Minimizing Storage Required for Video

M

martinjdoutlook-com

n3wb
May 13, 2021
18
9
I am looking for advice on best minimizing the storage required for video.



I recently purchased a new computer and changed from recording “When triggered” to “Continuous + Alerts” in hopes of capturing more relevant video with more options for configuration.

I installed DS GPU and the Nvidia prereqs and have DS working with varying results.

I have 14 cameras currently, with six configured to use “Continuous + Alerts” as a test. All 14 cameras are writing to a “New” folder configured to delete when space runs low. The target is a 1TB SATA drive I pulled from an older system, and after about 36 hours, roughly 50GB has been consumed. I intend to purchase a larger drive later but wanted to understand better how much data I need to keep.

I am considering minimizing disk space requirements by having DS analyze the video and only save video that is flagged with something of interest and delete the other 95% if possible, either in near real-time or batch later in the night. I am not sure how to go about this in the best way or if there is a better solution.

Is there something already built into BI for what I am trying to do?

Looking for recommendations.



Thanks

Below is my configuration for reference/critique

Camera Configuration
  • Video max rate just above the camera fps which is 20.00 fps
    1654380528309.png

  • Hardware decode set to default
    1654380563759.png

  • Trigger
    • Motion Sensor
      1654380605985.png
    • AI
      1654380638785.png
  • Record
    1654380671932.png

    1654380699127.png

  • Alerts
    1654380726163.png

Blue Iris Settings
  • AI
    1654380794743.png

  • Clips and Archiving
    1654380813315.png
    1654380830478.png
    1654380847087.png

  • Cameras
    1654381047719.png
 
It doesn't work that way. You either:

  • Record continuous full time mainstream
  • Record continuous substream and then switch to mainstream on triggers or alerts
  • Record alert or trigger only, and risk missing something that somehow missed the triggering setup.

You would then have to go in manually to decide what to "flag" and save versus what to delete.

Keep in mind that while long retention times sounds good, most have found that after two weeks you aren't interested.

However, if something happened more than two weeks ago and you didn't notice it until now or a neighbor is like "hey about 3 weeks ago someone got into my car", you will probably give up pretty quickly trying to find it - it can be a pain to scrub when you cannot define a date and time window.

You can flag a trigger, but then it is never deleted until you manually do it. Some people flag everything and then their drive fills up and stops recording.
 
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According to your definition above it appears I am using "Record continuous substream and then switch to mainstream on triggers or alerts" but I do have "Auto-flag confirmed alerts" set under AI.

I may not have explained what I want to do well in the post above. I can right-click on an Alert in the UI and choose Export so there should be a way to do so programmatically.
 
The problem is if you auto flag, those alerts do not get deleted under the BI clips and archiving function and the drive will fill up quick.

When DeepStack first came to BI, we had many people here posting that there system quit recording. It was because auto-flag filled up the drive.

Yes, you can manually do exports of the ones you think that are important, but there is no setting in BI to decide which ones are important and which ones aren't - only you can decide which ones are worth saving and which ones are not. They will follow the setup in the Clips and Archiving section.

If there is anything we want to save, we need to manually export it. BI does not know what you think is important to export out and which ones are not. I guess you could write scripts and routines and add AI to external scripting to maybe do that, but it is not native to BI.
 
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@wittaj I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

wittaj said:
The problem is if you auto flag, those alerts do not get deleted under the BI clips and archiving function and the drive will fill up quick.

When DeepStack first came to BI, we had many people here posting that there system quit recording. It was because auto-flag filled up the drive.

Yes, you can manually do exports of the ones you think that are important, but there is no setting in BI to decide which ones are important and which ones aren't - only you can decide which ones are worth saving and which ones are not. They will follow the setup in the Clips and Archiving section.

If there is anything we want to save, we need to manually export it. BI does not know what you think is important to export out and which ones are not. I guess you could write scripts and routines and add AI to external scripting to maybe do that, but it is not native to BI.
Click to expand...
 
The real question boils down to how long do you want to keep the video? I shoot for 4 weeks as I am regularly gone for 4-5 weeks a few times a year. So I would like to be able to spool off relevant video if needed when I return rather than while I am on the road. While I do check my cams twice a day when away, I would rather not have to export video from my remote site. Right now I have three 10 TB WD purple drives for 22 cams. I divide the cams up between the three drives.

Realistically, digital storage is fairly cheep. You can calculate how much storage you are using right now for a given number of days. You can then calculated how much you would need for however many days you think is necessary in your use case.
 
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Depending on your location, there may be regulations about the time that is "normally expected" to store the video footage, here in Holland 30 days is considered the max for non-financial instutions or high risk places. (So basically any commerical or resedential stuff except prisons and banks :) )
 
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I'd say once you decide how long you want to retain video and calculate it out to a number of terabytes, add another 10% to that number for overhead like a "busy" day or ten and to provide for some simple overhead.
 
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wittaj said:
The problem is if you auto flag, those alerts do not get deleted under the BI clips and archiving function and the drive will fill up quick.

When DeepStack first came to BI, we had many people here posting that there system quit recording. It was because auto-flag filled up the drive.
Click to expand...
Note, Auto flagged files will be deleted if Auto protect when flagged is unchecked in the clips and archiving tab.
 
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Mike A. said:
Or just make it simple and get the biggest HD(s) that you want to spend the money to buy and work with what that gets you.
Click to expand...

18TB Purple is $100 off right now so I guess I will purchase one of them. That should be close enough to 3-4 weeks' worth of storage.

My XPS 8950 only has room for one additional drive. I have a 2TB SSD and 2TB Seagate in the system already.

After I add the 18TB Purple anything else would have to be externally connected.
 
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