Confused Noob - Basic PC NVR Setup

sebastiantombs said:
I look at it as a redundancy feature. Sometimes the AI in a camera can miss something, sometimes the NVR, BI or other software, can miss something. Having two methods working insures even better detection.
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Are you saying that you have the AI features on both the BI PC NVR and the cameras configured and enabled? If so, do you configure the cameras individually via their web interface? How does BI handle alerts from different sources?

There seems to an almost fanatical devotion to BI on this site. While I understand that while it might be the best solution available for "small" installations it obviously has limitations that people here seem all too quick to brush over. The fact the the site gets a lick-back from sales of BI also adds to a smell of something not quite right. I know of other forums in different domains that have similar biases and it's not good. For every 1 person trying to voice an honest opinion there are 5 shouting him down.
 
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MadPup said:
Makes me wonder why they bother putting intelligence and processing in the cameras if no one uses it. Seems like the money would be better spent on a better sensor and optics.
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This type of processing works better on raw data streams which are only available in the camera. Also distributing the intelligence scales better for larger systems (their market).

I'm surprised programs like BI make you go to an outside 3rd party subscription service when the basic intelligence is sitting right there in the camera. BI can actually use the onboard cameras IVS triggering but throws away the AI portion (people, vehicle classification) AFAICS.
 
MadPup said:
Makes me wonder why they bother putting intelligence and processing in the cameras if no one uses it. Seems like the money would be better spent on a better sensor and optics.
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A lot of us are using it....with BI.
The cameras often mentioned here are made for the commercial market, not for joe blow home owner, we just happen to be lucky to have a source for them.
 
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looney2ns said:
You both are making statements that show you don't understand either BI or the cameras. There is NO kick back from BI to this site. BI has nothing at all to do with this site.
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Please be more careful in your quoting. Better yet remove my reference from your quote. I have never said there were kickbacks from BI to this site.
 
MadPup said:
Are you saying that you have the AI features on both the BI PC NVR and the cameras configured and enabled? If so, do you configure the cameras individually via their web interface? How does BI handle alerts from different sources?

There seems to an almost fanatical devotion to BI on this site. While I understand that while it might be the best solution available for "small" installations it obviously has limitations that people here seem all too quick to brush over. The fact the the site gets a lick-back from sales of BI also adds to a smell of something not quite right. I know of other forums in different domains that have similar biases and it's not good. For every 1 person trying to voice an honest opinion there are 5 shouting him down.
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There are no kickbacks from BI. BI has nothing to do with this site.
 
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Let's stay on track...

@MadPup if you're looking to use the cameras motion detection you should first start with a microsd card in the camera itself. You can also move to a NAS or an NVR which will essentially accomplish the same thing. However you will probably be left wanting more, and that's usually where people decide to go the VMS route.
 
MadPup said:
That's what I call a trot. :) If each of the cameras was doing this work what do you think it would be running at?
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Being a curious person I just conducted a real life test of that proposal. I checked the CPU utilization of BI at about 20:15 this evening. It was at 18%. I then opened the BI console and shut off motion detection in all eleven cameras and closed the console again. I checked BI for utilization and it was at 17%. I'd say a 1% overhead for running motion detection is fairly efficient. BI does re-encode the video streams to BVR format for recording purposes and that accounts for the 17% utilization with motion detection shut off.
 
sebastiantombs said:
Being a curious person I just conducted a real life test of that proposal. I checked the CPU utilization of BI at about 20:15 this evening. It was at 18%. I then opened the BI console and shut off motion detection in all eleven cameras and closed the console again. I checked BI for utilization and it was at 17%. I'd say a 1% overhead for running motion detection is fairly efficient. BI does re-encode the video streams to BVR format for recording purposes and that accounts for the 17% utilization with motion detection shut off.
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Sometimes you need to test for yourself to see. There is a reason why most people here use, love and endorse BI.
 
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sebastiantombs said:
Being a curious person I just conducted a real life test of that proposal. I checked the CPU utilization of BI at about 20:15 this evening. It was at 18%. I then opened the BI console and shut off motion detection in all eleven cameras and closed the console again. I checked BI for utilization and it was at 17%. I'd say a 1% overhead for running motion detection is fairly efficient. BI does re-encode the video streams to BVR format for recording purposes and that accounts for the 17% utilization with motion detection shut off.
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One could argue that any CPU usage is too much. The cameras already encodes to H26x so why encode again? My ideal system would be one where the cameras record to a network share and I can use a PC client to catalog and review them. The client would not need to run 24/7, although the network share would need to be available.

As I said before, where your IP cameras are dumb (with limited functionality) then BI could be a good solution. However, for whatever reason we can easily acquire very powerful cameras and choosing not to use that power is just throwing money away. I have been very impressed with the IVS features of my camera and there are very few false positives. Why would I spend more money on hardware, software, and cloud services to end up with the same result?
 
Easily acquire powerful cameras. I'd suggest that the cameras we acquire are not all that powerful and are prone to mistakes/errors in their detection abilities. The powerful ones you seem to reference are out of the reach, in terms of economically, of the general user and even those make "mistakes". If 1% CPU utilization is too much for you, and I suspect it is actually less than 1% and had to approximate numbers to get that 1%, maybe you should shut off your computer, phone and tablet as well since they use their CPUs constantly no matter what is being processed by them. You're throwing away your own money.

Additionally, running one CPU at 1% CPU utilization seems far more efficient that running than running eleven CPUs to do the same thing.
 
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Blue Iris can trigger recordings based off events received from the camera using ONVIF. Whether the camera sends the appropriate events or not is up to the camera. Certainly there have been cameras and firmware versions where AI features like person detection did not raise the appropriate events, so Blue Iris doesn't know to trigger a recording.

sebastiantombs said:
Being a curious person I just conducted a real life test of that proposal. I checked the CPU utilization of BI at about 20:15 this evening. It was at 18%. I then opened the BI console and shut off motion detection in all eleven cameras and closed the console again. I checked BI for utilization and it was at 17%. I'd say a 1% overhead for running motion detection is fairly efficient. BI does re-encode the video streams to BVR format for recording purposes and that accounts for the 17% utilization with motion detection shut off.
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This is not entirely correct. Blue Iris does not re-encode the video stream when direct-to-disc is enabled in the recording options (in properties of each camera, and in each profile). When direct-to-disc is enabled, recording is a tiny CPU cost. Most of the CPU cost is decoding the incoming video streams, and most of that can be eliminated by enabling the "Limit decoding unless required" feature (in properties of each camera).
 
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bp2008 said:
Blue Iris can trigger recordings based off events received from the camera using ONVIF. Whether the camera sends the appropriate events or not is up to the camera. Certainly there have been cameras and firmware versions where AI features like person detection did not raise the appropriate events, so Blue Iris doesn't know to trigger a recording.

Blue Iris does not re-encode the video stream when direct-to-disc is enabled in the recording options (in properties of each camera, and in each profile). When direct-to-disc is enabled, recording is a tiny CPU cost. Most of the CPU cost is decoding the incoming video streams, and most of that can be eliminated by enabling the "Limit decoding unless required" feature (in properties of each camera).
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This are great points and have me considering BI again. Thank you.
 
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