Hardware for 32 Cameras

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kevin7295
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Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by kevin7295 »

I'm looking to build a budget PC/NVR to run Blue Iris (For my home and family business). The maximum amount of cameras in use would be 32x 4mp cameras.

I am looking to run an AMD build for this (Please don't push Intel into this thread. I am aware of Quick-Sync, and I would like to run this setup without it - hence, AMD). Budget is about $750 CAD.
I was wondering if a AMD Ryzen 5 3400G (4 Core, 8 Threads) would be a sufficient CPU to run this setup, and what % utilization I would be expecting from the CPU.
I would be running 16GB of RAM and be using the integrated Radeon Vega 11 on the CPU (or rather, APU).

I don't have any experience using Blue Iris however from the current threads I have looked up, it seems as though the CPU utility is quite heavy for this task.

Is there anyone here running AMD with a similar setup?
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TimG
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by TimG »

Difficult one that. I would have a look on the www to guestimate the total MP/s for all of the cameras, and have a look here to see if anybody else is using a similar cpu https://biupdatehelper.hopto.org/default.html#stats

There are many ways to reduce cpu load, but you do need to know if it has any chance of coping before you start tweaking.
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Matts1984
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by Matts1984 »

Just use an Intel i7 or i9 /s sorry, I had to

Confirming that CPU is going to be your heavily used resource (well and disk space with having 32 cameras). TimG's suggestion of using an online estimator is probably your best bet for predicting something like this. You'll definitely need to look to implement all possible CPU optimizations in BI (substreams, direct to disk, reasonable frame rates, etc)
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
HeneryH
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by HeneryH »

kevin7295 wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 7:51 pm ...
I don't have any experience using Blue Iris however from the current threads I have looked up, it seems as though the CPU utility is quite heavy for this task.
I'm not pushing one or the other, just explaining the facts. Yes, CPU usage is heavy because the system has to decode all of that video information from the compressed stream before it can even begin to do its image recognition.

If you have an appropriate GPU then the system can offload much of that compute churning from the CPU to the GPU.

There are two supported GPUs: Intel built in QuickSync and (I think Nvidia) but it has been shown that the QS is far superior.

Just the facts, do with it what you please.

Maybe you can limit their frame rates to make life a little easier.
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TimG
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by TimG »

I don't have any experience using Blue Iris however from the current threads I have looked up, it seems as though the CPU utility is quite heavy for this task.
As I have mentioned before, when I was first researching Blue iris, I found many internet articles asking why BI was so cpu hungry compared to other cctv software. I now believe that the answer was because the other software solutions were already using the substreams for motion detection etc. My present intel cpu loading has halved since I sorted substreams out with BI5. The threads you mention above may well be before people got substreams working - many people here still don't use them. Yet :lol:
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terk
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by terk »

TimG wrote: Tue Oct 20, 2020 4:26 pm
I don't have any experience using Blue Iris however from the current threads I have looked up, it seems as though the CPU utility is quite heavy for this task.
As I have mentioned before, when I was first researching Blue iris, I found many internet articles asking why BI was so cpu hungry compared to other cctv software. I now believe that the answer was because the other software solutions were already using the substreams for motion detection etc. My present intel cpu loading has halved since I sorted substreams out with BI5. The threads you mention above may well be before people got substreams working - many people here still don't use them. Yet :lol:
Is there a good walkthrough on setting up sub streams properly so they only affect motion detection and not recordings or live views, and does that affect AI tools reliability of detecting the images correctly?

Thanks.
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TimG
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by TimG »

Is there a good walkthrough on setting up sub streams properly so they only affect motion detection and not recordings or live views, and does that affect AI tools reliability of detecting the images correctly?
My BI5 system is presently working very well with substreams from cameras from three different IPcam manufacturers, but I record 24/7 anyway, so the alerts just help me quickly find out what was moving. I didn't find any particularly good walkthroughs, and you will have seen my Foscam issue thread before I banged my head on it hard enough to make it give up its secrets :lol:

As for AI tools, what we need here is a volunteer who uses it to do some tests. I won't be adding AI until I move BI5 back to a more powerful pc - and that's not likely at the moment due to health issues.
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mikecam
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by mikecam »

Dont go with AMD. I am a AMD fan boy but not for this.
The Intel IGPU in anything higher than a i5-8500 will do h264 and h265 hardware on the CPU. I would go with the highest class intel cpu you can buy. EG 8000/9000/10000 series. Each having a better IGPU than the older version. Anything older than the 8000 eg the 8500 won't do h265 but will h264.
The IGPU eg the intel HD graphics is very very fast for video streams. Unless you going to buy a 2080 or 3080 you will be wasting your time/money trying to go AMD and buying an Nvidia card. I have tried. Your far better off going Intel, Using the Intel IGPU on-chip and not trying to worry about nvidia support. 32 cameras will be totally fine for an intel 10 series CPU.
I had a 1080ti and an intel i7-9700k on my home cameras and found the i5 did a better job onboard without the Nvidia card.
Go with 32GB of mem or more. Tho if it was a choice of 64GB memory or more HDDS your better off with more HDDS.
HeneryH
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by HeneryH »

mikecam wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:26 am Go with 32GB of mem or more.
I don't think this is necessary at all. Memory (16gb) was never a problem for me. Others can opine but I wanted to call this out for debate/discussion.



edit - Ehhh, maybe for high camera counts it could be. I never ran that many.
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Thixotropic
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Re: Hardware for 32 Cameras

Post by Thixotropic »

HeneryH wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 2:10 pmI don't think this is necessary at all. Memory (16gb) was never a problem for me. Others can opine but I wanted to call this out for debate/discussion
I tend to agree- 8GB is okay, 16GB is usually more than enough RAM. I have 16GB with 9 cams running and RAM usage almost never goes above 3GB.

I think the money would be better spent on getting the beefiest CPU you can afford. You can never have too much processing power. :)

If it turns out that 8 or 16GB isn't enough RAM, you can always add more without spending a lot.
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