Choppy BI playback with Direct To Disc

[Martin Helgesen]

Hi everyone,

I've been using Blue Iris for my two outdoor cameras for some months now. I have been using Direct to disc as I read that it requires less CPU usage. During playback of clips in Blue Iris console the video has always been really choppy, but I thought this was normal untill I recently switched to record with encoding to capture the motion boxes during some testing. Then I saw that these clips playback really smooth at ex 128x speed, while the Direct to disc footage will have around 1fps during playback when you speed it up. Playing at normal speed works okay.

I've been searching a lot and tested a lot of different settings, but can't get the Direct To Disc footage to play smooth. Anyone have any ideas?
I look at the clips directly in the BI console and live video is smooth.

I'm using Blue Iris DVR (BVR) when direct to disc is enabled.
When Re-encode is enabled I'm using MJPG for the DS-2CD camera since I'm just getting empty footage when recording with H264/MPEG-4-AVC. The Doorbell camera works with H254 encoder.
Quality is set to 70%.

I have continuous recording, 1 hour cut.
BI running as service.
BI folders are "whitelisted" in Windows Defender.


Cameras:
Hikvision DS-2CD2145FWD-IS. H.265, 2688x1520, 3072 bitrate, 15fps
Hikvision Doorbell DS-KB6403-WIP. 1920x1080, 2048 bitrate, 12fps

Specs:
Latest BI 5.0.9.5 x64, Windows 10
Intel i7-5820k @ 3.30GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
32GB Ram
SSD Samsung 850 EVO


Sorry, if this got a bit messy. I just wanted to include as much information as possible.

 

[brad2388]

Are you recording to the ssd?




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Martin Helgesen]

Are you recording to the ssd?




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, I'm recording to the SSD

 

[TonyR]

Yes, I'm recording to the SSD

I believe where @brad2388 was headed is:

• Only the Windows O/S, the BI program and the BI "db" folder should be on the SSD.
• All other BI-related folders for video clips such as "New", "storage", "alerts", etc. should be on a surveillance-rated hard drive, such as a WD Purple.
• No other apps/programs should be open/running on the BI PC except perhaps BI Tools. a DDNS client, or what's required for the BI server to function as just that.

Is BI configured to use Intel's QuickSync hardware acceleration?

 

[Martin Helgesen]

I believe where @brad2388 was headed is:

• Only the Windows O/S, the BI program and the BI "db" folder should be on the SSD.
• All other BI-related folders for video clips such as "New", "storage", "alerts", etc. should be on a surveillance-rated hard drive, such as a WD Purple.
• No other apps/programs should be open/running on the BI PC except perhaps BI Tools. a DDNS client, or what's required for the BI server to function as just that.

Is BI configured to use Intel's QuickSync hardware acceleration?

Thanks for the advise. I should buy a WD Purple, but for now I changed "new" and "changed" to be stored on an WD Black. I see no different behaviour in regards to playback of direct to disc clips.
Was this an advise to not "wear out" the SSD, or do you think storing clips to SSD could cause this behavior?

 

[TonyR]

Thanks for the advise. I should buy a WD Purple, but for now I changed "new" and "changed" to be stored on an WD Black. I see no different behaviour in regards to playback of direct to disc clips.

It has caused the described issue with others and it is recommended by the Wiki to be done the way I stated. It was worth changing it to see if it improved.

Was this an advise to not "wear out" the SSD, or do you think storing clips to SSD could cause this behavior?

Both, to a degree. Purple (surveillance-rated) drives have embedded algorithms to specifically address the unique demand placed on drives meant to record surveillance videos in order to optimize their performance, reliability and endurance for their task.

 

[Martin Helgesen]

It has caused the described issue with others and it is recommended by the Wiki to be done the way I stated. It was worth changing it to see if it improved.

Both, to a degree. Purple (surveillance-rated) drives have embedded algorithms to specifically address the unique demand placed on drives meant to record surveillance videos in order to optimize their performance, reliability and endurance for their task.

Okay, thanks for that.

I cloned one of the cameras into 4 clones with different settings and recorded how it looks.


All cameras is using format Blue Iris DVR (BVR) and saving to the same folders.
Top left: Re-encode with MJPG 70% quality.
Bottom left: Re-encode with MJPG 90% quality.
Top right: Re-encode with H264/MPEG-4 AVC.
Bottom right: Direct to disc.

As you can see, cameras on the left side with Re-encode MJPG works great. The bottom right with direct to disc is very choppy even on 4x speed.
Any ideas?

 

[SouthernYankee]

Screen shot time:
1) windows task manager sorted by memory (most at the top),
2) blue iris setting camera tab.
3) Blue iris status clip storage
4) blue Iris status cameras
5) Blue iris settings clips and archiving tab , for the NEW folder, stored folder, alerts folder. (three screen shots)
6) on two of the camera properities the VIDEO tab.
7) on two of the camera properities the VIDEO tab configure button.

 

[Martin Helgesen]

Here are the screen shots. Hopefully I got the correct ones

C Drive is SSD, D drive is WD Black. Most of the cameras seen in the camera status tab is clones created while debugging this...

 

[Martin Helgesen]

Here is record tabs for the MJPG and Direct to disc camera as well, if that is of interest.

Also included settings page on the camera.

 

[SouthernYankee]

1) are you using clone cameras ? If not how do your cameras have the same IP address ?
2) set the Iframe value equal to the Frame rate.
3) screen shot... blue iris setting camera tab.
4) why is drop box on the BI computer, it should be a cleah install of windows10


We need to fix the way you are storing the files, this is not causing your stutter problem.


I have to leave the house. now... back later.

 

[Martin Helgesen]

1. Not sure if I understand what you mean. The cameras we see here is cloned. This is one camera that I have cloned with different settings. Like one is saving clips with Re-encode and one with direct to disc.
2. I have changed "Max. rate" to 15 fps under the Video tab now.
3. Screen shot attached. I changed "Hardware accelerated decode" to "No" after having it as "NVIDIA NVDEC" and did a restart. Didn't notice much differense. Maybe slightly better.
4. Computer have been used for other stuff before BI. I can try to get a fresh install done when I get some time.

 

[SouthernYankee]

I need to check the limit preview rate, 30 FPS is high, Set it to 15. Some people have it set to 3 and this will cause stutter.

Just checking that you had clone cameras, not some other strange setup.

You have two primary cameras, 10.0.0.28 My camera 4 and 10.0.0.33 my camera 1. Make sure that for each set of cameras that one is designated clone master.
On the clone cameras general tab, set all to Hidden. Only the masters are not hidden.

 

[SouthernYankee]

I am not sure what you are doing but your CPU utilization is very high for only two cameras.

My General storage notes.
1) Do not use time to determine when BI video files are moved or deleted, only use space.
2) If New and stored are on the same disk drive do not used stored, set the stored size to zero, set the new folder to delete, not move. All it does is waste CPU time and increase the number of disk writes. You can leave the stored folder on the drive just do not use it.
3) Never allocate over 90% of the total disk drive to BI.
4) if using continuous recording on the BI camera settings, record tab, set the combine and cut video to 1 hour or 4 GB.
5) it is recommend to NOT store video on an SSD (the C: drive).
6) Do not run the disk defragmenter on the video storage disk drives.

 

[StratRider]

Are these notes also included in one of the tutorials or somewhere on the wiki page? This is good info to remember.

 

[Wolfe1384]

I had a similar issue with my setup. I have no idea why, but unchecking the “limit decoding unless required” on the camera’s video tab made the live view and recording function much more smoothly for me