BI setup and image detection

[SouthernYankee]

you do not set retention time on the BVR video recording. You record until BI deletes. I record with sub streams. I record 24/7/365. I have 700 MP/Sec total on 15 cameras, on a 4 TB drive, It has about 7 days of data.

An example i gave a few days ago on why to record 24/7. If something happens on the edge of the video you will not capture it with motion. Sometimes the most import activity for an event is on another camera. If someone walks to the edge of a video frame ( the edge of your driveway) out of the motion area and throws' a rock through the car window you will not have the information needed.
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My Standard allocation post.

1) Do not use time (limit clip age)to determine when BI video files are moved or deleted, only use space. Using time wastes disk space.
2) If New and stored are on the same disk drive do not used stored, set the stored size to zero, set the new folder to delete, not move. All it does is waste CPU time and increase the number of disk writes. You can leave the stored folder on the drive just do not use it.
3) Never allocate over 90% of the total disk drive to BI.
4) if using continuous recording on the BI camera settings, record tab, set the combine and cut video to 1 hour or 3 GB. Really big files are difficult to transfer.
5) it is recommend to NOT store video on an SSD (the C: drive).
6) Do not run the disk defragmenter on the video storage disk drives.
7) Do not run virus scanners on BI folders
8) an alternate way to allocate space on multiple drives is to assign different cameras to different drives, so there is no file movement between new and stored.
9) Never use an External USB drive for the NEW folder. Never use a network drive for the NEW folder.


Advanced storage:
If you are using a complete disk for large video file storage (BVR) continuous recording, I recommend formatting the disk, with a windows cluster size of 1024K (1 Megabyte). This is a increase from the 4K default. This will reduce the physical number of disk write, decrease the disk fragmentation, speed up access.
Hint:
On the Blue iris status (lighting bolt graph) clip storage tab, if there is any red on the bars you have a allocation problem. If there is no Green, you have no free space, this is bad.

 

[samplenhold]

Two ways to go about it. One is to 24/7 just the substream and then record triggers on mainstream

This has me confused. Just how does one set that up? I see no way in BI to do that. There is only a check box to record both if available. I see no way to set it to save the sub-stream 24/7 and then record the mainstream on a trigger.

 

[wittaj]

This has me confused. Just how does one set that up? I see no way in BI to do that. There is only a check box to record both if available. I see no way to set it to save the sub-stream 24/7 and then record the mainstream on a trigger.

One way would be to set up a camera as substream and record that 24/7 and then have it trigger a copy of the camera that is set up to only record on a trigger for the mainstream or you could probably even skip the trigger the copy camera now with the substream option bringing CPU down.

I thought I remember someone said they set up as a clone option as well and just hid the clone cameras from view.

Someone else probably has figured out another way to do it as well?

 

[kolbasz]

It comes down to how long do you want to save. I used to be of the mindset of wanting a long retention and would just record on motion, but then things were missed. Then I thought oh I will just record some on motion and the rest 24/7. But many here have said if it happened more than X weeks ago, it probably doesn't matter at that point.

There is some truth to that and if you have the system set up well to cover your own house or property, you should be getting notifications or you see it when you scrub through the video. Then if you notice anything suspicious, just pull or flag that video to save it for later if some neighbor said something happened. I know that if a neighbor said something happened about a month ago and did I see anything, I am not going to spend a lot of time looking at multiple days and times. If they can say a date and a time range, then ok.

I also run LPR, so I have a long history of plates coming through if something happened. I also save the snapshots on motion trigger for a longer period, so I do have snapshots of cars and people walking past my house on the street or sidewalk.

I think I like this line of thinking. As much of a flex as it is to tell your friends with nest or ring how you have 6 months of HD footage, does it actually mean anything if you are never reviewing it or using it.

At that point, probably after a week, but call it 2-3, you probably do not need the footage. If you did, you would have heard from a neighbor or you know something around yout house needs reviewed. After that, it is likely enough to store some flagged events so you can say let me see if anything triggered on the camera that day. If not, oh well. If it was something important or critical, you would probably hear about it.

 

[kolbasz]

This has me confused. Just how does one set that up? I see no way in BI to do that. There is only a check box to record both if available. I see no way to set it to save the sub-stream 24/7 and then record the mainstream on a trigger.

I wonder if this is where the AI tool comes in. In the AI tool, there is a call to BI URL to trigger the camera. So, if I speak to my basic setup, BI has a recording hourly frontdoor_SD. Then every now and then there is a trigger, this snaps a jpeg, the AI tool analyzes it and says "person" this then triggers the URL call to start frontdoor_HD and that camera records for X seconds as there is motion.

So in the end I duplicate the camera, one SD and one HD and HD only records when the URL is called.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I use sub streams on all but one camera out of 15. BI records the main stream in full resolution for all 15. The multi camera screen displays the sub streams. If I single view a camera it's a main stream resolution. If I look at an alert it is the main stream resolution. I have a 4TB purple for video storage and it holds about a week of video. I review things every morning, UI3 makes that really quick and easy. If there's anything I want to save I do an export and, if it might be needed by LEO, I also copy the BVR. Combine and cut is set to one hour on all cameras so the BVRs aren't too big.

That works for me, might not work for you.

 

[samplenhold]

So in the end I duplicate the camera, one SD and one HD and HD only records when the URL is called.

Seems like a lot of work to go through and multiple parts that could go wrong. Why not just record 24/7 and use triggers to make alert JPGs? That is all I do and it has been fine for me. But that is just me and you can do it your way. I prefer things to be simple. I have three 10TB drives storing 23 cams 24/7. I get about 21 days of storage. Like you said, if it was not important by then, why do I need to keep it?

 

[kolbasz]

Seems like a lot of work to go through and multiple parts that could go wrong. Why not just record 24/7 and use triggers to make alert JPGs? That is all I do and it has been fine for me. But that is just me and you can do it your way. I prefer things to be simple. I have three 10TB drives storing 23 cams 24/7. I get about 21 days of storage. Like you said, if it was not important by then, why do I need to keep it?

I guess that is what prompted my question. I understand there is no right/wrong, good/bad and instead it is more about what works for you/me.

In my case, I ventured down this path out of the gate. it is mostly OK, but yeah, not perfect as there are things missed, I think. My thought when I started the topic was around if I should change and if Ido, how do I change it. I know there are others on the forum that are using the Ai tool and others that are not. One isnt beter than the other and maybe I need to stop, reset and start again.

I am working to add more network runs around the house and with network runs cameras. However, I want to be ready for that. This means being happy with BI and the configuration and output.

Right now, I log in every now and then, look around and log off. Nothing super in-depth, but my goal is to eventually be more elaborate, but to get there I seek ideas and different ways to configure my system for what works for me.

 

[kolbasz]

I use sub streams on all but one camera out of 15. BI records the main stream in full resolution for all 15. The multi camera screen displays the sub streams. If I single view a camera it's a main stream resolution. If I look at an alert it is the main stream resolution. I have a 4TB purple for video storage and it holds about a week of video. I review things every morning, UI3 makes that really quick and easy. If there's anything I want to save I do an export and, if it might be needed by LEO, I also copy the BVR. Combine and cut is set to one hour on all cameras so the BVRs aren't too big.

That works for me, might not work for you.

this is probably the bit I am missing with what is a proper-ish setup.

right now I have my hour videos and in between, I have clips 10-30 sec or whatever length. From your setup it seems you only have the hour feeds and then a point in time is flagged for review as opposed to 2 separate videos at that point, is this correct?

when reviewing are you using the web browser or is it more typical to have a monitor connected at the BI machine for direct viewing? I assume remote web UI, but just clarifying for myself

 

[wittaj]

In my experience, I have found the AI in cameras to be more accurate than the Deepstack alternatives. Those alternatives can do more like id and tag different types of animals and stuff, but if you do not need that level of identification, I'd recommend any future cameras having AI built in.

Depending on your camera field of view, some locations you can dial BI in really accurate to just trigger for people. But I have some that are not and are dumb cameras LOL so I run 3rd party AI but as soon as I can I would like to replace those with some AI capable cams.

I run mine as one feed recording mainstream 24/7, but I also have a few clones set up doing some other things as well.

Most of the time I am viewing through a web browser and using the UI3, but you can also view BI directly through TeamViewer or Remote Desktop to view on another computer or tablet.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Yes, alerts are nothing more than a pointer to the time of an event in the high res recording when using continuous recording. I am recording the sub streams as well just as insurance, but really don't need or use them.

When reviewing I use UI3, the web GUI in BI. The thumbnails, set to large, make it very easy to review alerts without having to watch hours of video. Working just from the console would be tedious, even at 16x or 32x speed plus it loads the crap out of the CPU.

I also use dual methods for triggering alerts. All but two cameras are Dahua so I use IVS with 13 of them along with BI motion detection. Some are set up with IVS as my "display" camera and another is a hidden clone for BI motion detection. By using both, and making the "display" camera the "master" the alert list includes the other triggered events as well insuring I don't miss anything. That also minimizes the PITA of false triggers from either one or the other.

As an example, I have a camera called Lower Yard West as the master camera using IVS. One clone uses BI motion as a backup to catch anything IVS may miss. A second clone is set with BI motion to capture street traffic. When viewing the master camera the alerts from it and the two clone are displayed in the alerts list on the console and in UI3. Makes it very easy to review a whole night in under a minute, unless something happened I want to look at closely and maybe export/preserve.