Cloning camera - How much resource is wasted?

[alkizmo]

I have a camera facing my frontyard.

There is a street and then there is my driveway + entrance.

I cloned the camera in BI so that it will detect and record differently the motions/alerts of cars/people passing in the street vs. cars/people coming to my house.

Now, my server is pretty multi-task, so the increased CPU usage was not exactly "obvious". It doesn't dip as low as it used to, but at the same time, it doesn't seem to peak much higher than usual, maybe it peaks more often... I don't know.

TL;DR - Does cloning a camera in BI end up the same as if I had two different cameras in terms of system resources, or is BI somewhat "smart" in terms of recognizing that two "cameras" as the same stream so it only decodes it once but does two different analyzes of motion?

I ask because I need to know how much of an impact new cameras will make on my current server as I am planning to purchase new cameras.

 

[fenderman]

I have a camera facing my frontyard.

There is a street and then there is my driveway + entrance.

I cloned the camera in BI so that it will detect and record differently the motions/alerts of cars/people passing in the street vs. cars/people coming to my house.

Now, my server is pretty multi-task, so the increased CPU usage was not exactly "obvious". It doesn't dip as low as it used to, but at the same time, it doesn't seem to peak much higher than usual, maybe it peaks more often... I don't know.

TL;DR - Does cloning a camera in BI end up the same as if I had two different cameras in terms of system resources, or is BI somewhat "smart" in terms of recognizing that two "cameras" as the same stream so it only decodes it once but does two different analyzes of motion?

I ask because I need to know how much of an impact new cameras will make on my current server as I am planning to purchase new cameras.

Cloning the camera will not significantly increase your cpu..you should not be able to notice...particularly if you "hide" the cloned camera so its not displayed on the screen. This is because blue iris will only pull a single stream and display it as two.

 

[erkme73]

On a related topic - if you've cloned cameras, and 'hidden' them, they don't show in the BI console, but they do in the web browser and the phone app. Is there any way to truly hide them so they're completely behind-the-scenes?

 

[fenderman]

On a related topic - if you've cloned cameras, and 'hidden' them, they don't show in the BI console, but they do in the web browser and the phone app. Is there any way to truly hide them so they're completely behind-the-scenes?

I emailed Ken about this a month or so ago..he said that he liked the idea...maybe of others asked he would get it implemented quicker..

 

[erkme73]

I'll add "send email to Ken" to my own to-do list. I feel like I'm smothering the guy with requests for help/mods/clarification lately. His latest reply to me said he was absolutely frazzled, and putting out tons of fires (I think in part due to the new RTSP timecode thing).

 

[fenderman]

I'll add "send email to Ken" to my own to-do list. I feel like I'm smothering the guy with requests for help/mods/clarification lately. His latest reply to me said he was absolutely frazzled, and putting out tons of fires (I think in part due to the new RTSP timecode thing).

Yeah I hear you..I can just imagine...folks complaining and demanding a resolution...the solution is REALLY simple..he should release updates as beta..Primary systems should NEVER be updated to a new release until its clear that there are no issues...or at the very least simply have the old update files available. He should simply disable the auto update...that would save him lots of headaches...

 

[fenderman]

@erkme73
Another option that may help you is to place the cameras you wish to see on the mobile app and only give the mobile user access to those cams...this will not work if you have the hidden cameras set for alerts because it will not send alerts to a mobile user who cannot view the cams.

 

[xyrgh]

On a related topic - if you've cloned cameras, and 'hidden' them, they don't show in the BI console, but they do in the web browser and the phone app. Is there any way to truly hide them so they're completely behind-the-scenes?

Add the cameras to one group, call it something like 'motion' and add the cloned, hidden cameras to another group called 'stream'. Disable access to the 'stream' group on a per user basis. This is exactly what I did, as I don't want to see the cloned cameras in my browser. I also have alternative logins for our two iPhones and the website, all which have no ability to change anything, just view the cameras (in case someone gets a hold of the phones or hacks into the webpage).