My humble i5-4590 still humming along with 30+ cams:

[Pogo]

And forgive my ignorance on the sub-stream subject. A little more reading helped sort that out for me. Sorta depressing, actually. You buy cams with great viewing and immediately degrade their capabilities just to save real-time resources in case you may want to see something of interest they may have recorded.

I'm just trying to improve on my ancient (but still rock solid) Swann DVR system that has served me well for the past seven years. Eight 720HD cams and a 1TB DVR for 200 bux.
Sounds funny, now.

Pretty steep (and expensive) learning curve these days just to basically do the same thing just for megapixels.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Then stick with a DVR which does exactly the same thing in terms of sub and main streams, especially with the multi camera display. The only time you really see full resolution on either an NVR or a BI system is when you full screen a specific camera. Chasing megapixels is a very expensive proposition whether it's an NVR or a VMS like Blue Iris. Frankly, I'm quite happy with sub stream/main stream switching for alerts. As I said, any multiple camera display s being downgraded by the NVR or VMS to get everything on the screen in the first place. The single camera view is still at full resolution. I'm running all my sub streams at 1080P and they're fine for viewing.

 

[wittaj]

^+1 D/NVRs have been doing that for years. It was only in the past year or so that BI implemented that, which allows for much more flexibility.

Plus you can record 24/7 mainstream if you want if you are that concerned about missing something. The savings is in how substeams are used for motion and alerts.

 

[Pogo]

What I've been chasing today are non-existent sub streams on the Wyze v3s with the RTSP firmware. LOL Silly me.

And I just got a Reolink NVR to see how that would fly, but BI on my fairly weak HP rig blows it away for image quality all other things being equal. Very disappointed with that and am still leaning toward a BI rig -- especially because of the Wyze cams in the mix.

 

[wittaj]

Wyze and reolinks - not so great cams for BI lol.

 

[Pogo]

They both work better in BI than anything else I've tried! 'Course the V3s won't work with the Reolink NVR -- at least not that I've figured out so far. Maybe a dedicated AP with a DHCP server of the Reolink subnet, but I think the NVR is going back anyway.

'Preciate the input. And I'm not really interested in 24/7 recording - just events and real-time viewing.

 

[Flintstone61]

My housemate got a Wyze cam cube thing(wifi) to watch her Mom ( 95 bed ridden) and in the router status, it appears to be using more bandwidth than my entire BI-Nvr system.

 

[Pogo]

They gobble it up from being nearly 100% cloud based unless they have the RTSP firmware -- which still needs to call home way too often. I have 4 running on BI with almost zero lag. It's all hanging off a dedicated router with a dedicated 2.4 channel for the cams. There's more lag with the Reolink cameras directly plugged into their own NVR through the same router. I don't quite have that figured out yet. I'd like to like the NVR setup, but so far it's pretty disappointing and certainly not worth the $200 just for a couple of their cameras.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Reolink has some other serious problems as well. Most of the other "consumer grade" cameras all suffer with similar problems.

Compiled by mat200 -

Worlds First Review - Dahua - IPC-Color4K-X / DH-IPC-HFW5849T1-ASE-LED - Full Color 4K Camera

Intro I’m excited to be doing another Worlds First Review. this time as I mentioned in the full color thread, I’ve been testing the new Dahua full color 4K camera. This was provided courtesy of @EMPIRETECANDY for a fair, honest, no holds barred, unbiased review. I’ll attempt to answer any and...

ipcamtalk.com

A collection of various consumer grade failures -

The Typical picture of a Perp on Nextdoor-type Apps with Consumer Grade Cameras like Ring, Nest, Arlo, Canary, Wyze, etc.

Love these posts on Nextdoor type apps LOL. This thread will be used for members to post the poor quality consumer grade type camera images that we see people post to the Nextdoor type apps. Can anyone make out this person that went thru their cars LOL.... And this thread is where members...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Pogo]

I'm aware of the criticisms and they generally don't apply to my particular situation or application of the devices. This is a seat-of-the-pants implementation of what I just happen to have on hand -- which is eight camera coverage for a grand total of 160 bux at present. And I don't have the luxury or budget to do much more than "run what I brung". That's why I'm here asking questions.

I'd like a newer car, too. What would you recommend? LOL

 

[sebastiantombs]

Anything but a hybrid or an electric! Both need "carbon" to work anyway.

 

[bradner]

Sorta depressing, actually. You buy cams with great viewing and immediately degrade their capabilities just to save real-time resources in case you may want to see something of interest they may have recorded.

I view it the opposite actually. By utilizing sub-streams, I can turn my low powered system into a 30+ cam monster. I'd rather have 30+ cams covering every square inch of my property than 8 cams. Every trigger is recorded at the highest resolution. If I had a small space to monitor, I'd probably not run sub-streams.

 

[wittaj]

And forgive my ignorance on the sub-stream subject. A little more reading helped sort that out for me. Sorta depressing, actually. You buy cams with great viewing and immediately degrade their capabilities just to save real-time resources in case you may want to see something of interest they may have recorded.

You have some more learning to do so that it isn't "sorta depressing"... because all of us were elated when BI added substreams...

Substreams are your friend. If you are using them for the main workhorse of BI (motion detection, alerts, etc.), then you can record the mainstream 24/7 without much additional CPU overhead, but you need to still use substreams or the CPU will spike. At that point you are not "degrading their capabilities" as you are still recording the mainstream, just not using it for motion detection, which is where the CPU is used intensively.

And if you think your Swann system was using mainstream for motion detection, you are mistaken...

Believe me, none of us would be using substreams if it degraded the opportunity to capture what we want....

While this thread was directed towards LPR, the same principals apply regarding resolution. You would be surprised how good a D1 substream can be to save on overall storage and CPU requirements as this is more than adequate for BI or Deepstack to analyze:

How much resolution is really needed for LPR

We have folks come here all the time thinking that more MP is better, whether it be for general purposes or for LPR. Those of us that have been around long enough know that sensor size is more important than MP. Those that have been here awhile know that I share a representative sample of...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Mike A.]

What I've been chasing today are non-existent sub streams on the Wyze v3s with the RTSP firmware. LOL Silly me.

You don't need a substream with the Wyze V3 anyway. The main stream tops out at ~130kB/s. Kind of running a substream full time. ; )

 

[Pogo]

'Preciate the input, folks. Lots to learn and digest. I still feel like I'd be better served in both the short and long term with a BI solution over a dedicated hardware NVR. Still cruising the local ads for rig possibilities now that I'm a little more educated on the requirements involved. Similar systems to the one at the top of this thread seem to be falling into the $150 range in my area. Lots of i3 bargains, but even an i5 seems to be on the lower end of what would be required for an 8~10 cam learning curve arrangement.

Anyway, I also see reference to streaming devices being fed by UI3 -- (presumably a BI feature?) -- to additional localized TV viewing locations. Would be grateful for someone pointing me in the direction for how that's accomplished. I currently run several redundant instances of tinyCam on a couple Firesticks and Android boxes. The results could be worse, but I'm guessing they could be much better also if the source was a consolidated server stream vs. multiple camera streams. Currently wireless among three networks to spread the load. No ethernet.

 

[Firefighter]

Good to hear. I just picked up some dell 7050s and dell 7020s. All I5. So good to know I'll have no issue running 16 cams.

 

[sebastiantombs]

UI3 is the built-in web interface for Blue Iris. It is accessed using a Chrome based browser using the IP of the Blue Iris server and the port number you selected to use for Blue Iris. The default port is 81 which would make the address 192.168.x.x:81. It does require a user login which is created in Blue Iris and you can select the level of access so some users cn only access specific groups of cameras for example. My laptop is open with UI3 up all day, every day.

 

[bradner]

UI3 is the built-in web interface for Blue Iris. It is accessed using a Chrome based browser using the IP of the Blue Iris server and the port number you selected to use for Blue Iris. The default port is 81 which would make the address 192.168.x.x:81. It does require a user login which is created in Blue Iris and you can select the level of access so some users cn only access specific groups of cameras for example. My laptop is open with UI3 up all day, every day.

UI3 is so cool as I can have different camera profiles depending on the "user". For example in my garage I have a 50" Fire TV so I have 9 cams on it with views of the front entrances as I can't see that area from in the garage. In the kitchen I have a small 32" Fire TV with only 4 cams of the front and back entrances only. It's so user customizable it's fantastic. I can set up a view based on what the main person viewing wants to see from that spot and they get their own custom set-up.

 

[Pogo]

Excellent. Thanks, guys.

Starting to find my way round the threads a bit, but have learned a ton right here. Your time and input is much appreciated. Has sure saved me a bunch of huntin' and peckin'.