USB camera recordings using large amount of space.

dbrannon79

Getting the hang of it
Oct 9, 2022
110
19
Texas
Hello all, I have been running into an issue with two of my cameras taking up a large amount of space on my drive recording video. the two cameras in question are a couple of older USB cameras that are connected to another PC and are being broadcasted over lan via yawcam app. what I am seeing is a single video file (bvr) taking up 4gb within about 5 minutes and filling up my drive. What I believe I am running into is the app yawcam is not able to dial down the resolution and video quality being broadcasted to BI.

I am on the hunt for another streaming service for these two cameras that can dial back these settings. I have tried both VLC and OBS studio and can't seem to get them to work at all. was thinking about trying Crowsnest which is used mainly on 3D printers running klipper, but it has the ability to set the desired video resolution and frame rates on the camera feed. Not unless there is some sort of setting in BI I'm missing that can be changed so that the recorded file is not so large.

in BI settings I have all cameras set to cut the video files on 1 hour increments or when they reach 4gb in size, all of my other "real" ip cameras rarely reach that file size within an hour unless there is a high amount of activity (motion)

with a total of 11 cameras recording 24/7 I used to be able to store about 3-4 days of footage on the BI PC at one time but now I can't even store a full days worth, on top of lately BI has been randomly shutting down when it goes to clearing space or moving some of the footage to an external storage, it looses or corrupts files and the internal drive will fill up stopping all recording on all cameras.

The two USB cameras are recording in the inside of the house and don't have any alerts set, they are mainly for viewing in the timeline when I want to monitor my pets or if someone from outside comes to the door and I want to see what's happening as a visitor enters. neither of these cameras need to have a high resolution or video quality.

if anyone has any suggestions for a simple camera streaming app that can broadcast over lan or if there are settings in BI I am missing for recording quality Please let me know. I would really appreciate it.
 
To the best of my knowledge; BI does not have any ability to control the video resolution; that is set by the camera itself or the device providing the video feed! Does the feed for these cameras show in the status window on the camera tab, if so then it will tell you the video resolution it is receiving! It would be good if we knew what version of BI are you using!
 
To the best of my knowledge; BI does not have any ability to control the video resolution; that is set by the camera itself or the device providing the video feed! Does the feed for these cameras show in the status window on the camera tab, if so then it will tell you the video resolution it is receiving! It would be good if we knew what version of BI are you using!
BI version 5.9.9.9 and here is a screenshot of the camera’s status. The two in particular are named Front Door Left and Living Room
I don’t see anything for resolution but I do see those two having the highest bitrate. I do know the front door left is only a 640x480 in size and the other one is in HD. 1920x1280. Funny thing is there is a third usb camera that is the same as the front door left called Front Door Right that is directly connected to the BI pc and it isn’t an issue. I don’t think it’s the cameras but the data being sent over lan from the other pc.


IMG_1115.jpeg
 
BI version 5.9.9.9 and here is a screenshot of the camera’s status. The two in particular are named Front Door Left and Living Room
I don’t see anything for resolution but I do see those two having the highest bitrate. I do know the front door left is only a 640x480 in size and the other one is in HD. 1920x1280. Funny thing is there is a third usb camera that is the same as the front door left called Front Door Right that is directly connected to the BI pc and it isn’t an issue. I don’t think it’s the cameras but the data being sent over lan from the other pc.


View attachment 238385
Not sure what to suggest, I have never used a USB camera with BI, I should have said bitrate instead of resolution! Perhaps someone else will have a suggestion!
 
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I may try running crowsnest from the 3d printer klipper install and see if it allows me to change to h264 or lessen the bitrate. the app yawcam that I'm using to stream the camera feed to BI now only does mjepg. Crowsnest is configurable via the command line plus I'm a little more familiar with it. after all what do I have loose here trying LOL
 
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