Brand New to Forum - Question about Blue Iris Setup

[walleyefisher]

Which is a better solution??

Record all the time with low FPS and setup alerts
or
Setup triggers and use high FPS for better quality videos

I guess I dont like the idea of missing stuff and with triggers you miss all kinds of stuff due to weather or whatever. But when recording all the time at 4 FPS if a car is driving down the street you get 1 maybe 2 pictures of it before its gone. I guess it would be nice if there was a hybrid solution where you could ramp up FPS on trigger but then you would need a lot of buffering. I guess the only way I could see that happening is to run cameras at max FPS and have BI ratchet the sampling up or down based on triggers.

Any better ideas how to optimize would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[3dogpottery]

I haven't done this myself, but apparently you can have your cake and eat it too. With Blue Iris, you can add the same camera a second time and assign it different settings. You then hide the "clone" camera's video. Both cameras are using the same video stream, so this does not impinge on the bandwidth.

 

[fenderman]

@walleyefisher The frame rate does not affect storage. Storage is affected by bitrate. Simply record 24/7 and set alerts for notification or dial in the motion detection better.

 

[walleyefisher]

Cool idea, but the FPS and bitrate are set on the cameras so a clone wouldn't buy you anything in this case.

 

[walleyefisher]

@walleyefisherThe frame rate does not affect storage. Storage is affected by bitrate. Simply record 24/7 and set alerts for notification or dial in the motion detection better.

More frames per second = higher bitrate = more storage unless you are using some varying compressions

 

[fenderman]

More frames per second = higher bitrate = more storage unless you are using some varying compressions

That is actually not the case. Most decent cameras have a bitrate adjustment that is independent of the frame rate. Take a hikvision camera for example, set it to variable bitrate, then try 15fps and 6fps..you will note an small drop in the bitrate, not enough to make it worthwhile. If you are recording direct to disk, having blue iris toss out frames is cpu intensive...its simply easier and cheaper to buy more storage.

 

[zero-degrees]

@walleyefisher - you might want to go check out some of these guides I uploaded for newbies to the IP world, it will help explain what Fender is saying a little better and in more detail, however he's right and your equation above is not accurate. Its a common misconception though a lot of people have.

https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/7097-Resource-Guide-on-IP-Technology-for-all-Noobs

 

[zero-degrees]

Also to answer your original question - everyone has an opinion on this however I am a firm believer in recording 24/7 and what ever your desired resolution is - me I run highest res and 20fps. Then I set motion detection or line crossing alerts for areas I want notification regarding. I get the emails with snap shots and if that answers the questions then great, if not I know where in time to go review the video. While motion detection and line crossing can be dialed in and pretty darn accurate there is always that chance those functions fail, that's why I record 24/7 - you are guaranteed not to miss anything and the price of purple drives and other NVR/Survilance designed drives now a days there is no reason NOT to just buy more storage.

 

[walleyefisher]

Thanks for all the info, I'm leaning towards 24/7 recording and max res with alerts as well. I will read up on your materials but in practice when I went from 4FPS to 8FPS I went from 350bps to almost 750bps

 

[Mattias]

This is how I do it, and I think this works perfect for me.
I have each camera cloned in Blue Iris (Just adding it again). The primary camera is with 24/7 recording and it will only store the footage approx 5 days setup storage to a diffrent place. The cloned camera has motion detection setup and trigger alerts and is only storing the motion triggered clips, this storage will store the clips several month. More or less everything interesting is in the clips but if the clip didn’t record long enough or I think something interesting happened before the clip I do have the 24/7 recording that I can look up (but only 5 days back). The continues recording cameras I have assigned in one group (In the general-tap in BI for each camera) and then the clips to another group.