Blue Iris reduces the CPU load

[MaxIcon 0]

For those interested in Blue Iris, but put off by the high power PC required to run a lot of MP cams, the developer recently added direct-to-disk recording. This records the cam stream directly without re-encoding.

 

It has some downsides, like BI won't be able to add it's own overlays (time, camera name), but most cameras do that themselves these days. I'm sure there are other limitations, so whether the trade-offs are worth being able to use a less powerful PC is up to the user.

 

I haven't tried this setup yet (no time), but initial reports are very encouraging, with pretty dramatic drops in CPU usage. There were a few bugs early on, but these were squashed quickly by the developer, who's always responsive to bug reports.

 

Anyone interested can follow the threads over at www.cam-it.org, the BI community forum.

 

Please don't take this as shilling - I don't get anything from this, but I'm a satisfied BI user, and this is a major improvement in an already impressive product.

[ssnapier 0]

I have never used Blue Iris, but that sounds like a very good improvement!

[buellwinkle 0]

I've only been using BI to do some camera testing and record some odd cameras I have around the house but this week, Ken made BlueIris an actual option I can use for all my cameras. Add to that his recent release of an Android app and BI has grown up.

 

I just have one thing that bugs me and maybe I'm using it wrong. Most NVR software or NVRs use a timeline concept that shows recordings against a timeline. You drag the timeline or drag the background and it shows the video recorded at that time. I find the BI timeline feature difficult to use and would like to see that redone. Also, it would be nice to show multiple cameras at the same time during playback.

[No5 0]

Also, it would be nice to show multiple cameras at the same time during playback.

 

Diddo.

[jsl10 0]

I'm flipping back and fourth between BI and a dedicated NVR. CPU usage is one deciding factor. Anyway, maybe a dumb question but if using the new direct to disk writing, does BI still do the motion detection analysis the same (i.e. by the BI server)? Or do you set it up in the cameras and then BI simply writes the motion triggered videos to disk?

[Jackster 0]

Went from 90-100% on my P4 with 2 cams to 60%.

 

It struggled streaming to more than one web client, not have 4 running and only 70% CPU.

 

 

New updates are great!

[Q2U 0]

I'm flipping back and fourth between BI and a dedicated NVR. CPU usage is one deciding factor. Anyway, maybe a dumb question but if using the new direct to disk writing, does BI still do the motion detection analysis the same (i.e. by the BI server)? Or do you set it up in the cameras and then BI simply writes the motion triggered videos to disk?

 

Blue Iris still does the motion detection when writing direct to disk is enabled jsl10.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Guest

[MaxIcon 0]

For the timeline issue, there is a timeline mode, but I haven't used it much.

 

What has helped is the setting for whether each clip is a standalone video, or part of a longer clip. By setting it to break every 8 hours (or whatever), you get the clips embedded in a much longer file. Once you've started playing one, you can scroll through the entire 8 hours, which is much better than the individual clips.

 

I used to use the standalone clip setting, and ended up with many 10s of thousands of clips in my folder, which bogged down my low power box when BI scanned them every 10 minutes to archive older ones. The new setting has reduced the number of clips greatly, as well as making it easier to scroll through them. It does limit the start/stop precision when you're exporting a clip, so I just export a larger time window, then open that and trim it down.

 

I like the way the Aver software handles the timeline. In the 1 hour timeline display, it shows green at the locations where there was motion recording, so you can skip to the key spots easily. BI doesn't give a visual indication like this, but it's still pretty easy.