Blue Iris

Good afternoon guys,

I'm really lost about what else I could try to the blue iris system. Since I added 3 new cameras to my system last year, Blue iris is constantly crashing pc as it's maxing out CPU usage. Previously I only used HIKVISION cameras and CPU usage did not go over 30% (7 cameras) but since we added 3 (Reolink RLC-520A) the system got constant crashes. because of that I decided to upgrade desktop (i5 4th gen, 4Gb of Ram W10pro(x64)(ssd),7Tb HDD).

Now I use following system (this system is only being used for Blueiris):
CPU: Intel core i7-6700 3.4GHz
Ram: 16GB
Windows 10 pro (x64)(ssd)
7TB hdd

Cameras used-
Reolink RLC-520A
Reolink RLC-520A
Reolink RLC-520A
Hikvision DS-2CD2385G1-I
Hikvision DS-2CD2385G1-I
Hikvision DS-2CD2385G1-I
Hikvision DS-2CD2385G1-I
Hikvision DS-2CD2385G1-I
Hikvision DS-2CD2385G1-I
Hikvision DS-2CD2385G1-I

Desktop still keeps crashing (every morning it's been completley frozen CPU usage goes over 100+%), I will need to add another camera and I'm just thinking what could be the issue.
I tried to do suggested here- https://ipcamtalk.com/wiki/optimizing-b ... cpu-usage/
I also tried doing what was suggested in following reddit post- https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueIris/comme ... _finally/
(but I cannot find sub stream options on Reolink cameras)

The CPU usually stays at 20-60% but at one point it just skyrockets and does not go down. After reboot all is ok until it does it again.

How would you guys approach this? Should I spend more money and get older hikvision cameras and replace hikvision ones?? Could anyone point me in correct direction or what settings to check? i'm giving up.

Will appreciate any help,
Bananaman.

You do need to sort sub-streams out as they make a massive difference to cpu load. If BI5 cannot find them or work with the known sub-stream info, then maybe you need to log into each camera and verify that sub-streams are actually ON.

This would also be a good time to check the basics:

1. Are the cameras set to H264 or H265 ? It needs to be the basic version, not + or "enhanced" in any way, as that makes it less compliant with H264/H265.
2. Are you recording BVR files direct to disk ?
3. Are the FPS set to 15 or less ? This isn't Hollywood.
4. Sub-stream FPS should match main stream FPS.

Once you get things going, you can try Intel gpu acceleration. It may reduce cpu load further, or in my experience with sub-streams it may do nothing. Experimentation is the key, and BI5 will let you adjust everything.

Not sure if this will help your issue, I remember something about Blue Iris and Reolink cameras while researching another issue. To give credit, this quote is from a Blue Iris AI video on the YouTube channel "The Hook Up".

If you have a camera made by Reolink you’ll want to set up your camera streams with a 1x interframe space, and more importantly, you’ll want to enable Fixed Frame Rate mode. If your Reolink camera doesn’t have these options it is likely not going to be fully compatible with Blue Iris, and you should check for a firmware update on the Reolink website.

Under Network, click Server settings and enable RTSP and ONVIF and take note of the ONVIF port, which should be 8000. In Blue Iris you’ll put in the IP address, username and password of your Reolink camera and change the ONVIF port to 8000, then hit Find/inspect and the rest of the fields should auto populate. The last thing you need to do with Reolink cameras is uncheck the box that says “Send RTSP keep-alives,” which can cause certain Reolink cameras to reconnect every 30 to 40 seconds.

Hope this helps you or maybe someone else using Reolink cameras with Blue Iris.

bananamancooldude wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2024 1:07 pm (but I cannot find sub stream options on Reolink cameras)

Log directly into your Reolink cameras webUI by the individual IP addresses using the user/pass assigned to the cameras.

Depending on the version of firmware, there should be a cog icon in the upper right corner of the main window that will open up the detailed settings configuration screen when clicked.

The column on the left provides access to the available settings.

Streams is mainly what you want, but just go down the list in order to familiarize yourself with what's there. The terminology will be somewhat different than the Hik interface as will the overall layout and detail of available options, but you can make what's there work just fine once you're acclimated to the system.

Streams are called 'Clear' for Main and 'Fluent' for Sub. They won't have the familiar flexibility of the Hik cameras, but the basics are still there.

The main thing to do up front is ensure h264 encoding is selected if both h264 and h265 options are available for the Clear stream. If h265 is all there is, it will still work. It may just need a bit of tweaking in the Blue Iris configuration to minimize any weird side-effects.

The 'Fluent' stream is the primary concern to get sorted out at this point. It will already be set up in a usable state. Choose the I-frame interval of 1X if that's how the options are designated. (It will be an h264 stream by default.) You should have something like what's below. Your sub stream.


To get the Sub stream activated in the Blue Iris camera config is very simple. Depending on how you added the cameras, the correct stream path may already be available in the Sub Stream list by simply hitting the drop down arrow to display some available options. Just add it to the stream path area to the right and there you go. You should have something resembling the example below.


Do this for all your 520s and see how it goes. And if you aren't using sub-streams for your Hiks, doing so will add an enormous amount of headroom to your CPU.

There are other tweaks as you seem to have discovered. Many will help. Some are now just urban legend from years ago.

Your system should easily handle everything you are asking it to do with a little patience and experimentation.

Check back after getting the Reolink sub streams going. There are several more things that could be done to ensure you're getting the most out of your setup.