Switching from "Export to MP4 files" to "Database only"

[Thanamite]

Hi,

I have been very happy with Blue Iris for over a year now with 9 4K cameras.

My original setup was a 14TB drive for 24/7 and a 14TB drive for Events. All in full resolution. But problems are brewing. The 14TB of Events smells trouble. One problem is the number of files which will exceed 1 million. "Repairing the DB" will take over a week. The other is that events without associated 24/7 are harder to navigate (e.g. no synchronized view obviously). So I decided to switch to "Database only" and free up the second drive.

My question is, if I switch to "Database only", is there a way to maintain the Event markers so they still show in the side bar? I understand the new markers will go there but will the old ones be lost?

Thank you.

 

[wittaj]

You won't lose the markers unless you delete the DB and rebuild.....but you would be better off to lose the prior alerts and delete the DB folder.

BI can get unstable over 200,000 clips so you will continue to have trouble.

But the question is why save every event? How about just saving the ones of incidents?

You would be better off to split the cameras across both drives than doing what you are doing now.

 

[fenderman]

Hi,

I have been very happy with Blue Iris for over a year now with 9 4K cameras.

My original setup was a 14TB drive for 24/7 and a 14TB drive for Events. All in full resolution. But problems are brewing. The 14TB of Events smells trouble. One problem is the number of files which will exceed 1 million. "Repairing the DB" will take over a week. The other is that events without associated 24/7 are harder to navigate (e.g. no synchronized view obviously). So I decided to switch to "Database only" and free up the second drive.

My question is, if I switch to "Database only", is there a way to maintain the Event markers so they still show in the side bar? I understand the new markers will go there but will the old ones be lost?

Thank you.

Why export every alert to mp4? This adds a processing cpu load as well as creates lots of files. You need to use combine and cut and leave in BVR format. Cut the file at 1GB. This will prevent the large number of files. Blue iris cannot record while the database is being repaired. Are you using an SSD for windows, the database and BI?

 

[Thanamite]

Yes, I think what you say is what I want. By saving markers I meant to save the incident points so they show up on the left sidebar. Now I see them when I set the menu to "Alerts". I don't care about saving the mp4 files of the Alerts since the first few months are in the 24/7 recordings anyway. I will delete those mp4 files. But when I delete them will I also loose the incident markers?

Regarding your point about splitting the cameras across both drives, that is exactly what I am planning to do after I get rid of the mp4 Events.

That setup certainly feels much better for the long term. I just hope to not loose any of the current 24/7 recordings and the menu with the incident/alert points. The two 14TB drives for recordings and events are regular mechanical. BI And the database are on a 1TB SSD together with the windows OS.

 

[wittaj]

You will only lose the 24/7 recordings if you manually delete them or when they are deleted based on your BI clips and archiving setup.

You will not lose the incident markers deleting the mp4 files UNLESS you delete the DB folder and have it rebuild. It may come to you having to do that to clear the system out.

 

[Thanamite]

Thank you @wittaj.

Just to confirm. I can switch from "Export to MP4 files" to "Database only" and I will not loose the incident markers for the duration of the 24/7 recordings?

Will the incident markers continue to appear when I select the "Alerts" menu to the left of the main UI?

 

[wittaj]

Yes, those are simply thumbnail pointers to the database that are tied to the BVR files and nothing else. I save a few cams with high resolution images and I delete them all the time and the pointer is still in the Alerts on the left. Those "thumbnails" are stored in hidden files under the Alerts folder and are only deleted when you delete the DB folder and restart or it deletes based on Alerts clips and archiving.

But again, if you delete all the MP4 files and the clips are still over 200,000, you will want to delete the DB and rebuild, at which point all prior alert markers disappear.

 

[Thanamite]

Sounds great. I will switch to "Database only" and will reformat the whole drive with the mp4 Alert files. By the way, I will also increase the cluster side to 1MB which should help all kinds of ways.

 

[Thanamite]

The first step went as expected. I Switched all cameras "when triggered add to alerts list" to "Database only" and the Events icons on the left of the UI are still there and all is working the same. I then pointed my Alerts folder (which should be useless now) to the first drive, formatted the second drive with the old events (1MB cluster) and all works the same.

Now I have an empty 14TB drive and I would like to move there half of the cameras with their 24/7 recordings. I plan to create a New folder on the second/empty drive, point to that from Aux1 and switch those the cameras to record to Aux1.

Is there a way to move the 24/7 of those cameras to Aux1 and rebuild the database so that the system still sees the old incidents from those cameras? I understand this may not be possible.

 

[Thanamite]

Eventually I decided to start from scratch and erase my previous recordings. Something odd though, my disk space recordings jumped in size by a factor of almost 10. I think the Continuous recording in combination with exporting events as mp4 must had been recording live at sub-stream level. Switching events to save to Database only must have switched 24/7 recording to main stream.

The fix was easy. I just had to switch Recording to "Continuous + Triggered" and all size requirements became normal like before. When playing back I can see full resolution during events and then upscaled low resolution during non-events.

All works great now. Thanks.