Considering moving to PC blue iris, versus current lorex nvr. Questions, comments invited.

[fenderman]

BTW, it's advisable to use different IP addresses to the ones in the diagram been as they're out on the internet now.

They are local ip addresses. First, no one can do anything with them because they are local. Second, hundreds of millions of other devices share the exact same local ip address.

 

[wittaj]

^ +1 this!!!

You can list the private LAN IP addresses as it does not tell anyone anything - they are the same as everyone else. The IP address of your service provider for your WAN is what you don't provide...Everything on the inside past the modem is fine to put out. Everything on the inside, the local will fall under these ranges and you are not telling anyone anything about how to hack your system providing these ranges (basically any IP that starts out 10. or 172. or 192. are reserved for the "home side" of the service so every home internally will be within this same range):

10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

 

[SandmanXX]

Early days, got the system running with 8 cams so far. I have looked at many tutorials for setting up BI, I've configured the substreams, done all that I can find on tuning to keep the CPU load down.
One question has come up though, I do not see where BI is recording 24/7 whether there is motion or not. Ideally I would like to have all 24/7 footage from all cams, motion or not, and then obviously have motion flagged. Which settings should I look at to get this where I want it?
Meaning, I have gaps in the timeline at the bottom, no footage was recorded, apparently. ?

Could the record tab, continous and + alerts, need to be where I look?

 

[wittaj]

Early days, got the system running with 8 cams so far. I have looked at many tutorials for setting up BI, I've configured the substreams, done all that I can find on tuning to keep the CPU load down.
One question has come up though, I do not see where BI is recording 24/7 whether there is motion or not. Ideally I would like to have all 24/7 footage from all cams, motion or not, and then obviously have motion flagged. Which settings should I look at to get this where I want it?
Meaning, I have gaps in the timeline at the bottom, no footage was recorded, apparently. ?

Could the record tab, continous and + alerts, need to be where I look?

That is correct, the cont+alerts would record 24/7 - substream until alert and then mainstream for the alert time.

However, most of us would suggest to do the cont+trigger instead.

 

[SandmanXX]

Ok. Cont+trig it is.
What I would like to see, and I guess asking that way will get help with the settings
24/7 recording, of the main stream. I have it set to display substream for regular viewing. Meanwhile, any triggers gives me a red outlined box, on the left, when something happens on any camera. Will that setting do that?

 

[SandmanXX]

Ok, think I got it. I'll use the dual stream recording.

 

[wittaj]

Nope that will give you sub until trigger.

If you want 24/7 mainstream then you simply record continuous.

 

[SandmanXX]

Ahh, ok.
Lots of tips and tweaks out there, still working on them, and understanding them.
So far I've got it running as a service, and the CPU is around 10-12% usage. Working well so far.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, lots of tips and tweaks. Most of us are in our BI frequently making adjustments to make it better. It just has so much flexibility and versatility compared to an NVR.

I have had several NVRs over the years (and still run one in parallel) and I do not see myself ever going back to an NVR.

 

[SandmanXX]

Anyone have a reason I get a camera occasionally drop off for maybe a minute or two? I've seen one, and up to two cameras at once, 'no connection', then by themselves they come back. I wasn't doing a thing in BI when they dropped or came back. Almost all of them over a day have done that. ??

 

[SandmanXX]

I'm with you, wittaj. SOO disappointed in my last 3 lorex NVRs. good cameras, however, no update unless you specifically call them, then they mail you a firmware update if there is one. NVR software is clunky. I won't get started.
Loving this BI so far. I messed with it way back, maybe version 3 or so, 2-4 years ago. Lot better now.
And I moved my WD 6tb purple from the NVR to make it a second purp drive on this computer. Plenty of space. Still tweaking the system to keep the fans running quiet though. I'm using corsair's icue on 3 front rgb fans for controlling airflow, Gigabyte fan software just tanks on me.
And yet another point, has anyone upgraded windows 10 to 11, using BI, and seen any differences, good or bad? I have win11 on my main machine here, but I'm in the dev group. Still a few weird bugs.

 

[wittaj]

Anyone have a reason I get a camera occasionally drop off for maybe a minute or two? I've seen one, and up to two cameras at once, 'no connection', then by themselves they come back. I wasn't doing a thing in BI when they dropped or came back. Almost all of them over a day have done that. ??
View attachment 117215

That is usually a power issue like a failing or underpowered POE switch. Or cams that are wifi. Or cams that are going thru a router and the router cannot keep up (one of the reasons why so many dual NIC or VLAN).

 

[sebastiantombs]

On the cameras that are dropping out it could be cable connections, IE CCA cable, electrical noise on the cable (too close to AC wiring carrying heavy loads or even near a strong RF source), non-standard color coding (568A or 58B are the standards), bad crimps or minor corrosion in the RJ45 itself. In this case, with that many cameras dropping at once, I'd suspect power. The easiest way to test is to use a known, good, properly terminated, cable and test one camera with that cable. If it drops again, it's more than likely the PoE switch having power problems. If it doesn't drop you have a cable problem.

Are the cameras involved outside? Were the RJ connectors properly sealed, IE dielectric grease on the RJ connector, gland properly installed and sealed, self amalgamating tape and quality electrical tape? Even the tiny amount of moisture generated by heating and cooling (day to night) can eventually result in enough corrosion to mess things up on you.

 

[JeffCharger]

I also found that BI would drop cameras if the CPU was stressed. I could still see cameras via other means, but BI dropped them. When I upgraded my PC the problem went away. Check your CPU usage to make sure that it's not a potential problem.

 

[SandmanXX]

The cables are under the house, and under trim mostly. I did seal up each end, the housing piece, and had a glop of grease on the ends. I don't suspect that, although who knows.
The CPU / BI hasn't hit over 18% running since I applied the tweaks on setup.
Don't know, I'll keep an eye on it. I did notice early in, that 16 POE switch gets mighty warm.

 

[Nunofya]

Yeah, lots of tips and tweaks. Most of us are in our BI frequently making adjustments to make it better. It just has so much flexibility and versatility compared to an NVR.

I have had several NVRs over the years (and still run one in parallel) and I do not see myself ever going back to an NVR.

Running BI and Lorex too. Is it best to leave the cameras on the nvr then go through a switch for BI or have them all on the switch and run the nvr through the switch so the nvr can still see the cameras?

 

[SandmanXX]

Running BI and Lorex too. Is it best to leave the cameras on the nvr then go through a switch for BI or have them all on the switch and run the nvr through the switch so the nvr can still see the cameras?

It's best to get off of the NVR. And lorex recommends not running their nvr off of a switch.

 

[Nunofya]

It's best to get off of the NVR. And lorex recommends not running their nvr off of a switch.

Thanks

 

[wittaj]

Only reason you wouldn't run it through the NVR is if the bandwidth is limited and you cannot run the bitrates needed for your cameras....

My neighbors Lorex unit caps the cameras at 4092 bitrate regardless of what he sets them at.