How CPU intensive is Sighthound going to be for my project?

[flaudia402]

I want to be able to run a minimum of 6-8 cameras and I'm weighing the options between going with a dedicated NVR box from some of the midlevel/highrange IP camera companies, or going with a Mac Mini and running Sighthound Pro.

My biggest consideration for using Sighthound is the ease of use and accessibility I've read, along with the ability to use Mac OSx which I prefer. However, I'm particularly concerned because it seems the majority of people are using only a few low resolution cameras. I'm considering going with Hikvision, Dahua or ACTi for my cameras.

How spec'd out will this Mac Mini have to be to utilize Sighthound for this project? Or will I need to step up to a considerably larger PC to manage this?

Capabilities required for the system:
(6-8) 1-3 mp cameras all exterior. 720-1080p.
Recording required only MAX for 2 weeks (since that would typically be the longest we'd be away for vacation). We could of course change the settings to a lower resolution to accommodate the longer storage.
Live feeding required to be able to view the cameras on our iPhones/ipads and other computers in the house (whether by logging into Safari/Firefox/Chrome).
Not looking for something super complicated - just something that works and is easy enough for us to use with minimal tinkering.

[Devin]

Hi flaudia402,

System requirements can vary depending on the number of cameras, resolution and bit rate though it sounds like a modern mac mini should be able to handle the workload you described.

This article goes into detail about system requirements and has a few concrete examples of mac mini's running several cameras: https://www.sighthound.com/support/system-requirements

One of the relevant examples: "A user reported that an off the shelf 2013 mac mini with a dual core Intel Core i5-3210M 2.5GHz CPU and 4gb of memory can comfortably handle 10 1024x768 streams."

Regards,

-Devin

[tcesario]

I just set up a Mac Mini system and wanted to share my findings for others considering this approach. My system consists of:

Mac Mini (Late 2014 version), 2.6GHZ i5 (4278U Haswell), 8GB RAM
NETGEAR ProSAFE M4100-D10-POE 8 Port Fast Ethernet Managed Switch
7 Lorex LNB2153 POE 1080p cameras

A note about Mac Minis. From what I’ve read, the older 2012 Mac Mini performs almost 50% better than the new 2014 version in multi-core performance, which I think Sighthound uses. You can’t buy the 2012 Minis from Apple any longer (unless one pops up under refurbished), but a 2012 Mini is preferred over a 2014 Mini if you can swing it. With that said, I was underwhelmed at the performance of this set up with my 2014 Mini. Sighthound started choking the Mini when I added the 4th 1080p camera. I had to make the following adjustments:

2 cameras @1080p/30 FPS/VBR
2 cameras @720p/30 FPS/VBR
3 cameras @720p/15 FPS/VBR

With this setup, I average about 22% system processor idle during the day, and 1% - 0% idle at night (very noisy IR images with insects, busy scenes). I don’t know the impacts of 0% idle on Sighthound. I’m assuming some processing just isn’t occurring, though the continuous stream recordings appear intact and the rules/notifications appear functional. I know Sighthound notifies the user with the feed exclamation points for issues like this, however just running Sighthound in the foreground can eat up 10% of my idle margin (even worse when I’m on the camera page and a feed is playing). So this makes it really hard to tell. To maximize performance, don’t leave any other user apps running at all when you aren’t actively using the Mini. Close your browser, activity monitor and Sighthound (it still runs when the application is quit). Also, for accurate CPU loading you need to consider benchmarking under worst case conditions at night.

Regardless, I’m very happy with the system functionality even with sacrificing some camera resolution/frame rates. I’ve tuned the rules and had no false alerts last night, something I’d never come close to achieving with my old Lorex LNR300 NVR.

[EDIT - I've since read more here about frame rates and how Sighthound only uses 10FPS. I'm going to lower the FPS to 20 on the cameras that are now 30 and see how that impacts performance]

-Tony

[Walt Dockery]

I just set up a Mac Mini system and wanted to share my findings for others considering this approach. My system consists of:

Mac Mini (Late 2014 version), 2.6GHZ i5 (4278U Haswell), 8GB RAM
NETGEAR ProSAFE M4100-D10-POE 8 Port Fast Ethernet Managed Switch
7 Lorex LNB2153 POE 1080p cameras

A note about Mac Minis. From what I’ve read, the older 2012 Mac Mini performs almost 50% better than the new 2014 version in multi-core performance, which I think Sighthound uses. You can’t buy the 2012 Minis from Apple any longer (unless one pops up under refurbished), but a 2012 Mini is preferred over a 2014 Mini if you can swing it. With that said, I was underwhelmed at the performance of this set up with my 2014 Mini. Sighthound started choking the Mini when I added the 4th 1080p camera. I had to make the following adjustments:

2 cameras @1080p/30 FPS/VBR
2 cameras @720p/30 FPS/VBR
3 cameras @720p/15 FPS/VBR

With this setup, I average about 22% system processor idle during the day, and 1% - 0% idle at night (very noisy IR images with insects, busy scenes). I don’t know the impacts of 0% idle on Sighthound. I’m assuming some processing just isn’t occurring, though the continuous stream recordings appear intact and the rules/notifications appear functional. I know Sighthound notifies the user with the feed exclamation points for issues like this, however just running Sighthound in the foreground can eat up 10% of my idle margin (even worse when I’m on the camera page and a feed is playing). So this makes it really hard to tell. To maximize performance, don’t leave any other user apps running at all when you aren’t actively using the Mini. Close your browser, activity monitor and Sighthound (it still runs when the application is quit). Also, for accurate CPU loading you need to consider benchmarking under worst case conditions at night.

Regardless, I’m very happy with the system functionality even with sacrificing some camera resolution/frame rates. I’ve tuned the rules and had no false alerts last night, something I’d never come close to achieving with my old Lorex LNR300 NVR.

[EDIT - I've since read more here about frame rates and how Sighthound only uses 10FPS. I'm going to lower the FPS to 20 on the cameras that are now 30 and see how that impacts performance]

-Tony

Thanks - did lowering the frame rate impact performance?

My cams are set to 10fps FWIW. Don't really see much benefit to going above that for a surveillance cam.