Choppy streaming!

[newcomer9087]

While viewing through the camera http web access, the live stream is fluid, but in BI the stream is choppy, seem's missing frames. (Might this also be affecting the motion detection?).
Currently running a 15 cam surveillance setup in BI. All cams are connected to a Netgear GS116PP poe switch.
There are 7 - 4k cams and 8 - 2MP cams. All 4k are set up with sub-streaming on BI.
Total 10000 Kb/s and 1100 MP/s. CPU 50% (intel I5 9600k) 2 x 8gb ram

Any ideas?

 

[fenderman]

While viewing through the camera http web access, the live stream is fluid, but in BI the stream is choppy, seem's missing frames. (Might this also be affecting the motion detection?).
Currently running a 15 cam surveillance setup in BI. All cams are connected to a Netgear GS116PP poe switch.
There are 7 - 4k cams and 8 - 2MP cams. All 4k are set up with sub-streaming on BI.
Total 10000 Kb/s and 1100 MP/s. CPU 50% (intel I5 9600k) 2 x 8gb ram

Any ideas?

Disable limit decoding

 

[SouthernYankee]

Is it choppy when displaying only one camera, or is it choppy when displaying multiple cameras ?
Is the choppy on the BI application on the BI PC or is it choppy on the phone app or IU3 ?

On BI settings -> camera what is the value of Limit live preview rate ?

 

[newcomer9087]

It is choppy when displaying one camera (live stream full screen). Also when viewing all cams small in the BI GUI
Streaming BI GUI on the PC.
Limit decoding is un-checked on all cameras.
Limit live preview rate is 15fps.
All cams are set to 30fps on it's settings web page and on BI video tab.

 

[SouthernYankee]

Please provide a screen shots. full frame (use windows 10 snip & sketch tool)

1) windows task manager process tab sorted by memory (most at the top), Must contain, memory, disk, network, GPU, GPU engine columns
2) windows task manager performance, GPU
3) Blue Iris Setting about tab (black out your license key)
4) Blue iris status (lighting bolt graph,upper left corner) clip storage tab
5) blue Iris status cameras tab

 

[newcomer9087]

Screen shots

 

[SouthernYankee]

1) Is it only choppy on the live view and smooth on playback ?
2) Are you continuous recording or just on motion ?

3) If choppy on play back, Is it choppy on the current video (3 minutes ago) or is it choppy on video 10 hours ago, or both.
If choppy on an old video, please post a sample of the video.

I am not a fan of storing video on the SSD C: drive.

make sure that
1) Do not run the disk defragmenter on the video storage disk drives.
2) Do not run virus scanners on BI folders.

It is recommend to record at 15 fps and an I-Frame of 15 fps.

 

[newcomer9087]

1) The video is choppy during live view and playback.
2) I have all cameras cloned, so that one feed is on motion(clone master) and one is continuous recording (this feed is hidden).
3) It is choppy even on old video. (will post sample)
The video seem's choppy compared to the live view of the cameras http address. (the cars for example don't have as smooth of a motion, mostly with fast moving object, but then again the same movement looks fluid on the camera's http live view).
Only the motion and alerts are stored on the SSD C drive the continuous recording is stored directly on the F drive which is magnetic. (since i don't access it often).

Will try this to see if it helps: ''It is recommend to record at 15 fps and an I-Frame of 15 fps.''

Keep you posted!

 

[newcomer9087]

Update:
1) I tried to record at 15 fps and an I-Frame of 15 fps as suggested, but it got a little worst.
2) I was carefully watching the live view and recordings of all cams and after further inspection only the Amcrest 4k look choppy. My other 2mp cams are streaming fine.
3) What i did is started playing with only the 4k cams I-Frame intervals and when i bumped it to 60, the choppiness was all gone.

So now, i have all 4k cams set to 30fps and 60 I-Frame. The only issue is that the Fps/Key is now 30/0.50

 

[bp2008]

It is normal for playback to be a little choppy in Blue Iris when the system is heavily loaded (yours most certainly is), especially with 4K @ 30 FPS video. Blue Iris doesn't prioritize smooth playback as highly as typical video players. I-frames also can cause a bit of a stutter for various reasons, so having fewer of them helps as you've noticed.

You mentioned having live preview rate set at 15 FPS. If you disable the rate limit, that might help smooth out the playback (depending on what you define as choppy).

Fortunately, this should not affect recordings at all -- if you export a clip and play it on a different machine that is 4K-capable, then it should be as smooth as the camera was capable of.

Motion detection is unlikely to be affected. I'm pretty sure Blue Iris doesn't even send every frame to the motion detector unless the camera is currently triggered, though I could not find a reference to that in the help file.

 

[SouthernYankee]

I do not understand the purpose of using a clone camera for continuous direct to disk, with the other camera doing motion,. Then adding sub streams for motion detection. It seems to me you are just wasting CPU cycles doing the same work multiple times.

I would record one camera continuously and have the sub stream do motion detection. Do away with the clone.

 

[newcomer9087]

It is normal for playback to be a little choppy in Blue Iris when the system is heavily loaded (yours most certainly is), especially with 4K @ 30 FPS video. Blue Iris doesn't prioritize smooth playback as highly as typical video players. I-frames also can cause a bit of a stutter for various reasons, so having fewer of them helps as you've noticed.

You mentioned having live preview rate set at 15 FPS. If you disable the rate limit, that might help smooth out the playback (depending on what you define as choppy).

Fortunately, this should not affect recordings at all -- if you export a clip and play it on a different machine that is 4K-capable, then it should be as smooth as the camera was capable of.

Motion detection is unlikely to be affected. I'm pretty sure Blue Iris doesn't even send every frame to the motion detector unless the camera is currently triggered, though I could not find a reference to that in the help file.

My current LG monitor is 4k 60Hz capable and my CPU intel i5 9600K is also capable to render 4K video.
I tried un-checking rate limit (my cpu gets in the 90's), but still it did not help with the 4k cams choppy streaming.
It affects my live view + recordings as well. Having the rate limit 15FPS box checked, It was not until i bumped the I-Interval to 60 on these cams that i got a smooth playback and recordings.
What is a lower Fps/Key ratio going to affect? What can i notice?

 

[newcomer9087]

I do not understand the purpose of using a clone camera for continuous direct to disk, with the other camera doing motion,. Then adding sub streams for motion detection. It seems to me you are just wasting CPU cycles doing the same work multiple times.

I would record one camera continuously and have the sub stream do motion detection. Do away with the clone.

The continuous direct to disk cloned cams have a schedule override and are active 24/7, so that when i have to be there doing work i can put my profile to inactive (disables my cloned motion detection cams and alerts), but still have them recording just in case. I only go to this recordings if the clips from the motion triggered cams aren't enough.
I need to be using sub-streams on all 4k cams (even if the cam feed is hidden, this is the case with the cloned cams for continuous recording feed) so that my CPU doesn't max out.

How do i achieve this ''I would record one camera continuously and have the sub stream do motion detection.''? What is the setting on the record tab?

 

[SouthernYankee]

The Iframe, is the complete frame with all the data, every pixel. If the frame rate is 30 and the Iframe is 60, you are getting a complete frame every 2 seconds. All other frames in between contain only the data that has changes. The different compression algorithms (h.264 and H.265) do the changes slightly differently. If you have a lot of fast moving changing motion, you may get blur, two cars driving in opposite directions at 30MPH, the cars travel 88 ft in 2 seconds.

The more iframes the higher the data rate., the more disk space.

Try setting your buffer size in BI to at least 20 MB.

Sub Stream Guide

.substreamGuide td { border: 1px solid #000000; } .substreamGuide a { color: #0080ff; } .substreamGuide code.inline { margin: 0; background: #f6f6f6; border: 1px solid #e0e0e0; border-radius: 0px; padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 3px; padding-bottom: 1px...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[newcomer9087]

The Iframe, is the complete frame with all the data, every pixel. If the frame rate is 30 and the Iframe is 60, you are getting a complete frame every 2 seconds. All other frames in between contain only the data that has changes. The different compression algorithms (h.264 and H.265) do the changes slightly differently. If you have a lot of fast moving changing motion, you may get blur, two cars driving in opposite directions at 30MPH, the cars travel 88 ft in 2 seconds.

The more iframes the higher the data rate., the more disk space.

Sub Stream Guide

.substreamGuide td { border: 1px solid #000000; } .substreamGuide a { color: #0080ff; } .substreamGuide code.inline { margin: 0; background: #f6f6f6; border: 1px solid #e0e0e0; border-radius: 0px; padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 3px; padding-bottom: 1px...

ipcamtalk.com

All the 4K cams are set to H.265 compression. Maybe i should try H.264?
What is strange, is that when i did a 15FPS 30 I-Frame interval on the 4k cams it was still choppy. ( vs. 30FPS and 60 I-Frames)

 

[SouthernYankee]

I use clone cameras for backup only, to record to a separate network drive. My clone cameras do not show any data rates or motion. I do not use sub streams for motion, as most of my cameras are 2mp

 

[newcomer9087]

The red rectangle shows my backup continuos recording cams.

 

[bp2008]

My current LG monitor is 4k 60Hz capable and my CPU intel i5 9600K is also capable to render 4K video.
I tried un-checking rate limit (my cpu gets in the 90's), but still it did not help with the 4k cams choppy streaming.
It affects my live view + recordings as well. Having the rate limit 15FPS box checked, It was not until i bumped the I-Interval to 60 on these cams that i got a smooth playback and recordings.
What is a lower Fps/Key ratio going to affect? What can i notice?

I think you misunderstand. I mean your recordings are most likely fine and smooth if you export them out of Blue Iris and play them in a different app (like VLC media player) on a different PC that isn't being burdened by running Blue Iris.

A discrete GPU would help with the CPU usage of the local console. Just any cheap (less than $100 USD) graphics card capable of feeding the monitor at 4K@60hz that you can plug the monitor into.

Fewer i-frames gives you a better compression ratio but it affects functionality in other ways too:

• direct to disc recordings can only begin at an i-frame.
• when "limit decoding" is enabled, only i-frames are decoded and used for live view and motion detection.
• when sub streams are used, and you maximize a camera, the main stream will load slower if you have fewer i-frames because playback can only begin at the next i-frame. Plus sometimes Blue Iris skips an i-frame interval or two because ... bugs I guess. So a shorter i-frame interval (more i-frames) yields a quicker shift from sub stream to main stream.

 

[newcomer9087]

I just installed a GPU that i had lying around and connected my monitor to it, as suggested by bp2008. This really fixed all the problems, plus lowered the cpu usage even more.
I now can have:

• All cams including the 4k's at 30fps with an I-Frame interval of 30/1.
• Limit live preview rate unchecked. (previously at 15fps)
• CPU under 40%, even with the GUI open.
• Dividing the rendering work load makes the system seem more stable and very smooth playback. I really recommend it.
• I can connect more monitors to it, even a tv screen.

Thanks!!!