iOS App viewing on Mac vs. SecuritySpy viewing

Marty
Marty
in SecuritySpy

Ben,

I use a copy of SecuritySpy to view the server running SecuritySpy and it works wonderfully. I can open named groups and put them on different monitors and it's very convenient.

I've been experimenting with using the iOS app on the Mac to view the SecuritySpy server. One plus of this is I can get the same notifications on the remote Mac as I can on the iPhone. I have noted that when viewing all Cameras via the SecuritySpy app the server is only at about 57% cpu which is very low.

If I view all cameras remotely on a Mac with the iOS app, the SecuritySpy server goes to around 117% usage and stays there. Am I missing a setting to cause it to be this high? I actually like using the iOS app on the Mac simply for the notifications. I think since the remote copy of SecuritySpy is not licensed, I cannot get notifications on it.

Any thoughts to lower the iOS app cpu usage on the SecuritySpy server?

Marty

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben

    Hi Marty, there are many factors that affect server CPU usage for video streams sent to web clients. The iOS app and macOS app are quite different in the way they handle streaming, since they are designed for different platforms. For example, one difference is that the iOS app pulls in JPEG snapshots for its camera grid view, switching to a full-size H.264 stream only when the camera is tapped/enlarged. In contrast, macOS SecuritySpy as a client pulls in streams in whatever format, size and frame rate configured in the client under Settings > Cameras > Device.

    If you're looking purely at SecuritySpy's CPU usage as reported by Activity Monitor, the difference between 57% and 117% is not all that great, because this number shows how much of *one core* of the CPU is being used. For example, if your Mac has 8 cores, a per-core CPU usage of 100% represents only an eighth of the Mac's total CPU processing capacity.

    The best number to look at to see how much the Mac's CPU is being utilised in the "Idle" number at the bottom of Activity Monitor's CPU section. This is a whole-system figure, where 0 means that the CPU is running at its maximum capacity, and 100 means that it's sitting doing nothing. As long as this number doesn't go too low, you don't have to worry about server CPU usage.

  • Marty
    Marty

    Thanks Ben for the very good and detailed explanation. This certainly helps to know that running the iOS version on the Mac is not that intensive on the server. I did note that cpu usage dropped when going full screen with one camera, which is exactly what you described above.

    Thanks again. It seems I'm always learning a little more about SecuritySpy, but that helps me made even better use of it.

    Marty

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