Reeolink Cameras Bringing BI to it's Knees :-(

[spammenotinoz]

Does anyone know if it would be worth my while to upgrade to BI5? Or are the Reolink cameras just trash. I saw Glenn's comment that he shelfed his....
JB

Worth upgrading, but won't reduce your CPU usage.
Honestly, in your case it's more that BI is targeted\optimised for Intel and\or Nvidia users, all the decoding and encoding will be using the CPU. (Same boat as most H.265 users)
If you are trying to use a decent frame rate and\or high resolutions, then the CPU just won't be up for the task.

We could blame BI, but I can't think of any alternatives with your hardware as most alternatives either use NVIDIA GPU or Intel CPU's with Quicksync.

Consider investing $200-$300 in a decent spec refurb i5 from eBay. 4gb RAM is heaps. Spinning disk is also fine, if it is 7200rpm or higher.
Getting a dedicated GPU for BI is overkill, unless you CAM's are H.265, as BI can't yet decode these with Intel Quicksyc, so need to use CPU or NVIDIA GPU if that is required.
PS: Last time I used a Reolink you could disable\turn off most of the discovery crap.

[carbonatom13]

I'm pretty new to BI and only have 2 Reolink cameras (1 Pro 1 and 1 4MP outdoor). They seem to be somewhat more taxing on my computer than anticipated given that I purchased a i7-6700 from recommendations on this forum.

I'm shopping around some of the other big name camera companies and waiting for a sale to test out some other cameras.

With just the 2 reolinks, my CPU usage is at like ~20% most of the time.

[HeneryH]

@carbonatom13, what FPS are you running your cameras at?

[spammenotinoz]

I'm pretty new to BI and only have 2 Reolink cameras (1 Pro 1 and 1 4MP outdoor). They seem to be somewhat more taxing on my computer than anticipated given that I purchased a i7-6700 from recommendations on this forum.

I'm shopping around some of the other big name camera companies and waiting for a sale to test out some other cameras.

With just the 2 reolinks, my CPU usage is at like ~20% most of the time.

Hi if you are running a frame rate of 25fps or higher, 20% would be quite normal.
No need to run this higher frame rate.

CPU usage is a misleading metric. Modern CPU's are designed to lower the clock speeds (save power) and run at higher utilisation.
Your CPU won't be running boost and will have tons of head-room. Opening task manager can spike to 100%, but your CPU won't be maxed out.
One of my builds also uses an i7-6700 with no hardware decode. CPU uses hardly any power, but when I remote view with maximum quality, sure the CPU gets a workout, but that is why I have it.

[Tomstk]

I currently am running 4 reolink RLC-410 5 MP cams out of 12 and have no problems at all. In fact it works as good as the rest I have on there. And I am running BI 4. Must be something wrong with your software or your system. For me I think reolink is one of the best ip cameras I've tried.

[TimG]

I'm pretty new to BI and only have 2 Reolink cameras (1 Pro 1 and 1 4MP outdoor). They seem to be somewhat more taxing on my computer than anticipated given that I purchased a i7-6700 from recommendations on this forum.

Hi carbonatom13,

Have you done the usual direct to disc/ drop the framerate yet ? and is it a licensed copy of BI ? Even my old AMD doesn't usually use more than 10% cpu for BI5, and there are three 1080 cameras on that, as well as Homeseer, and all the tv cards and multiple media servers.

[Silverridge]

I'm using BI5 and reolink e1 pro among others and it's working great.
I've got 5 cameras and BI5 running on a i3 nuc with 4gb ram (win7) and a cpu load around 15-20%

[avatar42]

Added data points. I upgraded one of my servers to handle more cams. Main changes are newer i7 CPU, more RAM, BI5 instead of BI4 and GTX1050 instead of GTX730 GPU.
I still have the BI4 box running in parallel because the BI5 box is having issues with just the 2 Reolinks. A RLC-511-5MP and a RLC-422W-5MP. The other 9 cams on that server are fine. So are the 2 Reolinks viewed from the old BI4 server.

What I'm seeing on the BI5 server:
After restarting the cam windows are black till I open the camera's settings and save.
Random video corruption and disconnects.
The corruption is in the recordings, not just the console display.
Changing the video settings often sorts it for awhile but sometimes I need to reboot the cam to get it working again.

Some of the things I've tried:
Both Generic ONVIF and Reolink video settings
Diff frame rates
Overlays on and off
Limited decoding on and off

The only thing that seems to make a diff is GPU settings. With Nvidia I see what is best described as multi colored vertical lines covering the lower third to half of the video. With Intel it pixelates instead of the lines. I'm testing now with no hardware acceleration and it appears OK.

Note I have 3 other BI4 servers that also have some Reolinks on them without issues as well. It is only the BI5 server where I seeing it. I was planning on upgrading the other 3 servers to BI5 but I can't till this is sorted.

[dws4wdr]

I'm new to this forum but like others I've been running BI for a long time. Also have setup 5 of my clients on BI.

I just setup a new BI5 On:

Dell Optiplex 3010
CPU: i5-
Ram 8gb
Cameras: 9 Reolink RLC410 5MP

The CPU stayed 100% until I tweaked down the cameras (Changed setting within the cameras).
1 - Dropped the frame rate to 15fps
2- Dropped resolution to 2304x1296
3: Then changed BI's camera setting to match.
4: Set Direct to Disk.

CPU stays 66% to 100% but doesn't lock up the machine while viewing or exporting.

I have another client with the same specs except they have 14 cameras. This one i'm going to upgrade the cpu to a i7-3770. I have figured out that BI doesn't need much ram. anything over 8GB has been a waste in all of my installs.