Old server vs newer PC

[GordonShumway]

I am trying to rid myself of all Winders systems in my house, including the one that runs Blue Iris, so I am looking at some of the hardware options I currently have in my house to run a ZM server.

Option 1: PC, i5-12600k CPU, 32G RAM, onboard video. Current BI PC, Windows 10 (BI stats say 7% cpu in use, 21% memory in use)
Option 2: PC, i7-10700 CPU, 24G RAM, onboard video. Current Test ZM computer (unix stats say load avg is 3-4, cpus 20-40% in use).
Option 3: Server, HP DL380 G6, 2 x Intel Xeon X5560 CPUS (4 cores, 8 threads ea), 24G RAM, onboard video. Powered off.

I have 16 cameras, most are Amcrest POE PTZ. For the sake of argument the camera resolutions for the main streams are all 2560x1440 and the subs are 640x480.

The ZM PC is running Ubuntu 22.04 desktop and the most current version of ZM, just installed this week (1.36?). After configuring 6 cameras I noticed the the load average is running between 2 and 4 for the past 24 hours. I see in "System Monitor" that the CPU's are bouncing between 20-40% each. I'm sure there are some parameters that I should be tweaking to reduce this but I haven't gotten there yet. Still reading a LOT of ZM docs... and stumbling through things.

I don't really know yet where ZM needs to be heavily fortified, whether it is RAM or CPU count. I also don't know if that old server's 64 threads is really a benefit or not given the age. What is your opinion of the hardware choices above for running ZM and 16 cameras? A CPU bump up to something more current would typically mean a new board, RAM, etc, but that is something I would consider. Or would I benefit from dropping a few hundred on a video card? Thanks for your time.

GS

[burger]

I would go with option 3 and linked monitors, or otherwise high res record / low res mocord. Don't try to run mocord or modect on the hi res streams, and you should be ok.

[GordonShumway]

Thanks very much for the reply. I had issues upgrading the server to Ubuntu 22.04 so I just blew it away did did a clean install.

I apologize for my noob questions but when you say "streams" do you mean the "Source Path" and "SourceSecondPath" in the Source config? For instance, for an Amcrest IP5M-1190W PTZ camera I have configured:

Source Path "rtsp://zoneminder:passwordhere@192.168.0.147:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1@subtype=0"
SourceSecondPath "rtsp://zoneminder:passwordhere@192.168.0.147:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1@subtype=1"
Target colorspace is 32bit
Capture Resolution is 2560x1920.

The General tab only allows me to specify Function (modect, monitor, record, etc.) in one spot. If you are suggesting that I record each stream differently then I'm kinda lost on where to specify that.

I know someone will say it so I'll admit now, I haven't read up on "linked" monitors yet. Shall I assume that this allows different recording attributes for different streams?

FWIW, with my Blueiris build I typically dedicated a monitor at my desk to watching my cameras. I would like to do that with ZM as well. And I would prefer to have a high resolution image of recorded/motion images and a hi-res image if I click on a particular camera to make it full screen. Is that doable? Thanks for your time.

GS

[burger]

Source Path "rtsp://zoneminder:passwordhere@192.168.0.147:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1@subtype=0"
SourceSecondPath "rtsp://zoneminder:passwordhere@192.168.0.147:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1@subtype=1"

I honestly don't know how this works. I think it's a relatively new feature. In prior ZM, you would have multiple monitors setup, one recording the hi res and one mocord/modect on the low res. This means, you put the camera in ZM twice. You can either choose to link them (linked monitors) or just keep them separate.

For your monitor setup, anything is possible, but you may have to code it yourself. By default ZM has the montage, and you can also do something like this:
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Dedicated_S ... ra_Monitor It's a choose your own adventure type thing. It can be as simple or as complex as you want. If you want to keep it simple, just do something like: https://zoneminder.blogspot.com/p/odroid.html which loads ZMNinja, or even easier, just load ZM montage in a web browser.

[GordonShumway]

Thanks again for the reply. I did create separate monitors for the same camera, one using the camera's "Main Stream" which is H.265 2560x1920 @20FPS and one monitor for the same camera's "Sub Stream" which is H.264 640x480 @20 FPS. I also found this post from dparring that helped me with the detection, resolution, and linking monitors. I had a timezone issue with the OS and php that I corrected and decided delete all my events and to reboot so I'll check on things in the morning. Although there are only 4 monitors across 2 cameras I did notice that the Load Average of the DL380G6 server is lower than the PC/desktop. I'll add more monitors and cameras tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I have a lot of googling and tweaking of settings ahead of me.

[GordonShumway]

Forgot link. viewtopic.php?t=27912

[GordonShumway]

I think I figured out the low-res hi-res and linked cameras. Basically I have 2 monitors for each camera, one Source is set to the camera video's main stream and nodect and the other is set to the camera's sub stream and modect. That is working and both monitors are capturing video when the modect monitor trips, but I'm wondering is there is a way to stop the low-res/sub stream monitor from recording at all and just doing motion detecting? I really only need the hi-res monitor (nodect) to record when it is tripped by the linked low-res modect monitor.

I also noticed something odd while in the Montage. For some reason I was unable to click back on my browser (or click the Console link). I actually have to close the browser window and reconnect to the webserver to get back to the Console page. There were no filters in Montage and all sizings were set to auto. Also while in Montage, I see both the hi and low res live video feeds for 2 of my cameras, but only the hi-res video feed for 2 others. There were 6 cameras and 12 monitors defined at the time and the "Load Average" on the server was about 5.2. I plan on adding another 10 cameras (20 monitors) before I am finished configuring so I'm sure that is only going to increase. Are there any other tunable options I can try?

[dougmccrary]

For the missing monitors, you probably want to do multi-port. https://wiki.zoneminder.com/Multi_Port
There are browser work-arounds, too.

[GordonShumway]

This project sat for a little bit but I will be back to it shortly. Since apparently I have more money than brains I contacted a Data Center hardware reseller that I know and he sold me a new server today.

DL380 Gen9 12-LFF Drive Bays (3.5”)
2 x E5-2643V3 Processors 12C 3.4Ghz Processors
192GB RAM
Dual Power Supply
2 x 1TB 7200 RPM Drives
10 x 3TB 7200 RPM Drives
Smart Array Controller
4-Port 1G Ethernet
2-Port 10G Base T Ethernet

For what it's worth, CPU Benchmark ranks this G9's E5-2643 V3 CPU's it at 21,016 vs the G6 X5560's at 3,124. That should alleviate any load issues no matter what I can throw at it. I'm going to scrap the DL380 G6, move ZM over to this box, and move a bunch of other stuff from (3) separate "desktop" computers and decom them as well. This should have enough power to keep me and Zoneminder busy for a while. Plus it will heat up my basement better than the PC's. The 30TB of disks will be a RAID-0 config that will basically be a backup of a Synology array.

A question though for anyone following this thread ... will installing a separate PCI-? video card in this G9 benefit ZM?

[dougmccrary]

If you use hardware acceleration, it should help, a little to a lot depending on how many cameras. Your 24 core processors should handle at least 24 cameras, I think. Surely 12 with dual res feeds.

[GordonShumway]

I should have the server in about a week and will look for the hardware acceleration setting. Based on links above I will set up my 16 cameras with main stream set as NODECT and sub stream to MODECT and link them (total 32 monitors).

One thing I am curious about is how do others "watch" their cameras? I work from home and have several monitors on my desk, 3 for work, 3 connected to my home PC so I have some ... flexibility. I enjoy snooping on my dogs in the yard and just watching the world go by (yeah, The Whole Ten Yards). I have a raspberry pi currently tuned to the http server for Blueiris but I am expecting that to go away once ZM is polished. Glancing at my cameras 8 hours a day using the ZM Montage doesn't seem that stable.

On my mobile I use Robert Chou's Android app IP Cam Viewer. What do you use on your desktops for casual watching?

[Magic919]

I use ZMNinja on various devices including Mac and Windows desktops.

[dougmccrary]

I think you’ll find montage works well once you get the new hardware and set up multiport. You might prefer zmNinja anyway…

[GordonShumway]

Thanks for the response. At first look multi-port made my head spin. I'll install ZMNinja on my Ubuntu desktop this weekend and point it at the ZM instance on the DL380G6 to see what it looks like. The DL380G9 should arrive in mid week. I'm waiting on a few resellers to get back with me on compatible GPU's for the G9 which *should* help ZM as well as the Jellyfin instance I plan to run on it.