Or send video from some of the cams to one drive and the rest of the cams to the other drive so if you have a drive failure you won't be losing ALL recording capability. BI can do that!
Great PC choice, great VMS choice, IMO.
New NVR or should I go Blue Iris?
- Thread starter Perplexed
- Start date
Great PC choice, great VMS choice, IMO.
Mirrored set is a waste - spread your cameras across the drives. So if you have 2 cameras on each side of the house, then put one from each side on a drive so if a drive fails you still have coverage.
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
Nope, better to spread around the recordings as others mentioned.
alright - ill go that route
Part of this change is a complete re-wire of the office/network. Doing a full ubiquiti deployment/rack mount to upgrade how a few things are handled.
The camera system will be on a different network bridged by the PC/NVR. Putting a 2nd NIC in the PC to facilitate that. The cable routing/rewire is going to take a bit of time, but after remaining stagnate for many years, its overdue for an overhaul/upgrade.
Part of this change is a complete re-wire of the office/network. Doing a full ubiquiti deployment/rack mount to upgrade how a few things are handled.
The camera system will be on a different network bridged by the PC/NVR. Putting a 2nd NIC in the PC to facilitate that. The cable routing/rewire is going to take a bit of time, but after remaining stagnate for many years, its overdue for an overhaul/upgrade.
Well, the computer got here and it works, so that's a plus. Unfortunately it looks like USPS lost my SSD, so that'll slow the project down as I wait on a resolution there.
I currently have 2-4TB drives in my 5 year old NVR. Any harm in transferring/reformatting those to this system for use? 5 years seems a bit old for 24/7 NVR HDDs and I'd like to avoid failures.
I'd love to put 2-10tb Purple drives in it, but those drives are pricy! Maybe at some point....
I currently have 2-4TB drives in my 5 year old NVR. Any harm in transferring/reformatting those to this system for use? 5 years seems a bit old for 24/7 NVR HDDs and I'd like to avoid failures.
I'd love to put 2-10tb Purple drives in it, but those drives are pricy! Maybe at some point....
DanDenver
Getting comfortable
Currently with my NVR; 13 cameras at 4mp @ .265, I get about 12 days of history with 24/7 recording.
I'd like to be able to get 2-3 weeks of recorded data out of the BI system, eventually.
I'd like to be able to get 2-3 weeks of recorded data out of the BI system, eventually.
DanDenver
Getting comfortable
sebastiantombs
Known around here
Reformat the drive using a block size of 1024. If you use sub streams in Blue Iris you'll extend your retention time significantly. Configure the cameras for both the main stream and the sub stream using "find and inspect". Set the recording for each camera to "continuous + alerts" or "continuous + triggered". This will record the sub stream until there's an alert or trigger, depending on the setting, and switch to the main stream for the duration of the event.
Well, I finally got the NVME for the BI computer; got windows and what-not configured and ready to go. Have a fresh install of BI (v.5) on the system and disabled windows updates for the video card per the wiki.
My plan is to either later today or tomorrow, to remove the NVR from my system and get to the deployment of BI - have some house keeping on the IP network to get done before I jump into it. Eventually I plan on deploying SenseAI - but the initial goal will be to get the cameras back online before I jump too deep into that.
With that said... anyone have any "lessons learned the hard way" they'd like to share with a BI newb?
Some background on how this will be setup:
-HP G4 i7
-Primary network card will attach to home network
-Secondary network card will attach to a 1GB POE Switch to Camera Network
-Cameras will all be set to static - from a pool not associated with the primary network(s)
-Going to change user/pass on all existing cameras to something different (I was lazy, they are still default)
-BI setup to run as a service - took me longer than I'd like to admit that my issue was a "local" account on the computer versus a windows live account. I'm more of a Mac/linux guy than a windows guy.
My plan is to either later today or tomorrow, to remove the NVR from my system and get to the deployment of BI - have some house keeping on the IP network to get done before I jump into it. Eventually I plan on deploying SenseAI - but the initial goal will be to get the cameras back online before I jump too deep into that.
With that said... anyone have any "lessons learned the hard way" they'd like to share with a BI newb?
Some background on how this will be setup:
-HP G4 i7
-Primary network card will attach to home network
-Secondary network card will attach to a 1GB POE Switch to Camera Network
-Cameras will all be set to static - from a pool not associated with the primary network(s)
-Going to change user/pass on all existing cameras to something different (I was lazy, they are still default)
-BI setup to run as a service - took me longer than I'd like to admit that my issue was a "local" account on the computer versus a windows live account. I'm more of a Mac/linux guy than a windows guy.
Awesome!
No need to change the user/pass on all cameras - since you are having them in a second network card, they do not touch the internet so the only one that sees them is you! That will save you a little bit of time LOL. Many here with older cameras that didn't require a password do that since nobody can see them anyway.
Agree...
Another short cut for all installed cameras is to use the same user/pass on all. Bad for security, but when your system grows you will not need a spread sheet to keep track of the camera login data. Plus it also helps in removing camera login errors.
Some like to keep the password simple. Perhaps using the 'qwerty' rows of keys plus the number row. Pick 3333www or 3w3w3w3w as an example. Not hacker proof, but at least one can remember the information, plus it is easy to enter. As stated above, only use if on a second NIC for cameras that are isolated from the internet.
Well, my primary goal of getting the cameras up and running on BI is complete (I think).
Still don't know, what I don't know..... but I think it's coming along.
Have 13 cameras running, recording set to constant/triggered (may adjust to constant/alert once I figure out the difference). Have the feeds setup in the grid view/layout I prefer. The main thing was just getting the cameras back online/recording again.
Got docker installed & plan on figuring how to use SenseAI to reduce false alerts (trees, etc).
Still don't know, what I don't know..... but I think it's coming along.
Have 13 cameras running, recording set to constant/triggered (may adjust to constant/alert once I figure out the difference). Have the feeds setup in the grid view/layout I prefer. The main thing was just getting the cameras back online/recording again.
Got docker installed & plan on figuring how to use SenseAI to reduce false alerts (trees, etc).
This is weird.
Either this was a LOT easier to setup than I made it out to be in my head, or I'm just blissfully ignorant at this point - time will tell.
Cameras are all running (still!), HDD is getting some space used... so it appears that the recordings are... well, recording. SenseAI is working, it's been a fairly windy day and I've only gotten notifications when we were walking around where the AI cameras are turned on. It's detecting vehicles well as well.
Didn't flag my dog, but not too concerned about that.
Only issue at this point is the camera dates/times from the camera's self-encoded stamps. Setup an NTP server on the blue iris computer, but they don't wanna sync to it after a manual configuration. I'll play with that some more, but it's not exactly mission critical.
Either this was a LOT easier to setup than I made it out to be in my head, or I'm just blissfully ignorant at this point - time will tell.
Cameras are all running (still!), HDD is getting some space used... so it appears that the recordings are... well, recording. SenseAI is working, it's been a fairly windy day and I've only gotten notifications when we were walking around where the AI cameras are turned on. It's detecting vehicles well as well.
Didn't flag my dog, but not too concerned about that.
Only issue at this point is the camera dates/times from the camera's self-encoded stamps. Setup an NTP server on the blue iris computer, but they don't wanna sync to it after a manual configuration. I'll play with that some more, but it's not exactly mission critical.
Mike A.
Known around here
- May 6, 2017
- 4,170
- 6,993
Which NTP server? Might take a look at the logs for it to see if you're getting connections. A few things to check - Windows firewall needs to be able to pass UDP port 123. You can turn it off for a minute to check if that's a problem. Also check the services running on the machine and look for Wintime32 (or something like that) which may have grabbed the port before your server. Disable it.
I figured it out..... I installed "NetTime" (NetTime - Network Time Synchronization Tool (timesynctool.com)
The problem was the Windows Time Sync service, while set to "manual" was still running in the background. I stopped and then disabled the service. Immediately the cameras began grabbing the correct date/time.
edit to add: appreciate the help from ya'll
The problem was the Windows Time Sync service, while set to "manual" was still running in the background. I stopped and then disabled the service. Immediately the cameras began grabbing the correct date/time.
edit to add: appreciate the help from ya'll
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I run BI 5, 11 cameras. Upgraded from an older DELL system.
Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900K 3.20 GHz
Installed RAM 64.0 GB (63.7 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Windows 11
Task manager shows BI at 10% CPU and 4.5GB memory. All cameras are continuous record, 2TB local storage with a dump to a NAS.
This is a real improvement, as BI used to take much more CPU.
Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900K 3.20 GHz
Installed RAM 64.0 GB (63.7 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Windows 11
Task manager shows BI at 10% CPU and 4.5GB memory. All cameras are continuous record, 2TB local storage with a dump to a NAS.
This is a real improvement, as BI used to take much more CPU.
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,408
Remember that the number of cameras is irrelevant. It is the total Megapixels per second that has the most impact on load. For example I have one particular system that runs on an i5-8500 with 13 cameras at 120 MP/s and the load is 10 percent as well with a processor that is 1/4 as powerful as yours. Unless you are not using substreams for processing and all you cams are maxed at 8mp and 30fps that is actually a high load.
I suspect you are not running substreams as that machine with that load should be low single digit usage...
I'm not running substreams. Most of the cameras (ACTi) are too old to have it. All cameras at 30fps. Part of the reason for not runninc substreams is thatr motion detection isn't 100$ reliable, and I like to be able to go back to a specific time and replay.