Memory Timings or bandwidth?

Abula

Young grasshopper
Joined
Jul 20, 2014
Messages
51
Reaction score
19
Location
Guatemala
Hi,

I'm planning to upgrade my BI server, specially with BI5 + Win10, I already bought the i7 9700k and a AsRock Z390 mobo, but wondering about the memory in terms of what would be more recommended for Blue Iris, Bandwidth or Timings? will it benefit more on 3200 cl14 or 3600 cl16?
 

fenderman

Staff member
Joined
Mar 9, 2014
Messages
36,901
Reaction score
21,269
Hi,

I'm planning to upgrade my BI server, specially with BI5 + Win10, I already bought the i7 9700k and a AsRock Z390 mobo, but wondering about the memory in terms of what would be more recommended for Blue Iris, Bandwidth or Timings? will it benefit more on 3200 cl14 or 3600 cl16?
Won't make any difference at all.
 
Joined
Apr 26, 2016
Messages
1,090
Reaction score
852
Location
Colorado
For what it's worth, that's probably a prosumer motherboard (more than likely with a ton of things you won't need like USB 3.1-Gen2 USB ports and overclocking capabilities) and a K-sku processor which also designates overclocking support. You are asking about memory timings like you want to be at the bleeding edge of performance, when for this use case it really doesn't matter that much.

I hope you were planning to build a gaming PC and just figured you'd run Blue Iris as well. I would recommend against it, however, because: 1) you should avoid multipurpose machine running Blue Iris and 2) overclocking can produce stability challenges (you should focus on stable platform for BI) and 3) overclocking increases power draw (you would want just enough power to get the job done as it will be running 24x7).

This is coming from a guy with a 2600K Blue Iris computer (old gaming system I had replaced), although you haven't mentioned how many cameras you will be recording, you would be money ahead to get something like is recommended in the wiki for $200-$300, as any commercial desktop refurb will probably do fine at this task.
 
Joined
Apr 26, 2016
Messages
1,090
Reaction score
852
Location
Colorado
Just some of my own opinions regarding your three questions.

Dedicated Machine for Blue Iris - while there are a few people here that are running VMs and even one or two people that keep Blue Iris running on their gaming or work PC, I propose having it on a dedicated machine provides a few benefits:
  1. you won't be restarting it all the time due to patches on your gaming/work/plex/VM OS (up-time of your surveillance system will be very high)
  2. you can buy a very budget machine for most Blue Iris setups but still have a big upgrade from a standalone NVR
  3. you are bound to have fewer problems with Blue Iris fighting with other applications for resources (disk, memory, network), and fewer problems with conflicting software drivers/patches etc
  4. the configuration of a surveillance system will be significantly different than a traditional PC/server (surveillance drives for long cycles of continuous writes, minimal memory (I use 5GB), and for a lot of installs only integrated graphics).
  5. cost can remain small, and the hardware can serve in this role for an extended period of time (I'm using an 8-year old PC that wouldn't be great for much else).
  6. But my #1 guess -- it's just simpler, simpler to setup, simpler for people here to help troubleshoot, and cheap. If people here started recommending VM technologies (for example), this would turn into a VM platform support forum more than a IP Camera & Security forum.
Same Switch - this is more of a mixed bag in my opinion. True switches can switch traffic between hosts very rapidly, even a 100Mb switch could handle tons of camera feeds to a Blue Iris machine. Based on my 2.1MP @ 15FPS has a bitrate under 400kBps, to saturate a 100Mbps port will take a truckload of cameras. If you outgrow the 100Mb POE switch you probably have options, but you probably have also outgrown Blue Iris (I think it maxes around 60 cameras).

But consider simplicity, if we are trying to help someone remotely via forum and they have a daisy-chain of switches, each device becomes a potential point of failure. Consider that the more simple a configuration is, the less trouble a user (especially a non-technical one) is going to have setting it up or breaking things. If you are a computer savant and want to setup a complex system with lots of potential conflicts or problems and are willing to troubleshoot it YOURSELF, more power to you. I use pfSense, it fits firmly in the overkill, not for beginners bucket so I try to discourage people from taking up the added complexity because for most an ASUS router will do the trick and is stupid simple to setup.

These forums get many more visitors that are far more likely to buy a Ring doorbell (or already bought some Cosco camera package) than people that have the knowledge required to setup a VM, troubleshoot a complex configuration, or even know what a VLAN is. That's part of why I push the dual-NIC setup, if a novice user wants to prevent their cameras from "phoning home" they need a simple solution, sure VLANs CAN WORK but only if you are willing to configure them correctly (this requires at least intermediate networking knowledge or patience).

HOME-LAN --> Blue Iris --> POE switch (private cam lan) --> cameras

Regarding your experience running multiple Plex streams, my guess is your video is better quality, otherwise I don't know how you would be saturating a 100Mb port?
 
Last edited:

bp2008

Staff member
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
12,672
Reaction score
14,015
Location
USA
Some routers don't have proper switching fabric, and handling a lot of LAN-to-LAN data bogs them down. I think this is the main reason people recommend connecting BI to the same switch as the cameras -- it is specifically to avoid allowing the video streams to pass through the router.

Based on my 2.1MP @ 15FPS has a bitrate of 120kbps
That bit rate is way too low. Either you are encoding at very low quality, or once something meaningful happens in front of your cameras, that bit rate is shooting way up. The network needs to be designed to handle peak load, not average load ;)
 
Joined
Apr 26, 2016
Messages
1,090
Reaction score
852
Location
Colorado
.......That bit rate is way too low. Either you are encoding at very low quality, or once something meaningful happens in front of your cameras, that bit rate is shooting way up. The network needs to be designed to handle peak load, not average load ;)
oops that was K BYTES per second, and for a 2 FPS camera. The 15 FPS camera I'm seeing consistently around 400 kBYTES/s and its currently snowing here (so some noticeable activity) does that pass your sniff test bp2008? I still think the point is valid that's lots of cameras to max out a 100Mb switch, or higher MP cameras at the very least.
 

bigjoe99

n3wb
Joined
Dec 17, 2017
Messages
20
Reaction score
4
A switch is a switch folks. I have a pile of old Cisco catalyst 2960 fast ethernet boxes that will not handle H264 / H265 any better / worse than a $25 Trend Net. Switches don't give a damn about doing anything other than switching packets, and layer 2/3 doesn't apply to anything were discussing about in this forum.

I have a dozen cams running at 1920x1080 and they never exceed 50Mb. How do I know this? Because it shows up in Windows frikken task manager. Since my peak bandwidth never exceeds 50Mb I can use fast ethernet switches daisy chained a dozen deep and not affect *anything*. Switches switch. They don't care how many are upstream or dowstream in with the protocols we are discussing. Get the T-shirt.

If your cameras peak over 90Mb or so (again, you don't need a $5000 fluke meter and a college degree when Windows task manager shows you aggragate traffic) you will certainly need to upgrade to 1Gb. Otherwise, please stop inventing special considerations for H264/H265 traffic that doesn't exist. The switch doesn't care.

With all the variables in play, H264 vs H265, frame rates, and compression rates in cameras it's impossible to conclude how much bandwidth were dealing with. I just know I see most cameras turned up too high in terms of compression quality wasting storage and bandwidth.
 

fenderman

Staff member
Joined
Mar 9, 2014
Messages
36,901
Reaction score
21,269
A switch is a switch folks. I have a pile of old Cisco catalyst 2960 fast ethernet boxes that will not handle H264 / H265 any better / worse than a $25 Trend Net. Switches don't give a damn about doing anything other than switching packets, and layer 2/3 doesn't apply to anything were discussing about in this forum.

I have a dozen cams running at 1920x1080 and they never exceed 50Mb. How do I know this? Because it shows up in Windows frikken task manager. Since my peak bandwidth never exceeds 50Mb I can use fast ethernet switches daisy chained a dozen deep and not affect *anything*. Switches switch. They don't care how many are upstream or dowstream in with the protocols we are discussing. Get the T-shirt.

If your cameras peak over 90Mb or so (again, you don't need a $5000 fluke meter and a college degree when Windows task manager shows you aggragate traffic) you will certainly need to upgrade to 1Gb. Otherwise, please stop inventing special considerations for H264/H265 traffic that doesn't exist. The switch doesn't care.

With all the variables in play, H264 vs H265, frame rates, and compression rates in cameras it's impossible to conclude how much bandwidth were dealing with. I just know I see most cameras turned up too high in terms of compression quality wasting storage and bandwidth.
Your resolution is irrelevant. Its all about the bitrate.
You also miss the point about the blue iris machine being connected to the same switch OR a switch cascading from the swich, THAT is the recommendation the poster is referring to. The point is to avoid data passing the router. Despite you rant, switches dont like to be saturated near their max. We have seen lots of issues in the REAL world where a 10/100 switch WAS an issue.
 
Top