CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

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Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by Abula » Sat Jul 19, 2014 4:17 pm

I just moved to a new house and while I like it more it also has a lot more robberies and assaults, so decided to install some IP cameras and my initial plan was to use a Synology NAS to manage the cameras and storage of the recording, and while its pretty good in terms of software, support and ease of use, the low end CPUs the Synology have make it extremely hard to manage a multi MP setup, so i had the option either to drop the FPS and resolution to the ground or built a real server that could manage the high resolution cameras.

So the journey began, i research a lot into having similar functionality to synology but with more power to support it, at some point i almost built a Xpenolgy, but found out Blue Iris and its really good, the more I use it the more like it, so much tweaking and support, really awesome, well worth its $50 and the $10 IOS/Andriod APs. There is a downside, it requires a lot of CPU if you want to use to what it can do, i initially started with Pentium G3220 and it ran fine with 7x 1080p cameras, but i had to drop the FPS to 6. Having devils canon releasing, decided to move the current 4770K to the server and bought a 4970K for my main setup, and all ended working really well. I had almost all things from previous builds very little was invested on the build.

Parts Used on the server,
CPU = Intel Core i7-4770K (Moved from GamiMi)
CPU Cooler = NoFan CR-95C Black Pearl Fanless CPU Cooler (tried to used it on my minimi but didn't fit with a bottom chip)
Memory = G.Skill Sniper Series 8 GB Dual Channel Memory Module (F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2) (had the memory from the TJ08-E buld)
Memory heatsinks = 2x Enzotech Pure Forged Copper Memory Heatspreaders (had to buy them as the snippers were too tall to fit below the Nofan95)
Motherboard = MSI H81I (this was meant for the minimi, but consumed slightly more so was not used till now).
FANs = Noctua NF-A14 PWM + Noctua NF-S12A PWM + Noctua NF-A9x14 PWM (all but the A9 were already on minimi)
PWM fan splitter = Circotech PWM Fan Splitter
CASE = LIAN LI PC-Q08B (was the minimi case but upgrade to Q11)
PSU = picoPSU-150-XT + 150W Adapter Power Kit (was the orignal psu of the minimi but was upgrade to 90XLP)
SSD = Intel X25m 120GB (came from an older laptop)
HDD = WD 4TB Purple WD40PURX
Suspension = NoiseMagic NoVibes III Silent Hard Drive Mounting System (needed to mount the hdd on 5.25)
OS = Windows 7 home premium + Blue Iris

Upon building, i tried with 3tb red that i had on my synology, but the design of the lian li placing the hdd on top gets almost no cooling, was going into 45C so decided to do some light modding to help the lack of direct air placing the hdd on 5.25 slot, nothing mayor just open a 92mm hole and the holes for the screws.

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Here some pics of the build,

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The fans are controlled by MSI Bios, they idle at 12.5% around 200rpms and core temps are usually at 30C. Prime95 does punish it though, reaching above 80C on some cores, but still is stable at 3.7ghz on all cores.

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Power consumption was decent, although this H81i was not as good as Intel motherboards, but had other strengths... like already owning it. I leave you the power consumption of the wall using a Killowatt P3 under different scenarios,

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If you have any questions let me know,
Last edited by Abula on Sun Dec 20, 2015 10:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

CA_Steve
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Jul 20, 2014 3:37 pm

I just moved to a new house and while I like it more it also has a lot more robberies and assaults
I would have thought the house is more of an extortion racket and not straight up robbery and assault..."fix the plumbing or the floor's gonna get it".

Couldn't resist. :D

Pretty set up. Didn't realize it takes that much processing power to run a handful of 1080p sources. Yow.

quest_for_silence
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Jul 21, 2014 12:50 pm

Abula wrote:If you have any questions let me know,

Isn't that system extremely overkill? In case, which could the minimum requirements be, according to your experience?

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by Abula » Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:24 pm

CA_Steve wrote:Pretty set up. Didn't realize it takes that much processing power to run a handful of 1080p sources. Yow.
Thanks.
quest_for_silence wrote:
Abula wrote:If you have any questions let me know,

Isn't that system extremely overkill? In case, which could the minimum requirements be, according to your experience?
Im by no means the most qualified guy to answer this, im berely started on Blue iris and surveillance. But i can tell you that in here it all depends into what you want, you can cripple the recordings a lot in order to not need high end cpu, for example dropping the frames to 6fps, having the direct to disk option enable also drops a ton of cpu cycles, on the normal basis blue iris encodes before saving on disk into a proprietary format that allows the program to record and play at the same time, this you lose on direct to disk. Resolution, im handling 7x 1080p streams, both analyzing and recording, all my cameras are on motion detect, if you with lower res cameras or streams (cameras have different config options), let say drop them to 640x480 you will also save a good amount of cpu cycles

I can tell you that i moved the same setup as the above just with the G3220, usually it was around 50% on blue iris with spikes around 70%, all settings remained the same except 1, the FPS i needed to drop them to 6, while with the i7 i can sustain 15fps easily. Most of the people that run Blue iris recommend to invest as much as you can on the CPU, as it can take advantage of hyperthreading, and will allow you test all settings you prefer and decide what you find worth.

I honestly think you can use any cpu you want, probably even atoms, as long as you tear down the quality, fps and buffers, its all about what you want to achieve. Do you need i7 for this hell no, but do you need it to achieve multiple high res streams and recording with high fps and quality, i would say so. But you can get away with i5 or an i3 but you will have to take some losses, depending on the amount of cameras you plan..

As i said before, im not that qualified as i just started on this, if you wish to read more or enter the world of surveillance with blue iris, check the following forums, CAMIT and IPCAMTALK, you can see thread there commonly about CPU requirements,

CA_Steve
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Jul 21, 2014 3:46 pm

Seems like that s/w is RIPE for Quick Sync acceleration.

piglover
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by piglover » Thu Jul 24, 2014 2:18 pm

I can confirm that BI is CPU-heavy. But in reality, it is THREAD heavy and doesn't require much actual processing from each thread. An i7 is a good idea so that you get 8 threads (4 cores + 4 HT). But it doesn't really need to be a 4770K. That part really is overkill.

BI is a perfect candidate for the new C2750 Atoms running 8 real cores at 2.4Ghz at low power (<25w). Of course, price wise the C2750s are no real bargain. You just get much better power levels / lower heat levels - you can run them fanless/silent with a heatsink the size of a cigarette pack instead of one the size of a baby's head.

Its still a cool build. Well done.

MikeC
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by MikeC » Thu Jul 24, 2014 2:57 pm

V. interesting post, Abula. Good to learn about Blue Iris, video surveillance is something I've been considering for my house -- not that the need is high but we sometimes go on 2-3 week hols when hardly anyone is around, so deterrence with real eyes could be useful.

Rebellious
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by Rebellious » Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:02 pm

This is for when you're away from home? Can you descibe some scenarios?

Love the PSU filler plate. Did you make it yourself?

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by Abula » Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:51 pm

Rebellious wrote:Love the PSU filler plate. Did you make it yourself?
Sorry not that skilled =(, you can buy them, Lian Li Vented Power Supply Bracket Cover - Silver.
Rebellious wrote:This is for when you're away from home? Can you descibe some scenarios?
Well on my job, I travel a lot, usually im not home 5 days a week, so with the BI server and mobil apps, i can get warnings on events, recordings if i wish to go through them, etc. But im still learning the software tweaking the cameras and settings so they don't trigger as often or alert as much. But i just did some cameras for my brother, but he uses two no server but record on sd cards and transmit directly to the web, one of them more like for a baby monitor. The applications can be whatever you want, im probably going to do some more on a warehouse my family owns to monitor it remotely, so its up to you.

Rebellious
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by Rebellious » Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:38 pm

Abula wrote:
Rebellious wrote:Love the PSU filler plate. Did you make it yourself?
Sorry not that skilled =(, you can buy them, Lian Li Vented Power Supply Bracket Cover - Silver.
Rebellious wrote:This is for when you're away from home? Can you descibe some scenarios?
Well on my job, I travel a lot, usually im not home 5 days a week, so with the BI server and mobil apps, i can get warnings on events, recordings if i wish to go through them, etc. But im still learning the software tweaking the cameras and settings so they don't trigger as often or alert as much. But i just did some cameras for my brother, but he uses two no server but record on sd cards and transmit directly to the web, one of them more like for a baby monitor. The applications can be whatever you want, im probably going to do some more on a warehouse my family owns to monitor it remotely, so its up to you.
Thank you. The best thing would be a live warning from motion detection. But what do you do then? Login with your tablet and watch the burglar?

piglover
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by piglover » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:51 am

Rebellious wrote:...Thank you. The best thing would be a live warning from motion detection. But what do you do then? Login with your tablet and watch the burglar?
Blue Iris has both an Android and IOS app associated with it. Either one is capable of providing (near) instant alert on motion detect.

In practice its not as useful as it sounds. Unless your camera is in a place where no motion is ever expected then perhaps it might be interesting, but in practice most cameras are subject to some amount of falseing or uninteresting triggers. For example, the camera monitoring my front door triggers on the shadow my my trees on windy days...and there is no good way to prevent this that doesn't make the "hot" area for motion triggers too small to be useful. And nothing will get you to turn off live alerts faster than the day you get dozens of them for no good reason.

Rebellious
Posts: 322
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Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by Rebellious » Thu Jul 31, 2014 3:00 pm

piglover wrote:
Rebellious wrote:...Thank you. The best thing would be a live warning from motion detection. But what do you do then? Login with your tablet and watch the burglar?
Blue Iris has both an Android and IOS app associated with it. Either one is capable of providing (near) instant alert on motion detect.

In practice its not as useful as it sounds. Unless your camera is in a place where no motion is ever expected then perhaps it might be interesting, but in practice most cameras are subject to some amount of falseing or uninteresting triggers. For example, the camera monitoring my front door triggers on the shadow my my trees on windy days...and there is no good way to prevent this that doesn't make the "hot" area for motion triggers too small to be useful. And nothing will get you to turn off live alerts faster than the day you get dozens of them for no good reason.
Every year I spend several months in EU, I have neighbors check on my house, mail, etc. Nexus 7 has a high-res screen, panning the camera can give you a sense of reassurance, but spying on neighbors, girlfriends (or employees) seems repugnant to me. I think the most useful thing is a temp sensor plot. It will tell you if the heat pump is down, or a possible break-in since break-ins are almost always associated with broken windows (which will put kinks in an otherwise flat temp).

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: CamMi, dedicated Blue Iris Camera Server

Post by Abula » Sun Dec 20, 2015 11:42 am

Small update on the server, for a year or so i have been having very good experience with BI3, and wanted to move to BI4 but wanted Win10 to be more stable, and also 4tb wasnt enough for 2 months recordings with two cameras on continuous, so i also ordered a a 6TB, i also decided this would do other things for the home so i added a 2.5 hdd for serving multiple mobile devices. All plans never happen how we want, one of the worst things on windows 10 is the inability to update when i want, sometimes i go on working trips of a month, and really don't want to come back to an empty server that didn't had the BI running, i know it can be done like service or a task, but things that i really didn't want to do when windows 7 pro did all things i wanted fine, i have control on the updates and reboots. So here what i upgraded and a couple of photos of the finish buid with BI4,

WD Purple 6TB Surveillance Hard Disk Drive - Intellipower SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD60PURX
Silverstone Tek Super Flexible 4-in-1 SATA Power Adapter Cable with Power Stabilizing Capacitors (CP06-E4)
HGST Travelstar 5K1500 1.5TB 2.5-Inch Mobile 5400 RPM 9.5mm Internal Bare Hard Disk Drive 0J28001
NoiseMagic NoVibes 2.5 Silent Hard Drive Mounting System

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