Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?
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@Pete-S said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Pete-S said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
That said, I don't understand why Blue Iris has to decode the h264 streams.
I'd like to get back to my earlier question. I think something is wrong with the Blue Iris setup.
Why does Blue Iris need to decode the H264 stream? Axis cameras already encode H264 and you save that to disk. The setting is called Direct-to-disc in Blue Iris.
According to B.I. website you won't get image overlay with camera name and time but who cares about that when the ip cam does that already by itself.
It's just not efficient to have the camera do h264, decode that with B.I into raw video and then have B.I reencode that into h264 again.
So CPU usage isn’t bad when no one is viewing via the Web GUI. On my test VM (gave it 2 cores) two cams with direct to disk recording were using about 50% of one core on an i3 Ivy Bridge (2C/4T). I was simply going to head to eBay and pickup an i7 4c/8t Ivy Bridge, drop it in, and off I go. But viewing the cams kills the CPU without Quick Sync being used. I opened two Web GUI streams of Blue Iris on two different computer and all of a sudden both cores of the VM were pegged at 100% and it became unresponsive. It’s the viewing the cams using the Blue Iris web GUI that kills it. The recording isn’t too bad.
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@Dashrender said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Pete-S said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Dashrender said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Pete-S said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Pete-S said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
That said, I don't understand why Blue Iris has to decode the h264 streams.
I'd like to get back to my earlier question. I think something is wrong with the Blue Iris setup.
Why does Blue Iris need to decode the H264 stream? Axis cameras already encode H264 and you save that to disk. The setting is called Direct-to-disc in Blue Iris.
According to B.I. website you won't get image overlay with camera name and time but who cares about that when the ip cam does that already by itself.
Maybe you can’t view it in real-time with out the decoding?
All browsers can show h264 streams directly.
This brings another question.... the OPsaid BI require direct hardware access and sync something ( on my phone, hard to lookup when posting) , if that’s true and running that inside a VM kills the CPU, why would decoding in a browser not also kill the CPU in that same VM?
Because all low powered clients decode h264 in hardware and decoding is cheap. However B.I. both decodes and reencodes which is much more expensive in CPU power.
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@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Pete-S said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Pete-S said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
That said, I don't understand why Blue Iris has to decode the h264 streams.
I'd like to get back to my earlier question. I think something is wrong with the Blue Iris setup.
Why does Blue Iris need to decode the H264 stream? Axis cameras already encode H264 and you save that to disk. The setting is called Direct-to-disc in Blue Iris.
According to B.I. website you won't get image overlay with camera name and time but who cares about that when the ip cam does that already by itself.
It's just not efficient to have the camera do h264, decode that with B.I into raw video and then have B.I reencode that into h264 again.
So CPU usage isn’t bad when no one is viewing via the Web GUI. On my test VM (gave it 2 cores) two cams with direct to disk recording were using about 50% of one core on an i3 Ivy Bridge (2C/4T). I was simply going to head to eBay and pickup an i7 4c/8t Ivy Bridge, drop it in, and off I go. But viewing the cams kills the CPU without Quick Sync being used. I opened two Web GUI streams of Blue Iris on two different computer and all of a sudden both cores of the VM were pegged at 100% and it became unresponsive. It’s the viewing the cams using the Blue Iris web GUI that kills it. The recording isn’t too bad.
That's interesting. Then it has to be what @Dashrender suggested - a reencoding of the h264 stream for viewing.
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Yeah I see that now with his last post... it’s when he has to re encode for client viewing that kills his system...
So that sync thing is supposed to use hardware encoding.... is anyone sure that any hypervisor passes those calls along? Sounds like XS doesn’t.
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@Dashrender said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
Yeah I see that now with his last post... it’s when he has to re encode for client viewing that kills his system...
So that sync thing is supposed to use hardware encoding.... is anyone sure that any hypervisor passes those calls along? Sounds like XS doesn’t.
I think the quick sync question has been up here before. Now that I think about it, I think it's a CPU feature so it cannot be passed through hence no hypervisors can do it.
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It's probably so that B.I reencodes for mobile clients and other low bandwidth users.
If you are running on the LAN you should be able to take the streams as they are.
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@Pete-S said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Dashrender said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
Yeah I see that now with his last post... it’s when he has to re encode for client viewing that kills his system...
So that sync thing is supposed to use hardware encoding.... is anyone sure that any hypervisor passes those calls along? Sounds like XS doesn’t.
I think the quick sync question has been up here before. Now that I think about it, I think it's a CPU feature so it cannot be passed through hence no hypervisors can do it.
It was back in December 208. Here is the post
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@Pete-S I don't think it's possible to disable it. In the web gui you can control fps, quality, compression etc... If I turn quality to 100% and compression off it actually makes the CPU usage go up on the VM not down.
I've looked into passing QS through but it's a PITA. And you lose gui on the physical server (which doesn't matter anyway).
Blue Iris just isn't designed for VM usage. Its built to be used in single physical machine. Goes against everything I've read for best practices.
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@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@black3dynamite said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
I guess I can look at some other VMS options.
Here's a couple of open source options.
https://zoneminder.com/
https://kerberos.io/Zoneminder is pretty bad. It very antiquated. But I’ve never tried Kerbos. I’ll check it out. Thanks!
ZoneMinder is that bad. I tried hard to like it too.
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So I think I’m going to stick with Blue Iris but just build out a separate machine just for that. I’ve got plenty of parts lying around to white box it. It’s features and GUI are just too good and other competing surveillance software wants licensing PER CAM while Blue Iris is a flat fee.
Seems silly to have a physical host for one specific application in 2019 but unless I want to pony up $$$ for another type of software, I guess this is it.
I’ll run it on Win 10. Reading on the intertubes, that seems to be working for the populace. It’s a shame it’s not designed for a more “production ready” environment. Maybe I need to bitch and moan on their forums for an “updated” VM ready version.
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@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
So I think I’m going to stick with Blue Iris but just build out a separate machine just for that. I’ve got plenty of parts lying around to white box it. It’s features and GUI are just too good and other competing surveillance software wants licensing PER CAM while Blue Iris is a flat fee.
Seems silly to have a physical host for one specific application in 2019 but unless I want to pony up $$$ for another type of software, I guess this is it.
I’ll run it on Win 10. Reading on the intertubes, that seems to be working for the populace. It’s a shame it’s not designed for a more “production ready” environment. Maybe I need to bitch and moan on their forums for an “updated” VM ready version.
Running it on win10 does question- does cameras streaming TO Win10 violate licensing?
Scott and I agreed that unifi APs and the controller software on win10 does violate the license, requiring the use of windows server version.
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@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
Maybe I need to bitch and moan on their forums for an “updated” VM ready version.
Maybe it would be better to bitch at the hypervisor folks about supporting the sync feature.
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@Dashrender said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
So I think I’m going to stick with Blue Iris but just build out a separate machine just for that. I’ve got plenty of parts lying around to white box it. It’s features and GUI are just too good and other competing surveillance software wants licensing PER CAM while Blue Iris is a flat fee.
Seems silly to have a physical host for one specific application in 2019 but unless I want to pony up $$$ for another type of software, I guess this is it.
I’ll run it on Win 10. Reading on the intertubes, that seems to be working for the populace. It’s a shame it’s not designed for a more “production ready” environment. Maybe I need to bitch and moan on their forums for an “updated” VM ready version.
Running it on win10 does question- does cameras streaming TO Win10 violate licensing?
Scott and I agreed that unifi APs and the controller software on win10 does violate the license, requiring the use of windows server version.
I have no idea. Their recommendation is a Win 10 install. Not that it’s their problem if you invalidate a license. But I’d say that 99.999% of their user base has Blue Iris installed to Win 10.
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@biggen which very likely means that 99.99% of their user base is subject to fines from Microsoft.
Just because others are doing it, doesn't mean you're allowed too.
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@DustinB3403 said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@biggen which very likely means that 99.99% of their user base is subject to fines from Microsoft.
Just because others are doing it, doesn't mean you're allowed too.
I understand what you're saying, but I also think it’s probably a bit unrealistic to hire a lawyer to decode the Microsoft EULA to decide if I’m allowed to run Win 10 as a base for an IP cam installation.
Maybe that’s me being naive.
/shrugs
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@Dashrender said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
I’m guessing that cameras are like Unifi APs, they are the clients reaching out to the server software running in the closet. Therefore, I’m guessing that windows 10 would be legal to use.
Scott?
I don't have the details on the specific model.
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@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@DustinB3403 said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@biggen which very likely means that 99.99% of their user base is subject to fines from Microsoft.
Just because others are doing it, doesn't mean you're allowed too.
I understand what you're saying, but I also think it’s probably a bit unrealistic to hire a lawyer to decode the Microsoft EULA to decide if I’m allowed to run Win 10 as a base for an IP cam installation.
Maybe that’s me being naive.
/shrugs
No lawyer needed, the EULA is quite straightforward. Nothing would require a lawyer, and a lawyer would really be of no help as it is technical IT stuff that needs deciphered from the cameras. The EULA is plain English and clear as day. How the cameras work, that's 100% on your plate to figure out.
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@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@Dashrender said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
So I think I’m going to stick with Blue Iris but just build out a separate machine just for that. I’ve got plenty of parts lying around to white box it. It’s features and GUI are just too good and other competing surveillance software wants licensing PER CAM while Blue Iris is a flat fee.
Seems silly to have a physical host for one specific application in 2019 but unless I want to pony up $$$ for another type of software, I guess this is it.
I’ll run it on Win 10. Reading on the intertubes, that seems to be working for the populace. It’s a shame it’s not designed for a more “production ready” environment. Maybe I need to bitch and moan on their forums for an “updated” VM ready version.
Running it on win10 does question- does cameras streaming TO Win10 violate licensing?
Scott and I agreed that unifi APs and the controller software on win10 does violate the license, requiring the use of windows server version.
I have no idea. Their recommendation is a Win 10 install. Not that it’s their problem if you invalidate a license. But I’d say that 99.999% of their user base has Blue Iris installed to Win 10.
Yes, it is standard practice for nearly all companies to recommend pirating software, unfortunately, because they have zero liability and because "it works" and it makes their products look the best possible and all the risk goes to their customers. There are some pretty big products on the market that literally have no legal way to be run in the US, in fact.
But also keep in mind that they generally offer legal options, like using Windows Server, and that using Windows 10 is fully legal in loads of companies where EULAs are not a real thing.
So it's a normal business / IT expectations that any recommendations from a vendor will be meaningless, and have no no implications as to what is legal for you, or even what will work. They are literally just part of the sales process telling you whatever you want to hear to sell the product.
That said, I've not so far seen anything to say that it would violate the EULA, I've not completed reading the thread yet.
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@Dashrender said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
Running it on win10 does question- does cameras streaming TO Win10 violate licensing?
No, that is a client action and fully within the EULA.
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@biggen said in Do I need to run AD if I install Server 2019?:
Seems silly to have a physical host for one specific application in 2019 but unless I want to pony up $$$ for another type of software, I guess this is it.
Not as silly as having a product that only runs on Windows, though. So in relative terms, it's not silly at all.
