Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

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prd0000
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:13 am

Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by prd0000 »

Good day members, my first post here..

I have just bought BlueIris, after using iVMS4200 from Hikvision.

I have a Threadripper 2950X idling at about 2-3% utilization for my Remote Desktop host most of the time. So I plan to add BlueIris to this computer.
I've seen that BlueIris can use NVEnc, as well as NVDec. Since I will be using Threadripper system, QSync is obviously out of question.

The Threadripper has 64 GB or RAM equipped with NVMe 3GBps R/W for local recording.
It currently has nVidia 9400GT for its display, thus I think it is very inadequate for Blue Iris.

We have about 43 camers, with 15 are 5MP, and 26 are 2MPs, and 2 are 3MP 360 degrees fisheye.
All of them are HikVision, running at 10fps, with about 800Kbps max bit rate.

The monitor window will be off, all of the time, but there is a security guy who will always monitor 10 of our cameras via web browser.

My questions are:
1. I plan to buy 1650 SUPER for this setup, since 9400GT is obviously not enough. But would 1650 SUPER be enough? I have considered 2060, but after seeing the spec on 1650 vs 2060 decoders, I think its stream properties are about the same. What do you think? Will moving to 2060 be helpful?
2. Is my Threadripper enough for this setup? Or should I buy an Intel system for this need?
3. Will monitoring via web browser be good enough? Or should I change to another application?
4. I also saw a video tab on Blue Iris configuration, which changed to lower resolution when I activated substream. How does it work? Does it affect my recordings? I use direct to disk BVR for recordings.

Thank you for helping.
mikecam
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:58 am

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by mikecam »

Welcome,
2950X isn't the best choice, it's not about CPU power its more about HW video coding power in hardware, not software. You can run 43cams off a much smaller system with the right cpu choice like the intel i5-10600 higher.
Since your asking about the 2950X you have to do video decode on the GPU.
The trick when choosing the GPU is what cameras are you going to record? If they are newer ones 4mp to 8mp you will have the option for h265. Your GPU will need to be newer to support the h265 and h265+ coding. Your 9400GT will do h245 maybe but that's it. I would go with 2070 with 43 cams. If you went with an Intel 10 series you could do it with the igpu as it's very powerful for encoding video streams and without the nvidia gpu card saving you alot of power over a year of running 24/7. On a nvida 2070 i would expect around 40-60% usage on GPU with that many cams. The AMD cpu won't do a good job at doing software encoding so you will waste alot of cpu usage not doing awhole lot compared to the intel igpu or nvidea card. So your better off using the 2950x for something else and using a much lower spec cpu as your needing to add the GPU when using AMD a mid-range CPU will do a good enough job when paired with a nice nvidia card.
For picking the GPU card have a look at this
https://developer.nvidia.com/video-enco ... matrix-new
Look at both the encode and decode list. You will see only the newest cards support h265 encode/decode.
Matts1984
Posts: 496
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 1:12 pm
Location: Maryland, USA

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by Matts1984 »

Wow I think thats a pretty good response and I completely agree.

Also to continue, I personally think using the UI3 interface for monitoring is pretty good, I've had no issues with it. You can set it to never time out so it can literally just be on the screen all day. I notice negligible impact to CPU with it running.

If using substreams (HIGHLY RECOMMEND - very little point not to)... your recordings will be done using the mainstream, motion detection will be done with the substream which is still more than sufficient. Also, the feeds will display with substream until selected at which time they auto-upgrade to the mainstream. Yes this results in a slightly lower picture on the monitor most of the time but the reality is, it's still a pretty darn good image and you don't need all that extra power going towards a feed you're not actively interested in. When you want to see something, select it and you'll see the higher resolution - and again the recordings are still at the higher resolution.

Hope that answers everything.
Blue Iris 5.8.8.x | Server 2022 VM | Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz - 12 Cores | 12GB RAM | 7TB RAID | Sophos UTM WAF | 4x SV3C 5MP Bullet A | 1x SV3C 5MP PTZ HX | 1x SV3C 5MP Bullet HX | 1x SV3C 5MP Dome HX | 2x Amcrest 5MP Bullet
prd0000
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:13 am

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by prd0000 »

Well, Thank you for helping.

This system is idle for many months now.

Yes, our cameras are mostly H265, and H265+, but as I've listed, 16 of them are 5MP, and the rest are 2MPs.

I think I will go GPU route, since 2070 should be much cheaper than a new Intel 10600 set. Especially with 3000 launch, I am more inclined to purchase 3060 rather than i5-10600.

I've also read a lot of report about Intel's problem with H265 encoding. Is it fixed?
HeneryH
Posts: 678
Joined: Thu Jul 18, 2019 2:50 pm

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by HeneryH »

prd0000 wrote: Wed Oct 28, 2020 7:43 am I've also read a lot of report about Intel's problem with H265 encoding. Is it fixed?
H265 w/ QS acceleration is working fine for me on BI5.
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terk
Posts: 175
Joined: Tue Jun 18, 2019 2:36 pm

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by terk »

H.265 started working for me after version 5.3.3.x with the Intel acceleration enabled.
ctfjr
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Oct 14, 2019 5:43 pm

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by ctfjr »

fwiw I'm running a 2950X in my desktop. I have 12 4k cameras connected to BI (I use substreams) and my cpu utilization is 10%. I use my computer for video and digital imaging editing as well as for work (large Excel workbooks). I am using a 2080 TI video card and 64gb of ram (12gb used as a virtual drive). It's a beast.
prd0000
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:13 am

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by prd0000 »

ctfjr wrote: Sat Oct 31, 2020 9:56 pm fwiw I'm running a 2950X in my desktop. I have 12 4k cameras connected to BI (I use substreams) and my cpu utilization is 10%. I use my computer for video and digital imaging editing as well as for work (large Excel workbooks). I am using a 2080 TI video card and 64gb of ram (12gb used as a virtual drive). It's a beast.
Yeah.. I haven't bought any GPU yet, and IPCamTalk told me to try without additional GPU, since 2950X is a beast.
I am into 20 cam now, and I experience no lag at all. CPU usage still at 2%.. This thing is crazy..

The lag problem I experienced was from motion sensor algorithm. I am using "simple" now instead of "Edge Vector", and it hasn't missed any movement, yet.
Last edited by prd0000 on Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
Matts1984
Posts: 496
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 1:12 pm
Location: Maryland, USA

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by Matts1984 »

prd0000 wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:32 am The lag problem I experienced was from motion sensor algorithm. I am using "simple" now instead of "Edge Vector", and it hasn't missed any movement, yet.
Thanks for the update. Made me double check mine... mine is also set to "simple". Some of these settings are certainly above my head but for the most part - apparently they are set correctly :D (very few false positives or negatives)
Blue Iris 5.8.8.x | Server 2022 VM | Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz - 12 Cores | 12GB RAM | 7TB RAID | Sophos UTM WAF | 4x SV3C 5MP Bullet A | 1x SV3C 5MP PTZ HX | 1x SV3C 5MP Bullet HX | 1x SV3C 5MP Dome HX | 2x Amcrest 5MP Bullet
prd0000
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2020 10:13 am

Re: Recommended hardware configuration for 43 cameras

Post by prd0000 »

Matts1984 wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 2:24 pm
prd0000 wrote: Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:32 am The lag problem I experienced was from motion sensor algorithm. I am using "simple" now instead of "Edge Vector", and it hasn't missed any movement, yet.
Thanks for the update. Made me double check mine... mine is also set to "simple". Some of these settings are certainly above my head but for the most part - apparently they are set correctly :D (very few false positives or negatives)
Yeah.. my problem was that Blue Iris always record late. Always a few seconds late. Most of the time, it started when the object was already in the middle of the room. But when the room is small, I only saw the door closing, but couldn't see where he entered the room from.
At first, I thought it was because some lag to my processor, or 9400GT, or my iSCSI drive. So I've put NVMe in it to work around the SAN cluster. It was getting better with NVMe, but stil didn't solve the lag problem entirely.
I tried to add 10s buffer. But that didn't solve the problem either.

So I think the processor had some problem detecting motion while decoding the frame, that was when I opened the thread here, because I didn't want to purchase the wrong upgrades.
It turned out, the problem was the edge vector algorithm. Switched to simple, and voila.. All solved. Well. between that or the new RAID magnetic drive. Since I added both factor at the same time.
I am trying to return back to my original setup (SAN cluster iSCSI drive and 9400GT) by removing my drive, and see if I experience another trouble. I don't like unprotected hard drive. SAN cluster feels safer for me.

I also am trying to play around with other settings to get better results.
Last edited by prd0000 on Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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