Can Blue Iris REALLY handle this job?

[NVR990]

Thanks to all the posters who make this a great forum. I have learned a ton by studying your posts, especially those of Fenderman. I have a couple of questions before I take the Blue Iris plunge:

Blue Iris says it can manage up to 64 cameras. I need to run 24 2-Megapixel IP cameras at @ 30fps. The IP cams are already in place, and are connected to a Gigabit LAN with Cat6 cabling using POE.

Can Blue Iris REALLY handle all 24 cams without issues (latency, dropped frames, other performance problems, etc.)?

More specifically, can I truly run this setup with VERY low latency with tasks such as switching between live streams, viewing multiple (like 16) live cams simultaneously, and quickly scanning through pre-recorded footage (again, multiple cams simultaneously)?

I should add that the viewing will be over a PC connected to the LAN via Ethernet cable, but not on the actual PC running Blue Iris.

I need to buy a PC to dedicate to Blue Iris, and I am willing to spend $ to get a hardware configuration that will handle the above. I’m not concerned with cost as much as am I with buying something that will perform without issues and also leave some room for future growth.

Is the above realistic running Blue Iris on a Kaby Lake i7?

Thanks!

 

[DWW0311]

Just a question - why are you choosing 30fps? I run all of my cams at 15 and you really can't tell much of a difference. 30 (actually 29.997) is appropriate for film, but it's a bit of overkill IMO for security video.

 

[Jareds]

Yes 30 frames is ridiculous. 15 is plenty unless ur pointing your cams down the highway and need to see everything.

Blue iris can easily handle it tho. But ur gonna have to have a mean machine to run it.

 

[wcrowder]

24 2-megapixel at 30frames on an I-7 6700k or better, 8 gigs of ram will work fine. No video card needed. You will need at least 2 6tb hard drives for decent retention. I agree with the other posters. 15 frames is all you need and you won't notice a real difference. You need to read the posts on "Direct-to-Disk".

Thanks to all the posters who make this a great forum. I have learned a ton by studying your posts, especially those of Fenderman. I have a couple of questions before I take the Blue Iris plunge:

Blue Iris says it can manage up to 64 cameras. I need to run 24 2-Megapixel IP cameras at @ 30fps. The IP cams are already in place, and are connected to a Gigabit LAN with Cat6 cabling using POE.

Can Blue Iris REALLY handle all 24 cams without issues (latency, dropped frames, other performance problems, etc.)?

More specifically, can I truly run this setup with VERY low latency with tasks such as switching between live streams, viewing multiple (like 16) live cams simultaneously, and quickly scanning through pre-recorded footage (again, multiple cams simultaneously)?

I should add that the viewing will be over a PC connected to the LAN via Ethernet cable, but not on the actual PC running Blue Iris.

I need to buy a PC to dedicate to Blue Iris, and I am willing to spend $ to get a hardware configuration that will handle the above. I’m not concerned with cost as much as am I with buying something that will perform without issues and also leave some room for future growth.

Is the above realistic running Blue Iris on a Kaby Lake i7?

Thanks!

 

[NVR990]

24 2-megapixel at 30frames on an I-7 6700k or better, 8 gigs of ram will work fine. No video card needed. You will need at least 2 6tb hard drives for decent retention. I agree with the other posters. 15 frames is all you need and you won't notice a real difference. You need to read the posts on "Direct-to-Disk".

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I’ll set the cams to 15fps, rather than 30fps.

Couple of quick follow ups:

1) In terms of viewing video (either live or prerecorded) is there a performance difference (I’m thinking of latency, etc.) between:

a. Being on the PC on which Blue Iris is installed, compared with

b. Using web browser to access Blue Iris via a different PC? (Assuming the different PC is on the same LAN and connected via Gigabit Ethernet.)


2) My understanding is that going “direct to disk” allows Blue Iris to record the cam stream without re-encoding, thus lowering the CPU burden. That makes sense. But what’s the alternative? Why would Blue Iris want to re-encode if the cam is sending H.264 to Blue Iris?


As I understand it, “direct to disk” is NOT enabled by default. This suggests to me that there is a downside to going “direct to disk.” I am worried that going “direct to disk” will not allow Blue Iris to organize all of the various cam streams into a useful “database” through which I can quickly locate relevant pre-recorded footage.

Thanks!

 

[DWW0311]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I’ll set the cams to 15fps, rather than 30fps.

Couple of quick follow ups:

1) In terms of viewing video (either live or prerecorded) is there a performance difference (I’m thinking of latency, etc.) between:

a. Being on the PC on which Blue Iris is installed, compared with

b. Using web browser to access Blue Iris via a different PC? (Assuming the different PC is on the same LAN and connected via Gigabit Ethernet.)


2) My understanding is that going “direct to disk” allows Blue Iris to record the cam stream without re-encoding, thus lowering the CPU burden. That makes sense. But what’s the alternative? Why would Blue Iris want to re-encode if the cam is sending H.264 to Blue Iris?


As I understand it, “direct to disk” is NOT enabled by default. This suggests to me that there is a downside to going “direct to disk.” I am worried that going “direct to disk” will not allow Blue Iris to organize all of the various cam streams into a useful “database” through which I can quickly locate relevant pre-recorded footage.

Thanks!

1) Not really. This is going to be a function of your streaming settings in the "webserver" tab and your network performance. That's the caveat - solid networks where the server is physical to the same wired network should see no difference. Wireless / smartphone? Potentially a whole different story.

2) It's a function of network performance. Try to imagine how crappy full strength 1080p video would look streaming over a VPN tunnel to a smartphone with a sketchy connection. The settings allow you to tailor the quality of your web stream to your viewing environment. That involves reencoding on the fly.

3) Direct to disk, in my experience, is the default option, along with the proprietary file format. It allows for less processor load (since the stream is being recorded to disk exactly as delivered to the server) and for viewing while recording.

The UI will allow you to drill your view down to clips from a specific cam on a specific day. Those are further timestamped with respect to start, so it's not difficult to find what you're looking for.

 

[DWW0311]

Note also that Intel is about to push Coffee Lake out, with Cannonlake (supposedly ...) following on later this year / early next. You may want to consider your processor options & plan accordingly.

 

[Frank Ecker]

2) My understanding is that going “direct to disk” allows Blue Iris to record the cam stream without re-encoding, thus lowering the CPU burden. That makes sense. But what’s the alternative? Why would Blue Iris want to re-encode if the cam is sending H.264 to Blue Iris?

With D2D, you lose any overlay information that BI might have overlaid on the video stream.

 

[DWW0311]

With D2D, you lose any overlay information that BI might have overlaid on the video stream.

Correct, but in my experience when you export the video, it comes back. You can also just include the timestamps directly from the cameras themselves, whereupon they'll just get included in / burned into the recorded video stream

 

[NVR990]

1)

The UI will allow you to drill your view down to clips from a specific cam on a specific day. Those are further timestamped with respect to start, so it's not difficult to find what you're looking for.

Does the Blue Iris UI allow the user to easily playback multiple (synchronized) cam streams simultaneously? For example, let’s say you want to observe the route taken by a person as he moves from the field of view of one camera to the next camera. Could you watch, say, 10 pre-recorded cam feeds (side by side) at the same time? If so, can this "composite" video be exported ?

 

[DWW0311]

Does the Blue Iris UI allow the user to easily playback multiple (synchronized) cam streams simultaneously? For example, let’s say you want to observe the route taken by a person as he moves from the field of view of one camera to the next camera. Could you watch, say, 10 pre-recorded cam feeds (side by side) at the same time? If so, can this "composite" video be exported ?

I'll defer to more knowledgeable folks here, but in my experience you can watch one clip at a time. It may be possible and I just don't know how to do it.

 

[aristobrat]

Does the Blue Iris UI allow the user to easily playback multiple (synchronized) cam streams simultaneously? For example, let’s say you want to observe the route taken by a person as he moves from the field of view of one camera to the next camera. Could you watch, say, 10 pre-recorded cam feeds (side by side) at the same time?

Thru the BI client, when you scroll to a point in timeline and double-click it, it'll play back all cameras starting from that time.

For example, I just scrolled back to 4:32 AM this morning and double-clicked, and all cameras that were recording are now playing back from that time. The two middle cameras on the bottom are not set to continuous recording, so they're blank during this playback.

If so, can this "composite" video be exported ?

Not that I'm aware of.

 

[fenderman]

Thru the BI client, when you scroll to a point in timeline and double-click it, it'll play back all cameras starting from that time.

For example, I just scrolled back to 4:32 AM this morning and double-clicked, and all cameras that were recording are now playing back from that time. The two middle cameras on the bottom are not set to continuous recording, so they're blank during this playback.

View attachment 18525


Not that I'm aware of.

Side note.. Change the camera event color so you can see each camera independently in the timeline..

 

[aristobrat]

As I understand it, “direct to disk” is NOT enabled by default. This suggests to me that there is a downside to going “direct to disk.” I am worried that going “direct to disk” will not allow Blue Iris to organize all of the various cam streams into a useful “database” through which I can quickly locate relevant pre-recorded footage.

Regardless of if "direct to disk" is enabled or not, BI records camera streams to individual files.

BI can move those individual files around, if you want them to. For example, you can keep the last week of recordings on the local HDD, but have BI move older recordings to a folder running on a slower NAS that's hidden somewhere else in your location. Seems like the database you're referring to mostly keeps track of the location of the files, I don't think the database contains any videos in it.

 

[pozzello]

and if you 'group' your cameras, you can do the 'simultaneous playback' thing using the timeline on individual groups as well as on the default group of all cams...
you can also have the same in cam in multiple groups, if it make sense for your layout...

 

[NVR990]

Thru the BI client, when you scroll to a point in timeline and double-click it, it'll play back all cameras starting from that time.

For example, I just scrolled back to 4:32 AM this morning and double-clicked, and all cameras that were recording are now playing back from that time. The two middle cameras on the bottom are not set to continuous recording, so they're blank during this playback.

View attachment 18525


Not that I'm aware of.

Thanks everyone for all the great info! I hope to make some helpful posts to this forum when I get more up to speed!

Regarding the “simultaneous playback” topic, aristobrat showed how that works through the BI client. Is the same capability present when accessing BI via web browser? More generally, does the web/browser client allow the same functionality as the local BI client?

On the The BI homepage, under “Details” both “Webcam” and “Web Server” are listed. Can anyone tell me the difference?

 

[bp2008]

Regarding the “simultaneous playback” topic, aristobrat showed how that works through the BI client. Is the same capability present when accessing BI via web browser? More generally, does the web/browser client allow the same functionality as the local BI client?

The web/browser client has much less functionality than the local BI client (it is very simplistic and old-fashioned). The mobile apps (iOS / Android) are better, but still limited in what they can do. Full functionality requires access to the local GUI. Simultaneous playback is ONLY in the local GUI.

I suggest downloading my custom web client which is linked in my signature. This will bring it nearly up to par with the mobile apps in terms of functionality.

On the The BI homepage, under “Details” both “Webcam” and “Web Server” are listed. Can anyone tell me the difference?

I'd just chalk that up to poor layout/naming since those two sections of the site are quite similar in their content.

 

[NVR990]

The web/browser client has much less functionality than the local BI client (it is very simplistic and old-fashioned). The mobile apps (iOS / Android) are better, but still limited in what they can do. Full functionality requires access to the local GUI. Simultaneous playback is ONLY in the local GUI.

I suggest downloading my custom web client which is linked in my signature. This will bring it nearly up to par with the mobile apps in terms of functionality.

That’s impressive that you coded your own web client, bp2008! Thanks for all of the effort you must have invested!

As you said, simultaneous playback is ONLY available on the local GUI.

So, as a “workaround” in order to view simultaneous playback on a remote PC, could I use TeamViewer to control/view the Blue Iris PC, and effectively "bring" the local GUI to my remote PC? I can imagine this TeamViewer idea would take significant network bandwidth resources and possibly also be a CPU hog on the Blue Iris machine. Still, is it a reasonable "workaround" , assuming both PCs are on the same Gigabit LAN? Or would the performance/latency just be poor?

 

[bp2008]

TeamViewer is decent for this. Or any other remote access program. It doesn't take all that much network bandwidth but it will require quite a bit of CPU.

 

[NVR990]

TeamViewer is decent for this. Or any other remote access program. It doesn't take all that much network bandwidth but it will require quite a bit of CPU.

Great, thanks bp2008!