Blue Iris Continuous Recording Producing huge files

[ercchen]

Hi,

I have two cameras Amcrest IP2M-842 and the Amcrest IPM-722S.

I have attached my cameras settings for much both of the cameras and blue iris is recording 12 hour clips at 20+ GB per clip.

What are the optimal camera/recording settings where clips are not that big? I'm trying to save about 30 days worth of video for both cameras and I have about 900GB free on my computer.

Thank you for all your help!

 

[fenderman]

Clip size is dependent on one thing and one thing only the bit rate being sent by the camera.

 

[ercchen]

Clip size is dependent on one thing and one thing only the bit rate being sent by the camera.

thanks fenderman, what bit rate should I select for both cameras without affecting quality of the video? thank you again.

 

[wcrowder]

That depends on the quality of video you want, disk storage and CPU. I run 4096 on 1080p. You can also adjust the length of each clip.

My clips are running 20g each for 1080p every 8 hours I record a camera.

 

[ercchen]

That depends on the quality of video you want, disk storage and CPU. I run 4096 on 1080p. You can also adjust the length of each clip.

My clips are running 20g each for 1080p every 8 hours I record a camera.

Thank you for the reply wcrowder.

I was wondering if i should be using VBR or CBR for my bit rate type. My camera is currently hitting the sidewalk. It is not very busy and generally has a few people walk by every hour. I'm assuming a CBR would be sufficient but would love to hear someone else's input. Thank you.

 

[fenderman]

Thank you for the reply wcrowder.

I was wondering if i should be using VBR or CBR for my bit rate type. My camera is currently hitting the sidewalk. It is not very busy and generally has a few people walk by every hour. I'm assuming a CBR would be sufficient but would love to hear someone else's input. Thank you.

vbr in theory should use less disk space. Using a constant bitrate of even 2048 would require 1.4TB of storage for 2 cams for 30 days...

 

[melabum]

Dear All, we have a similar situation with 12 nos.of 2MP cameras. The server is HP DL380 G8, Intel Xeon E5-2620-V2,
6-core (Virtual, 12-core), 16GB. All the cameras are set to "direct to Disk". However, we are surprise that the CPU usage is
constantly 90 -98% and this really a huge hug on the server. As result we constantly observe delay of up to 3 to 4 second
on the live video streams. Again, the delay is pronounced on the PC -monitor (through web interface) with level of image jerking.
It is obvious that E5-2620V2 does not support QSV (quick Sync Video). However, what can I possibly do to improve the the system
functionality and reduce the CPU usage?

 

[fenderman]

Dear All, we have a similar situation with 12 nos.of 2MP cameras. The server is HP DL380 G8, Intel Xeon E5-2620-V2,
6-core (Virtual, 12-core), 16GB. All the cameras are set to "direct to Disk". However, we are surprise that the CPU usage is
constantly 90 -98% and this really a huge hug on the server. As result we constantly observe delay of up to 3 to 4 second
on the live video streams. Again, the delay is pronounced on the PC -monitor (through web interface) with level of image jerking.
It is obvious that E5-2620V2 does not support QSV (quick Sync Video). However, what can I possibly do to improve the the system
functionality and reduce the CPU usage?

Your issue is different than the op...
Something is very wrong. Are you using the demo? Are you logging in via a remote viewing app like teaviewer or similar?

 

[melabum]

Fenderman, thank you for the response. We are using full version (purchased version) and not demo. We are not logged in through any remote viewing application. The monitor or viewing PC is connected to the Video Server through web browser.

 

[melabum]

Please, note that the server operating system is Windows Server 2012 R2

 

[fenderman]

Fenderman, thank you for the response. We are using full version (purchased version) and not demo. We are not logged in through any remote viewing application. The monitor or viewing PC is connected to the Video Server through web browser.

What frame rates are you running?

 

[bp2008]

Thank you for the reply wcrowder.

I was wondering if i should be using VBR or CBR for my bit rate type. My camera is currently hitting the sidewalk. It is not very busy and generally has a few people walk by every hour. I'm assuming a CBR would be sufficient but would love to hear someone else's input. Thank you.

In my experience, some cameras encode at very low quality when using VBR. But otherwise, it is the better option when you are trying to save disk space.

In your case, you just don't have enough storage space for what you are trying to do. Try using motion detection instead of constant recording, and if you are worried about missing things then just make the motion detection sensitivity really high, set a long pre-trigger video buffer value, and a long "break time". You can have a ton of false alarms and still save tremendous amounts of disk space over using continuous recording.

 

[nayr]

I use VBR on my sub streams, but I record CBR.. its easier when viewing multiple cameras over slow mobile network with VBR.. but its too lacking in quality for my tastes on primary recordings.

Buy a Bigger HDD, storage is cheap and plentiful now days.. ~50-60GB a day is average for high quality 1080p, a $150 4TB HDD will get you 30 days for 2 cams easy.. and never miss anything.

 

[melabum]

What frame rates are you running?

The frame rate is 10fps on all the twelve 2MP cameras.

 

[ercchen]

Appreciate all the replies. I currently have my amcrest IP2M-842 set at VBR and 2048 bit rate. (I'm also recording on 720 instead of 1080p to lower CPU usage).

Is there any reason why every 30 minutes equals to about 1gb of video?

The amcrest IPM-722S has similar settings and it is coming in at less than 1gb per hour.

 

[nayr]

because they are different cameras looking at different things, the V in VBR stands for Variable..

 

[ercchen]

because they are different cameras looking at different things, the V in VBR stands for Variable..

Yep, that I understand but the camera is shooting at the sidewalk where there is very little movement. There are probably 3-4 people who walk by every hour, whereas the other camera has a little bit more activity than that and producing much smaller files. That's the part that I'm a bit confused about.

I was originally using CBR at 2048 and it produced files that are similar size and I changed it to VBR hoping files would be smaller (just because there is very little activity).

 

[nayr]

its not just activity, detail and lighting can be much more dramatic, the VBR algo's are not ideal they just try there best.. for some reason or another one is easier than the other.

 

[Rockford622]

I'm not terribly sure VBR "varies" all that much. I have 6 Hikvision cameras all set to ~6000 Kbps VBR on a Windows PC running Blue Iris, and my PC always shows ~36 mbps (6000 kbps x 6) whether there is movement on the cameras or not. Technically when there is movement the data rate should jump and settle back down where there is no more movement, but it doesn't.

 

[bp2008]

Many VBR implementations are different. For example on my newest 4MP Dahua cameras, VBR absolutely murdered my image quality ... and it was set to the highest quality setting with the bit rate limit really high. It smoothed over all the fine details, as it reduced the bit rate way too far. If your system is the other way around, and won't dip below your bit rate limit, then you need to reduce the quality setting.

Think of Variable Bit Rate (VBR) as just another name for Constant Quality.