, parking and alleyway cams. I don't think I've seen much above 6 cameras recording at the same time. Night time is pretty slow. Busiest times are morning and evening.
 
"The thing about the 30fps cams is they are all in outdoor locations with fast motion. I tried 20, but most cars moved too fast to capture anything useful."

to reduce motion blur on fast-moving objects, you want to reduce your cameras' exposure time, not increase the frame rate.
I run 2 license plate cams at 10fps, but have the exposure set to 1/1000 and I get clear plate shots on cars going by at 40mph...

I suspect that if you can adjust your cams' exposures to get clean still shots of motion,
you'll be able to reduce your FPS and save even more CPU...
 
pozzello said:
"The thing about the 30fps cams is they are all in outdoor locations with fast motion. I tried 20, but most cars moved too fast to capture anything useful."

to reduce motion blur on fast-moving objects, you want to reduce your cameras' exposure time, not increase the frame rate.
I run 2 license plate cams at 10fps, but have the exposure set to 1/1000 and I get clear plate shots on cars going by at 40mph...

I suspect that if you can adjust your cams' exposures to get clean still shots of motion,
you'll be able to reduce your FPS and save even more CPU...
Click to expand...

If I take it off auto exposure, I have to change it constantly for different lighting.
 
my point being that frame rate has no bearing on motion blur whatsover, while it does certainly cost CPU...

in other words, lowering your frame rate will not make moving objects any more blurry.
jerky, yes - blurry, no. that's a matter of exposure.

If you cannot reduce the exposure, you're gonna get blur, period.
FPS has nothing to do with it, so might as well lower it to save CPU...

kudos to you for managing such a big install!
 
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Some cams have the exposure setting where you are only limiting how slow it can get, but it can get faster than where you set it. It means you can eliminate motion blur in low light without making the camera wash out during the day / bright sunlight.
 
Well I've lowered all cameras to 15fps and VBR. It now runs at 39%, so I'm sure my goal of 42 cams is well within reach! I had to tell BI that the cams were at 20fps as setting to 15 caused some bad pauses and other issues with image quality. Once set to 20, recordings were fine.
 
That is awesome. I could see something where you can make a change on multiple cameras at once would be really handy in your situation
 
fbnoise said:
That is awesome. I could see something where you can make a change on multiple cameras at once would be really handy in your situation
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Yeah, guess I got caught up in FPS. They look just fine when properly setup for bitrate and other settings at 15fps. Not to mention I probably increased my storage capacity by about 40%.
 
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