IcamSource 2.6

[nigels0]

Hi,

Icamsource is constantly using over 50% of my computer's resources - surely this cannot be right? Any thoughts on how to fix this?

[OUAnthony]

How many cameras do you have set up in icamsource? USB cameras or IP cameras? How old is your computer? 50% is possible if you're using multiple USB cameras on an older computer. My 5 year old computer monitors 4 IP cameras (set to 5fps each, which helps), and it uses 20-30% on average. Also, on my system, I've noticed that when I really task the computer (many programs open, RAM completely used up, etc), icamsource will drop all but one camera...and the memory/processor usage gets very high. Have you tried restarting icamsource and/or rebooting the computer? If none of that works, you could try uninstalling icamsource, clearing the registry (if you're on Windows), and reinstalling icamsource to see if that makes a difference. You can also try disabling the sound from any/all of the cameras (if you have that enabled) to see if it makes a difference. It could be a weird audio or video codec causing issues, I guess...if you have sound enabled and are using USB cameras.

[nigels0]

I'm using 9 IP cameras on a Mac Pro with 8 cores and 11GB of main memory - it never used to take this much... I doubt that is the problem.

[OUAnthony]

Have you made any changes to the motion sensitivity or quality settings in icamsource? Have you increased the resolution or frame rate of the IP cameras? Have you added audio sources? What was the previous "normal" range? Hopefully SKJM will jump in, because I'm clueless on Macs. If the problem persists (for no reason), maybe they can create a logging version of icamsource to help identify the problem or point you in the right direction.

[Stefan]

Are the 9 IP cameras being connected to with MJPEG URLs in the iCamSource? If so, what are the frame rates of the cameras configured to? It sounds like the cameras' frame rates would need to be reduced (to somewhere between 2 and 5 fps) to reduce the overall CPU usage.

[nigels0]

The cameras are all connected with MJPEG URLs. I don't know how to get the absolute fps number per camera on the app, but the slider is 90% toward the 'better picture quality' mark - and the cameras I've set are all around 12fps (about half of them).

Bringing the frame rate down does nothing to the %CPU - using about 35 threads too.

[Stefan]

The % CPU usage will be primarily affected by the fps setting in each IP camera's individual settings, not the Better Picture Quality / Better Frame Rate slider on the iCamSource. The slider changes the compression setting (to favor either smaller-sized or better-quality images) of the images sent to iCam by the iCamSource.

To change the fps setting of the IP cameras you will need to connect directly to each one with your web browser to configure it.

The primary issue is this: When an IP camera is connected to via the iCamSource with an MJPEG URL, the iCamSource is forced to receive however many frames per second that the camera sends out. If the frame rate is 30 fps (usually the default), that's 30 images that the iCamSource receives from each camera every second. With multiple cameras, the amount of data can add up quickly. Dropping the frame rate to around 2-5 fps will greatly improve the % CPU usage of the iCamSource, as well as the local bandwidth consumption of your WiFi network.

[35remington]

...and completely negate the purpose of buying a 30fps camera.

Geez I wish there was a better solution on the market. Are you updating or improving iCam Source any time soon?

[Stefan]

Processing power and bandwidth are the limiting factors here. If I open a single 15 fps 640x480 MJPEG video stream in Firefox on my 2 GHz Intel Core i7 Macbook Air it uses 40% of the CPU. (Our Foscam maxes out at 15 fps at 640x480. It can do 30 fps but you have to drop down to 320x240.) MJPEG has very poor compression when compared to a more modern video codec like h.264, so you have to process a lot of data in real-time to get higher frame rates.

You can get higher frame rates with less data by using a more modern video codec like h.264, but since the iCamSource still needs to monitor the video stream for motion, it would take more CPU power to decompress the compressed video stream to check each individual frame for motion.

The ideal solution would be for us to put the iCamSource software directly onto an h.264 camera that performs the video compression and motion detection in hardware, but to do that we would need to do something like partner with an IP camera hardware manufacturer.

...and completely negate the purpose of buying a 30fps camera.

Geez I wish there was a better solution on the market. Are you updating or improving iCam Source any time soon?

[OUAnthony]

Is partnering with an IP hardware manufacturer a possibility? That would be awesome. I guess you guys would need to learn Chinese first, though, huh?

[Stefan]

We've discussions with a handful of companies over the years about incorporating different aspects of iCam into their existing hardware, so it is definitely a possibility. We just haven't had the right conversation with the right company yet.

Is partnering with an IP hardware manufacturer a possibility? That would be awesome. I guess you guys would need to learn Chinese first, though, huh?