BI Computer Purchase

[markoz52]

Dear All,

A quick update following one your suggestions - to turn off "Hardware accelerated decode" to "No" (was "Intel + VPP") as well as changed each camera's "Hardware decode" to "No". I did restart both cameras but have yet to reboot the PC.

For a number of Alerts / Triggers this evening since the change that I've reviewed - All substream playback cadence is normal - no stutters etc. in both forward and reverse at 1/2x playback speed. CPU and GPU usage has hardly changed (with no alerts currently being triggered or played the console is showing 0% 2%)

This is the first positive "result" I've had since "discovered" this anomaly. It's no fun when things don't work as intended especially when significant thought and planning has been invested.

A final point: The 4k camera resolution was to reduce the cost and difficulty of installing more cameras and still being able to identify people etc. clearly when triggered. What I didn't realise is just how important the 10 to 20 seconds substream video can be before triggering to determine a sequence of events. I have tried continuous recording of only the mainstream but the file sizes just get too big ( just wish the BI would allow recordings to be stored in /New/Cameraxx folders and not just lumped together!). The alternative is increase the "Pre-trigger record time" to say 30 seconds and to only record the mainstream "When triggered".

Cheers

[TimG]

Pogo will be displeased

Do reboot it to see if it still works though

I originally had a bit of trouble getting the Intel gpu acceleration to work, and tried a few drivers until it did. Due to that, if I had any issues, it would be one of the first things I turned off for testing. I certainly don't pretend to understand all of this stuff, that's for Ken and the team, but I am an Engineer with a full mental toolbox of "what happens if I try this" to throw at issues as well as a parts box with lots of spares.

NTP: I found that different cameras could only use different NTP sites. I tried running an NTP server and that still only worked with half of my cameras. I then tried the BI5 timestamp, and that works well, and all of my cameras are synchronised. Extra CPU loading was minimal. Since my cameras are now on an isolated from internet LAN, I think this is my best option.

Ask as many questions as you like. We love sorting things out

[Pogo]

Pogo will be displeased

To the contrary, I'm delighted the OP has arrived at a solution for his particular issue. Trust me, I share his frustration, albeit at the other end of the stream in the 4K UHD realm rather than the sub stream..., with a 22 camera system, not just 2 cameras running with the full horsepower of an 8th Gen box.

And while a solution to the issue has been realized, I'm still of the opinion that the particular remedy has simply eliminated a symptom of an underlying codec compatibility (or driver?) problem that continues to exist. What has effectively occurred by disabling HA support is the removal of any GPU effect on the decoding of the streams -- which it is otherwise highly developed to do (and does) quite effectively and efficiently in a correspondingly developed and configured environment.

Where it begins to get weird with Blue Iris (in my experience) is when 4K UHD and/or H.265 demands are placed on the software's ability to effectively decode those streams with or without Intel's QuickSync HA..., which Blue Iris is purported to be designed around in the first place. In this particular instance, the same result could have probably been achieved by simply changing the sub stream encoding to H.264 as suggested, thereby eliminating any H.265 GPU decoding weirdness of the sub stream anyway. It would be interesting to see if the same results are achieved by doing so just for shits and grins.

But back to the driver sensitivity of Blue Iris..., assuming Intel display drivers are what was being referred to. Where exactly is this selection of drivers available for download into one's handy iCore toolbox for compatibility testing with Blue Iris's sensitivities? A quick search yields a grand total of 1 currently available driver spanning the 6th through 10th Gen CPU/GPU family for the Windows 64bit platform dated 12/29/22 -- which admittedly seems quite dated to me as processor and graphics advancement goes.

This also seems a bit dated from the 'What's New' section of the BI5 documentation:

"As we are all interested in getting the most out of our CPU clock cycles, these newer development tools combined with new code optimizations will
combine to contribute to a more efficiently running system. Work will continue with Intel and Nvidia to further leverage graphics hardware assistance."

It would be interesting to know when the last substantial updates actually occurred in this area relative to UHD/H.265 (or any display/codec related) code optimizations, particularly with Intel. And I don't even run H.265 except for a couple Reolinks that don't have an H.264 option at 4K.

But if anyone has the magic bullet for smoothing out my 4K streams with or without hardware acceleration using an Intel i5 9500 w/16GB RAM, you'll be the first.

Bottom line, I'm happy for the OP. And I'm sure his live 4K main streams are as smooth as water flowing. Aren't everyone's? LOL

[markoz52]

G'day,

I rebooted PC overnight and reviewed a number of subsequent trigger / alert recordings and haven't been able to fault a single one (so far)! Playback cadence before during and after an alert as well as any arbitrary time line playback is spot on. This has really lowered the anxiety greatly (no more $ calculations going on in my head) - so thank you for all the advice.

The Windows NTP server is confined by firewall rules to just the camera LAN and a limited range of of IP addresses. I did decide the change the LAN type (NetworkCategory) from Public to Private. In Windows 10 this can be done via one of the network configuration "windows" but in Windows 11 one needs to run Powershell commands: "Get-NetConnectionProfile " and "Set-NetConnectionProfile" to do this: e.g.

PS C:\> Get-NetConnectionProfile (CR) (this will list each LAN profile parameters)
PS C:\> Set-NetConnectionProfile -InterfaceAlias "CamNET" -NetworkCategory Private (CR) (CamNET being the name of the "InterfaceAlias")
PS C:\> Get-NetConnectionProfile (CR) (confirm that the change has been made)

I've downloaded about 2GB of supposedly relevant HP drivers / software / firmware updates for the Elitedesk 800 G4 SFF - and after all of the effort to try and resolve this issue I'm a bit shy of embarking on another wild goose chase - especially as there is no guarantee the that the GPU driver will solve the problem - and then what? Backup, Backup, Backup!

I'm still going to review all of your suggestions and see how things pan out.

Kind regards,

Mark