Optimizing Blue Iris

Blue Iris enables you to create a private, powerful, and economical video surveillance server – capturing video, alerting on motion/sound, and more from your IP and web cameras.  But without the right configuration, your Blue Iris server can slow to a crawl.  This article will give you some tips on how to optimize Blue Iris for high quality recording, server responsiveness, reliability, and overall usability.

Blue Iris | Options

Web Server | Advanced | Configure

  • Quality = 100
    • Delivers crisper video
  • Check “Limit bitrate”
    • Max bitrate = 1024
      • Delivers smoother video
  • Preset = Very Fast
    • Delivers clearer video

 Startup

  • Check “Run as a Windows service”
    • Helps keep the app up and running

Other

  • Scaling = Fast

Cameras

  • Intel HD hardware acceleration = Yes (H.264)
  •  Limit live preview rate = 1fps
    • 2nd most important setting – This setting  causes every camera displayed in the console to stream updated frames at the rate specified.  Higher rates will cause significant CPU utilization.  Only configure higher if you must leave the console window open and see events in real-time (like a security guard constantly reviewing live security feeds).

Blue Iris | Camera Properties (per camera)

Record

  • Check “Pre-trigger video buffer” = 5.0 sec
    • Ensures action that cause motion detection alerts are recorded

Record | Video file format and compression…

  • File (container) format
    • Check “Blue Iris DVR”
      • This is the only setting that allows you to view currently recording clips in the Blue Iris console and mobile app. 
    • Click “Configure”
      • Quality = 100
        • Delivers crisper video
      • Check “Limit bitrate”
      • Max bitrate = 1024
        • Delivers smoother video
      • Preset = Very Fast
        • Delivers clearer video
  • Video compression = direct-to-disc
    • Most important setting – This avoids re-encoding which avoids high CPU utilization.  
Video

  • Uncheck “Enable overlays”
    • 3rd most important setting – Checking will cause Blue Iris to re-encode video feeds with overlay text (increasing overall CPU utilization).  Uncheck this option and set your camera native settings to overlay date, time, and name as desired.
  • H.264/5 HW decode= Default
  • Check “Also BVR”
Security
Security