Help with Blue Iris Setup

[agarwaldvk]

Hi Everybody


Thanks to you all, I have been able to select, buy and install the security cameras at my home. I have a dedicated PC serving as the NVR and Blue Iris as the software.

My cameras are all Uniview :-
3 off 4 MP cameras with 1/1.8" sensors and
5 off 5 MP cameras with 1/2.8" sensors (couldn't get 2 MP cameras with 1/2.8" sensor)

With all wrong settings on my NVR, my computer was using between 30% and 100% CPU. I then read some of the documents available on the wiki on this forum and this morning changed some of the basic settings for the cameras with all cameras now having :-
Direct-to-Disk recording and
Both Main and Sub stream recording

My CPU usage has come down from over 90% to between 3% and 4% - great!

I am still not convinced that my settings are right, and I don't know any better to make a judgement call on what they should be like. I am making available the screenshots of the following settings for one of my cameras (the intent being that all of them would pretty much have the same settings) with the hope that some of you might be able to suggest better settings than most of the default settings that I have. I have, as such not changed much in the settings at all.

These are :-
1. Uniview Camera Video Streams Settings.jpg - showing main, sub1 and sub2 stream settings (from the camera web interface)
2. Blue Iris General Camera Settings.jpg - showing Blue Iris General Settings (from the Blue Iris interface)
3. Blue Iris Record Settings.jpg - showing Blue Iris General Settings (from the Blue Iris interface)
4. Blue Iris Video Camera Settings.jpg - showing Blue Iris Video Settings (from the Blue Iris interface)
5. Blue Iris Trigger And Motion Sensor Camera Settings.jpg - showing Blue Iris Trigger & Motion Sensor Settings (from the Blue Iris interface)

Also, I have tested the Pushover app and it seems to work almost instantaneously and flawlessly - no issues at all. I also set up an email notification for when I am overseas and may not have access to mobile data, just in case, and that too seems to work OK.
The only issue was that at nighttime, when cars go past my house with headlights on, it seems to activate the motion sensor trigger and I get a notification that I don't need - this doesn't happen in the daytime with the same settings.

The street is at least 5 meters away from my plot boundary and has been excluded from the monitored zone and I tried to increase the contrast to from 25 to 48 but that doesn't seem to help either. The object size was set to 100. Is there any other setting jor option available to address this issue.

The recording in the setting currently shows 'Triggered' but its intended to be continuous when other parameters have been correctly setup to minimize on recording when the other relevant settings may not be ideal.



Best regards


Deepak

 

[wittaj]

Several options.

Does the camera have AI? If so you could have the camera do the triggering and not BI motion detection.

You could use Code Project for that camera to eliminate the false trigger.

You could make the make time larger. That filed of view you could probably make 3 or 4 seconds and still capture what you want and maybe eliminate the headlight bounce.

Under object detection you could turn of the reset after x%. Default is like 67%

 

[agarwaldvk]

Several options.

Does the camera have AI? If so you could have the camera do the triggering and not BI motion detection.

You could use Code Project for that camera to eliminate the false trigger.

You could make the make time larger. That filed of view you could probably make 3 or 4 seconds and still capture what you want and maybe eliminate the headlight bounce.

Under object detection you could turn of the reset after x%. Default is like 67%

Hi Wittaj


Thanks for your response.

I didn't install AI because I remember very early in my endeavors to build this security system, I was advised that I shouldn't install it (it was Deepstack I think that they were referring to) unless I am looking for recognizing car number plates, which i wasn't.

What would you like me to do - increate the make time to say 3 to 4 seconds and/or uncheck reset after option (what does that do anyway) and test them out - Is that 'Object Size Exceeds' parameter that you were referring to - that has a default value of 67%"

I don't really know how to work with Code Project AI to address the issue? Any pointers to that please?

Are my other settings generally OK?

I know the frame rate is 25 - I know 15 is recommended here - that was the default and the Uniview web interface also shows that. My i frame rate don't match with the frame rate, so I am not so sure if my settings are as they need to be - can you please have a look at the screenshots provided and advise.

You have provided some very helpful tips in the past to me and would greatly appreciate some more to get this going as it should.


Deepak

 

[wittaj]

The easiest thing is to try first is increase the make time and see if that eliminate it. If it does, then don't go further.

If it still triggers, then play with the % of the reset option - I see that you are using it now so it is probably at 67%. This feature is intended to do exactly what you want - if the "object" size is greater than x% of the image (like headlight shine) then don't trigger. But every situation of headlight shine is different - is it straight on, from the side, does the car turn any that can cause multiple, etc.

If that doesn't work then see if the cameras have AI and use that instead to trigger.

Then finally if none of the above work then it is time to add DeepStack or CodeProject.

As far as your settings, we would suggest switching to H264 and FPS/iframe of 15, but your camera settings as they stand are not the reason for the triggers.

 

[agarwaldvk]

Hi Wittaj

The easiest thing is to try first is increase the make time and see if that eliminate it. If it does, then don't go further.

If it still triggers, then play with the % of the reset option - I see that you are using it now so it is probably at 67%. This feature is intended to do exactly what you want - if the "object" size is greater than x% of the image (like headlight shine) then don't trigger. But every situation of headlight shine is different - is it straight on, from the side, does the car turn any that can cause multiple, etc.

If that doesn't work then see if the cameras have AI and use that instead to trigger.

Then finally if none of the above work then it is time to add DeepStack or CodeProject.

As far as your settings, we would suggest switching to H264 and FPS/iframe of 15, but your camera settings as they stand are not the reason for the triggers.

Thanks for the update. I will try that tonight after I get home and let you know.


Deepak

 

[agarwaldvk]

Hi Wittaj


I have an update on where I gotten up to with setting up alerts on Blue Iris - not bad so far.

I couldn't get Blue Iris on its own to eliminate the alerts from car headlight. As advised, I then installed the Code Project AI and configured it to identify car/person etc using the recommended models.

That seemed to help and for the last couple of nights, I have been getting only a couple of false alerts - one late at night around midnight and the other 1 or 2 around very early morning around 5 or 6 am - I can live with that.

The general settings is :-
Contrast : 40 (on Trigger)
Object Reset : 75% (on Object Detection)

As you may recall, I don't use Dahu/Hikvision cameras and use Uniview cameras. The better news is that on their web interface they provide this 'Intelligent' event detection categorized under 'Enter Area', 'Leave Area', 'Cross Line' and 'Intrusion' and other events such as 'Motion Detection', 'Tampering Alarm' and 'Audio Detection'

I have only used the 'Enter Area' and 'Motion Detection' and I haven't got one single false alarm - very impressive.

I am attaching herewith a couple of images showing the false alerts from Blue Iris for your reference only.



The other thing that I would like to confirm with you are my settings :-

1. You recommend 15 fps - mine are 25 fps - both on the camera web interface and on Blue Iris. Do I need to change them to 15 fps on both?
2. You also recommend the the frame rate and the I Frame Interval should also match - mine are 25 and 50 respectively. Do I need to change them both to 15 on the web interface? We don't have this setting on Blue Iris anywhere, do we?

I have attached the screenshots in one of my earlier messages.

So far, my recording is set to 'Triggered' as I was testing. Now that it generally working as expected, I would like to change that to 'Continuous'. However, I would like to know why do we recommend on this forum that the clips should never be manually deleted (based on age) and the HDD should be allowed to fill up and let the system delete it when it gets full.

Mine is a 6 TB drive and I would like to keep 1 Tb free, so if was to follow this recommendation (although I would like to know why), should I just change the capacity of the new folder to somewhere like 5 Tb as shown (the age checkbox is unchecked at the moment)




But I will need to delete the files in the 'C:\Blue Iris\Alerts\ folders every so often, right?

I know its a longish post but I would greatly appreciate your assistance on these aspects, please whenever convenient.



Best regards


Deepak

 

[agarwaldvk]

Hi All


Any suggestions of my latest queries please?


Deepak

 

[wittaj]

The reason we say 15FPS is because that is generally all that is needed and is the sweetspot between useable video and storage. But for BI, matching FPS and iframe is critical if one is using BI motion. So if you want to use 25FPS, then match iframes. This is done in the camera GUI, not in BI.

Sure 25FPS can provide a smoother video but no police officer has said "wow that person really is running smooth". They want the ability to freeze frame and get a clean image. So be it if the video is a little choppy....and at 10-15FPS it won't be appreciable. My neighbor runs his at 60FPS, so the person or car goes by looking smooth, but it is a blur when trying to freeze frame it because the camera can't keep up. Meanwhile my camera at 15FPS with the proper shutter speed gets the clean shots.

We wouldn't take these cameras to an NBA game to broadcast, nor would we take the cameras they use at an NBA game to put on a house. Not all cameras are alike and the approach of "a camera is a camera" mentality will result in failure. Another example, I can watch an MLB game and they can slow it down to see the stitching on the baseball. Surveillance cams are not capable of that. You need to find a camera for the intended purpose.

Watch these, for most of us, it isn't annoying until below 10FPS




The BI database is very delicate and if you manually start deleting older video files you will corrupt the database very quickly. It is better to simply let BI delete based on your retention setup.

Keep in mind a 6TB drive is not actually 6TB, when all said and done, you probably have around 5.46TB.

You cannot allocate the entire drive to BI or it will result in errors as the drive fills up and the computer cannot delete and record at the same time. Best practice is to leave 10%. So if nothing else is on that drive, 5TB is fine, but that is leaving .46TB instead of the 1TB you mentioned.

If you are storing any hi-rez or burned in images in the Alerts folder, you can let them delete based on the retention policy you set up for alerts. In the past clearing this out manually did some good, but that isn't the case any more.

 

[agarwaldvk]

The reason we say 15FPS is because that is generally all that is needed and is the sweetspot between useable video and storage. But for BI, matching FPS and iframe is critical if one is using BI motion. So if you want to use 25FPS, then match iframes. This is done in the camera GUI, not in BI.

Sure 25FPS can provide a smoother video but no police officer has said "wow that person really is running smooth". They want the ability to freeze frame and get a clean image. So be it if the video is a little choppy....and at 10-15FPS it won't be appreciable. My neighbor runs his at 60FPS, so the person or car goes by looking smooth, but it is a blur when trying to freeze frame it because the camera can't keep up. Meanwhile my camera at 15FPS with the proper shutter speed gets the clean shots.

We wouldn't take these cameras to an NBA game to broadcast, nor would we take the cameras they use at an NBA game to put on a house. Not all cameras are alike and the approach of "a camera is a camera" mentality will result in failure. Another example, I can watch an MLB game and they can slow it down to see the stitching on the baseball. Surveillance cams are not capable of that. You need to find a camera for the intended purpose.

Watch these, for most of us, it isn't annoying until below 10FPS




The BI database is very delicate and if you manually start deleting older video files you will corrupt the database very quickly. It is better to simply let BI delete based on your retention setup.

Keep in mind a 6TB drive is not actually 6TB, when all said and done, you probably have around 5.46TB.

You cannot allocate the entire drive to BI or it will result in errors as the drive fills up and the computer cannot delete and record at the same time. Best practice is to leave 10%. So if nothing else is on that drive, 5TB is fine, but that is leaving .46TB instead of the 1TB you mentioned.

If you are storing any hi-rez or burned in images in the Alerts folder, you can let them delete based on the retention policy you set up for alerts. In the past clearing this out manually did some good, but that isn't the case any more.

Thanks Wittaj for your response.

So I am going to be changing one item at a time :-

Changing the i Frame Interval from 50 to 25 (trying to match the default Frame Rate of 25)

Like the ones with red highlighted borders :-



As I make this change, nothing is to be done on the Blue Iris settings, right? Like here :-



I changed the Max. Rate to 25 fps to match it to the camera frame rate but it changed by itself as I don't recall doing it.

if I get that right, then I will change both to15.


About the storage, I was looking at making the New folder 4500 GB instead of 5000 GB based on your suggestion to leave 1 TB of spare space.

I am not so sure what sort of storage capability will I get with 4.5 TB of storage for my 8 cameras (4 off @ 4 MP and 5 off @ 5 MP - all with CBR of 4352) recording continuously 24/7.

Should I change that to VBR instead?



One last question :-

On the Trigger tab, on the 'When Triggered, 'Add to Alert list', it currently says 'Database only' but I have a vague recollection that I read somewhere that l should be setting it to 'Hi Res JPEG files' - this would save the image in the 'C:\Blue Iris\Alerts' folder which is what is sent in the Pushover alert. This folder would hence get populated with lots of images and would need to be manually deleted. But I notice that with the 'Database only' setting, I don't see any images in that folder but I still get an image in the Pushover alert. Is this how my settings should be?


Best regards


Deepak

 

[jaydeel]

But I notice that with the 'Database only' setting, I don't see any images in that folder but I still get an image in the Pushover alert.

This is why…

Send Pushover notifications with pictures and hyperlinks

I was testing through the command line, that is how I discovered the error. I never receive the notification, unless I use an image that is smaller then 2.5MB. The Dahua cam I am using is an 8MP (IPC-Color4K-T) My 8MP cams work fine. Are you having the alert save to database only or Hi-res JPEG?

ipcamtalk.com

 

[agarwaldvk]

This is why…

Send Pushover notifications with pictures and hyperlinks

I was testing through the command line, that is how I discovered the error. I never receive the notification, unless I use an image that is smaller then 2.5MB. The Dahua cam I am using is an 8MP (IPC-Color4K-T) My 8MP cams work fine. Are you having the alert save to database only or Hi-res JPEG?

ipcamtalk.com

Hi Jaydeel


Thanks for the information. At least now I know why and l am quite comfortable with it.

Further, I just tried to set up the recording for one of the cameras but it still seems to be recording only when it see some motion - it doesn't necessarily sends an alert when that motion is detected but doesn't seem to record continuously. Here is the screenshot of the record and alert tabs. Can you please advise if I have got it wrong somewhere :-





There is a red dot in the top right of the window indicating that it is recording continuously but it doesn't seem to be doing so.




Best regards


Deepak

 

[agarwaldvk]

Hi Jaydeel


Thanks for the information. At least now I know why and l am quite comfortable with it.

Further, I just tried to set up the recording for one of the cameras but it still seems to be recording only when it see some motion - it doesn't necessarily sends an alert when that motion is detected but doesn't seem to record continuously. Here is the screenshot of the record and alert tabs. Can you please advise if I have got it wrong somewhere :-

View attachment 190850

View attachment 190851

There is a red dot in the top right of the window indicating that it is recording continuously but it doesn't seem to be doing so.

View attachment 190855


Best regards


Deepak

Please ignore this message as I have now been able to record them continuously. I, for some reason, had to be reboot the computer.

All good.

But if any of you can still please provide an answer to my earlier message about the I Frame Interval matching the Frame Rate, that would be great.


Best regards

 

[wittaj]

Please ignore this message as I have now been able to record them continuously. I, for some reason, had to be reboot the computer.

All good.

But if any of you can still please provide an answer to my earlier message about the I Frame Interval matching the Frame Rate, that would be great.


Best regards

I thought I did in Post #8?

You should match FPS and iframes.

 

[agarwaldvk]

I thought I did in Post #8?

You should match FPS and iframes.

HI Wittaj


Yes, you did and I must have been seeking a little bit more of a confirmation before I actually changed anything for fear of stuffing things up but nevertheless.

So, first I am now try and change the the I Frame Interval from 50 to 25 for one of the cameras to match it to the Frame Rate of 25.

The only other question I have in this context is whether or not do I need to change the Max Rate from 26 fps to 25 fps as well here on the Blue Iris screen to match the Frame Rate on the Camera interface shown below :-

Current Setting




Proposed Setting




Best regards


Deepak

 

[wittaj]

No you do not have to do anything in BI regarding FPS on that screen. That is for USB cameras. You can change it but it won't matter for IP cams.

 

[agarwaldvk]

No you do not have to do anything in BI regarding FPS on that screen. That is for USB cameras. You can change it but it won't matter for IP cams.

No issues. Thank you albeit a trifle late.


Deepak