EmpireTech PTZ5A4K-25X looks awful on webUI

[BBQFreak]

On all of my other cameras, when you go click on them to go to a single camera view it's a little bit blurry, but in about a second or so the image crisps up and you get a high quality view. However, my PTZ does not do this, it just stays blurry and poor quality. If I go to the web page of the camera directly or my BI computer directly it works as expected. It used to work the same as the others and I haven't changed any settings recently, so not sure what to look at.

Thanks

 

[wittaj]

Make sure the mainstream is the mainstream in BI for starters.

 

[BBQFreak]

Make sure the mainstream is the mainstream in BI for starters.

Sorry, forgot to post - when I hit the stats for geeks, it appears to be streaming the main stream. I'm sure that it's set correctly because it works fine from the BI machine. That's what's confusing me, it's just the web UI that's not cooperating.

 

[wittaj]

Is it on VBR instead of CBR?

 

[BBQFreak]

Both the camera stream and BI Web UI are CBR.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Looks like the BI not keep as main stream.

 

[Alaska Country]

Here are my settings for the SD5A425XA-HNR PTZ. Plus a screen shot of the UI3 Properties for the camera.

 

[BBQFreak]

Looks like the BI not keep as main stream.

Thanks Andy - any idea why

Here are my settings for the SD5A425XA-HNR PTZ. Plus a screen shot of the UI3 Properties for the camera.

View attachment 198600

Thanks, I'll try these settings out and report back.

 

[Alaska Country]

The exposure settings most likely will not address your issue. The items of interest would be compression, encoding and sub stream settings. Below find my encode settings used for the PTZ.



Also make sure that in BI the record setting is set for continuous sub + triggered.



Have also noticed that sometimes it is necessary to turn things off. Shut down and restart UI3. The same for BI and the Window's computer. Also the camera can be reset using the BI interface. Then restart with Windows, BI and then UI3.

Also check your BI version as if on the bleeding edge of new a release then some issues can show up. It is best to use a stable older version.

 

[BBQFreak]

Thanks for the help - I spent the evening troubleshooting and using your settings with no change. What appeared to be happening is that with the substream enabled, it was messing up the main stream. The camera properties showed them both at the same resolution and just different bitrates. If I disabled the substream everything looked good (but that has obvious problems). I switched firmware to a version on the Dahua site and it appears to be working.

Still don't understand why it worked fine in the native app, but not in the web browser, but not going to keep fighting that since it's at least functional now. I guess my lesson learned is don't update BI and the camera firmware at the same time. Didn't even consider firmware to be the issue.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Maybe contact BI guys, looks like a BI bug?

 

[BBQFreak]

Maybe contact BI guys, looks like a BI bug?

Being that it's tied to firmware, not sure.

 

[wittaj]

That was some information you should have mentioned....

Sometimes after a firmware update, you need to delete the camera in BI and re-add from scratch.

And best practice for a firmware update is factory reset 3 times, apply the firmware update, and then factory reset 3 times.

And you have learned a lesson that many of us frequently share - Don't fix what ain't broke.

Unless you are experiencing a problem that the release notes say it is fixing, it isn't worth doing. If the release notes are blank, non-existent, or simply says bug fixes, it isn't worth the update. We have tons of threads here of people either bricking their camera or losing a feature they used that was eliminated in a firmware update.

 

[BBQFreak]

That was some information you should have mentioned....

Sometimes after a firmware update, you need to delete the camera in BI and re-add from scratch.

And best practice for a firmware update is factory reset 3 times, apply the firmware update, and then factory reset 3 times.

And you have learned a lesson that many of us frequently share - Don't fix what ain't broke.

Unless you are experiencing a problem that the release notes say it is fixing, it isn't worth doing. If the release notes are blank, non-existent, or simply says bug fixes, it isn't worth the update. We have tons of threads here of people either bricking their camera or losing a feature they used that was eliminated in a firmware update.

Agree that I should have thought about it in my original troubleshooting. I didn't put two and two together because I didn't notice the issue and was really focused on the difference between the web ui and the console. Lesson learned for sure though. These are complex beasts with a lot of interactions.
I updated the firmware because the camera is essentially non-functional at night, as widely reported on this site.
I do appreciate all your help though, as always. Even just talking through stuff helps push me down the right path eventually!