Full HD, HD and LD best record settings

[Timbiker]

Hi everybody,

I wanted to put under monitoring my home :

Regarding the PC : I bought a mini fanless PC Hystou (Core i3 5005U) with 4go RAM and 64go ROM and had 128go SSD.

Regarding the camera I have 1 full HD 1080p (Escam) + 2 HD (Escam) 720p + 3 LD 640x480 (chinese).

They are all monitored by Blue Iris and it's actually working like a charm for 2-3 months. The CPU usage is between 25 - 30% so no problem.

I would like to fine tune the recording (when triggered) option. What would be your advise ?

In terms of FPS, of file format, direct to disk or no... It is actually recording under BI file format and I don't really have any issue. The video are smooth. I just want to win a little bit on the image definition (mean sometimes the compression rate doesn't allow me to see details)

Thanks !

 

[bp2008]

The main way to improve image quality is to increase the encoding bit rate in each camera's web interface. This makes it stream more data, so your disk will be filled faster and if any of these cameras are connected with a low speed method like powerline or wifi, then you may experience less reliable streaming as a result of using more bandwidth.

If disk space is a concern, some cameras provide a "variable bit rate" or "VBR" encoding method you can try, where you set both a bit rate and a "quality" level. Choose the highest quality and set the bit rate as you would normally. The camera is allowed to dip below the set bit rate if it thinks it can do so without affecting image quality. Results may vary using variable bit rate encoding. Some cameras encode poor quality even at the highest quality setting, and the only solution is to change to constant bit rate (CBR) encoding.

Direct to disk prevents Blue Iris from re-encoding the video, which saves much CPU time and also keeps the video quality higher. This is very important. You should definitely use this option for any of your cameras that are already streaming h264. If any are streaming MJPEG (the 640x480 cameras may be) it may be advisable to let Blue Iris re-encode their streams to h264 to save disk space.

If you enable direct to disk, there are some things to be aware of:

1) Recordings will start a few seconds later, because Blue Iris can only begin saving video on an iframe. So when you enable direct to disk you should also increase the pre-trigger video buffer under Camera Properties > Record tab by 2 to 4 seconds depending on your camera's i-frame interval.
2) Blue Iris can't embed any text or graphic overlays on the camera stream when recording it via direct to disk. This includes the timestamp that Blue Iris adds by default. My suggestion is to have the camera add the timestamp to its own video stream and delete the one added by Blue Iris. This does work best if the camera is able to keep accurate time year-round, which unfortunately rules out many Chinese models...

Also, if you don't have it enabled already, try enabling Intel HD hardware acceleration in Blue Iris Options > Cameras tab. Restart Blue Iris after changing this setting. When it works, this increases CPU efficiency without hurting video quality

 

[PSPCommOp]

1) Recordings will start a few seconds later, because Blue Iris can only begin saving video on an iframe. So when you enable direct to disk you should also increase the pre-trigger video buffer under Camera Properties > Record tab by 2 to 4 seconds depending on your camera's i-frame interval.
2) Blue Iris can't embed any text or graphic overlays on the camera stream when recording it via direct to disk. This includes the timestamp that Blue Iris adds by default. My suggestion is to have the camera add the timestamp to its own video stream and delete the one added by Blue Iris. This does work best if the camera is able to keep accurate time year-round, which unfortunately rules out many Chinese models...

Not to piggyback on the OP's thread but is there a recommendation on how much to increase the pre-trigger buffer based on that iFrame interval? Also, does it make a difference if the camera is set for continuous recording vs trigger with regards to those pre-trigger buffers?

And secondly, for the timestamp, if you have your cameras prohibited from communicating with anything outside the network via the router blacklists, is it suggested you use the NTP that nayr has spoken of and suggested in previous posts?

 

[bp2008]

Not to piggyback on the OP's thread but is there a recommendation on how much to increase the pre-trigger buffer based on that iFrame interval?

Increase it by the number of seconds between iframes. So if your frame rate is 15 and iframe interval is 30 then that is 2 seconds.

Using direct to disk, the start of your triggered recordings will all be delayed between 0 seconds and the number of seconds between iframes, dependent on exactly when the trigger occurs in relation to the appearance of iframes in the stream. This is why you should increase the pre-trigger buffer by the same length of time as the iframe interval, to guarantee you get as much pre-event video as before.

Also, does it make a difference if the camera is set for continuous recording vs trigger with regards to those pre-trigger buffers?

If you are continuous recording then you already have all the video and the pre-trigger buffer doesn't matter, except maybe for something like an email alert. I'm not sure if emailed snapshots or clips use the pre-trigger buffer.

And secondly, for the timestamp, if you have your cameras prohibited from communicating with anything outside the network via the router blacklists, is it suggested you use the NTP that nayr has spoken of and suggested in previous posts?

Yes, a local NTP server is a good idea anyway because public NTP servers are under a heavy enough load already.

Anyone who runs Blue Iris can also run NetTime on the same machine. http://www.timesynctool.com/

 

[Timbiker]

Thank you very much for your answer !

I will perform trials this we !