Blue Iris

Hi there,

This is my first posting here and I want to introduce myself a bit before I start.
I'm Matthias, a German in New Zealand. I have been using Blue Iris since about 2017. So it's not entirely new to me, but there is definitely room for improvement.

Back then, I had a camera setup of 4 cams (3x2MP, 1x8MP) connected to a HP Microserver. The whole thing was working reasonably well.
Two years ago I moved house. I have been busy with lots of other stuff and the cams where sitting in my basement doing nothing. Recently my garage got burgled, my truck broken into and a bunch of expensive stuff went missing.
So I decided to reactivate my cams. Sometimes a friendly reminder is all what's needed.

A lot has changed since 2017 in terms of cameras. So I would appreciate getting some opinions regarding my planned setup.

Since the new place is quite different from my previous home, I will need some more cameras.
My plan foresees a total of 10 (maybe 12) cams throughout the property. There will be an Intel I7-9700 as a server with Windows 10 (maybe Windows Server 2019 - not too sure yet) and BI5 installed.
At the moment I have put my old setup in place as a temporary solution. But it's time to retire the 2MP cams and the Microserver (Xeon E3-1270 V2, 8GB) as well. The poor thing won't be up to the task with the number of Megapixel I intend to throw at it.
Initially I was thinking about using 8MP cameras but have meanwhile decided for 6MP for two reasons:
#1 10-12 8MP cameras would potentially push even an I7-9700 to it's limits or beyond.
#2 With one exception, the distance camera to target is quite short (less than 10m)
So I believe, 6MP should be just fine.

Actually I intended to use 6MP Hikvision POE cameras (DS-2CD2063G0-I).
But then I came across the Dahua IPC-HFW4631F-ZSA: 6MP, varifocal 2.7-13.5mm and even cheaper (too good to be true???) than the monofocal Hikvision.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32852723140.html (I hope, posting a link is okay here?)
The caveat is, this seems to be a chinese market version which only got a multilanguage update. Future updates are not recommended, since the cam firmware will revert back to Chinese. I'm a bit torn as I do like the specs and the price but not this "don't update it" thing. My Chinese is simply not good enough for that.

Any suggestions on this and my plan as a whole are most welcome.

Thanks and greetings from NZ (it's bloody cold here at the moment)
Matt

Welcome, so many infos and no response. Here are my suggestions:

12x 8MP cams will work fine if you go the BI substream route but 8MP cams needs lots of light (IR or white) and lots of storage space, I run mine at 5MP, better go 4MP cams with 1/1.8" sensor (Dahua 5442 / Hik DS-2CD2347G2-LU), best price performance (low light picture quality) ratio so far. Hik and Dahua introduced some 8MP 1/1.2" sensor cams recently, that can compete with 4MP 1/1.8" cams but they're for white light only, bullet housing only and have a depth of focus >4.5m.
I'm using win10, i7-10900 and 2x 14 TB Ultrastar DC HC530 as a Raid0 ("stored" folder, 14 days), 1x Micron 5100 PRO 1.92TB (8.8 PB TBW, "new" folder, 1 day), PrimoCache, continuous recording for 7x 2MP, 7x 4MP, 6x 5MP cams/streams, deepstack is running for two cams - doing fine at 6-10% CPU while watching via UI3 but CPU goes up to 60-90% while deepstack is analyzing. In case you're into security surveillance (I'm into wild life watching), this setup would need a serious backup option.

DS-2CD2063G0-I is not good: 1/2.9" sensor = bad at low light = night
IPC-HFW4631F-ZSA is not good: 1/2.9" sensor = bad at low light = night

Chinese firmware is no problem, it gets less updates (non) than cams that come with international firmware. If you can live with BI motion detection (doing great), they're not bad (substream and WDR are working fine, IVS has problems), modern web browsers translate everything.
If you like it cheap, bullet and chinese (hacked english firmware installed) go: IPC-HFW4433F-ZSA: 4MP @1/2.7" + has strong IR lights - good cam but 1/1.8" sensor models are better: e.g. IPC-HDW5442T-ZE (motorized lens) or IPC-HDW5442TM-ASE (fixed lens)

Yeah sorry your post went so long without a reply.

I pretty much agree, I do get an itch when my firmware hasn't been updated in a long time BUT I've also been told directly by my camera vendors that they didn't recommend an update 'just to update', so only if theres an issue. My cameras have all been rock solid stable so I do get it from that standpoint.

I will completely agree that using substreams is the way to go to save your CPU cycles but still get the results you need - if you're not already using it.

I think the trade-off between low light vision vs a bit more MPs during the day is worth considering. My cameras are 5MP (though I run them around 3.5MP for the aspect ratio) and I'm pretty happy with the night vision they have. To that end, all of mine are Dahua based generic builds which I'm very happy with and have become familiar with. While I haven't owned any Hikvision based cameras, the screenshots I've seen of the interface and options, I'm happy where I am. I know thats all down to preference though.