Migrating from Milestone to BI5 - High power usage during evaluation

[jmpage2]

I've been running Milestone on an older desktop i7 based PC for years but that box is getting old and I'm getting ready to put it out to pasture. I have built a new workstation class machine that is running ESXi 6.7U3 so that I can start splitting off different home tasks into different VMs, easier able to snapshot/backup my clients, etc.

The new machine is based around the new Xeon E-2278G CPU which has 8 cores and supports hyper threading. This is a fairly efficient 80 watt TDP CPU.

I've created a Windows 10 Pro x64 VM and with just that VM installed (gave it 16GB RAM, 8 CPU cores, etc.) the new server idles at around 48 watts.

With BI 5 evaluation running pointed towards my 4 x Axis P3364 outdoor dome cameras and as many of the power optimizations done as possible I am seeing power consumption to the box running at 80-95 watts which seems quite high. Inside of the VM Windows 10 reports 30% CPU utilization and BI reports about 20-60% of the cpu utilized when I have the console opened.

So on to my question. How much of a power consumption reduction will I see when I license BI and am able to do a bit more optimization such as direct to disc, turn off overlays, etc? Right now the power consumption seems quite high and is a LOT higher than I was anticipating.... while this is not a deal killer it is a bit of a surprise to me.

Thanks!

 

[fenderman]

The reduction is significant, no one can give you an exact number. It would be even less if you use intel HA which may not be possible depending on your vm setup..lots of threads on this.

 

[jmpage2]

The reduction is significant, no one can give you an exact number. It would be even less if you use intel HA which may not be possible depending on your vm setup..lots of threads on this.

Yes I've read a lot of the threads and since BI is not that expensive I ultimately may end up paying for a license anyways.

I plan on passing through the GPU to the Plex VM I will be putting on the server next so I don't think I will be able to use the Intel HW decoding for BI as well but I can certainly tinker with it and find out what is possible.

As I said the power consumption is not a deal breaker, it's just a bit disappointing. There are some things I like about BI a lot better so far and other things I think might be a little better with Milestone. Overall though Milestone has been a bit of a PITA over the years as every time my box gets a windows update it seems to break things, had to hack the Windows firewall to pieces to get my live view working, etc.... it's just too much work for a home app to view my 4 security cameras.

 

[jmpage2]

On the off chance anyone reviewing this thread has Axis cameras, I am having a really hard time getting smooth motion playback on one of my P33 series cams through BI5. If anyone has any advice on that it would be appreciated. I can't find an i-frame setting on the camera that I can set in order to try to get the FPS on BI to match the i-frames on the camera and possibly that is part of the problem.

 

[TonyR]

Assuming you've already used the drop-downs in BI for "Axis" and "M/P/Q series H.264" and "M/P/Q series MPEG4", have a look at pages 12-13 of the manual, attached below, as It may have additional stream URL options.

 

[jmpage2]

Assuming you've already used the drop-downs in BI for "Axis" and "M/P/Q series H.264" and "M/P/Q series MPEG4", have a look at pages 12-13 of the manual, attached below, as It may have additional stream URL options.

I chose M/P/Q series H.264 when I set the cameras up, looks like I'll have to dig further into the camera settings to figure this out. I see from the BI console it shows a very low bit rate of only 100kbps per camera and 1fps, something there is not right.

The Milestone installation is doing MJPEG and is working fine but it wastes a heck of a lot of bandwidth that way... both for playback and for storing the recordings.

 

[jmpage2]

The reduction is significant, no one can give you an exact number. It would be even less if you use intel HA which may not be possible depending on your vm setup..lots of threads on this.

Looks like there is also a thread indicating BI says Intel hardware decoding does not work with Axis H.264 streams. If still the case that really stinks. Not replacing thousands of dollars of high end IR cameras for that.

 

[fenderman]

Looks like there is also a thread indicating BI says Intel hardware decoding does not work with Axis H.264 streams. If still the case that really stinks. Not replacing thousands of dollars of high end IR cameras for that.

Keep using milestone

 

[Tokens]

Why those axis cam are so expensive but if I compare them with hik/dauha they have very similar/the same sensors and others features. I wonder what makes them twice or triple more expensive than darkfighters/starlight.

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[fenderman]

Why those axis cam are so expensive but if I compare them with hik/dauha they have very similar/the same sensors and others features. I wonder what makes them twice or triple more expensive than darkfighters/starlight.

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk

Because they are not made in China.

 

[jmpage2]

Why those axis cam are so expensive but if I compare them with hik/dauha they have very similar/the same sensors and others features. I wonder what makes them twice or triple more expensive than darkfighters/starlight.

Sent from my CLT-L29 using Tapatalk

I don't really understand the point of this as it does nothing to further the conversation, wherein I'm trying to evaluate BI5 for my uses.

The Axis cameras were purchased over the span of a few years (my last one purchased 2+ years ago) when I could score a really good deal on eBay I would replace one of my older cameras. At the time there really wasn't anything competitive with the Axis cams when it came to environmental ruggedness, and quality of integrated IR system.

The Axis cams are built like tanks and they are designed for use in extreme environments. It was -5F at my house a few days ago and all my Axis cams didn't care about it.

I'm sure that there are great alternative cameras out there but the Axis cameras are what I have and I'm very pleased with how well they have been performing for me.

 

[jmpage2]

Keep using milestone

Well I just set each of the 4 cams to Intel video decoding and I didn't get any errors and they are still running. Won't know how well it's working for a bit of course.