Choppy vs Smooth Video -- bvr vs MP4

beepsilver

beepsilver

Getting comfortable
Mar 9, 2014
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Nebraska
I won't pretend to understand the difference between these two recording formats other than that .bvr files are easier to work with (you can view files while the file is still open for recording AND you can export chunks of recorded video--which are two features not supported if using MP4 in Blue Iris). What I've noticed however is that video playback is far smoother when recording using the MP4 format.

The following Hikvision 4MP (2688X1520) videos were recorded using direct to disk at 20fps (20 iframes), constant bitrate @ 12288 Kbps, noise reduction 50, no backlight settings, smooth=50

FrontYard Record Format.png

Choppy video using .bvr format: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17674025/FrontYard.20160309_084350.bvr

Smooth video using MP4 format: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17674025/FrontYard.20160309_083209.mp4

I know there must be many variables that influence smoothness of videos, but at first glance, the MP4 format appears to be the most desirable if a person is willing to forfeit the advantages of .bvr recording. Having said that, is there a way to improve video playback of .bvr recordings to match that of MP4 recordings?

The videos come from a camera connected by Cat5e running through a 10/100 Mbps PoE switch to my computer.

Questions/comments welcome :)
 
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I think you are part of the group on the forums here that experience something similar. See this thread - https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/9369-Choppy-video-with-the-IE-active-X

Not exactly what you are seeing, but posts in there reflect something very similar. I am starting to think that recent changes to the BI server software might have influenced this. The more that people report it the more likely a discovery can be made on what the problem is.
 
ruppmeister said:
I think you are part of the group on the forums here that experience something similar. See this thread - https://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/9369-Choppy-video-with-the-IE-active-X

Not exactly what you are seeing, but posts in there reflect something very similar. I am starting to think that recent changes to the BI server software might have influenced this. The more that people report it the more likely a discovery can be made on what the problem is.
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Thanks Rupp--I've been watching that thread too--I started a new thread because my circumstances are different; I'm not viewing files remotely; I'm viewing them in BI directly on the computer that I've recorded video to....not using activex or a browser.

You said that you're not exactly sure what I'm seeing....do you mean that you're unable to see a difference in the two videos (links) I posted above?
 
No, I was simply stating that I knew the thread I linked too isn't the exact same problem as you are having but seem similar enough to share the link.

I do see the difference in the two you have posted and agree with you it shouldn't be like that.
 
ruppmeister said:
No, I was simply stating that I knew the thread I linked too isn't the exact same problem as you are having but seem similar enough to share the link.

I do see the difference in the two you have posted and agree with you it shouldn't be like that.
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Ok, gotcha, thanks Rupp!
 
This is an interesting one for me too beepsilver. For a while now I've noticed most of my cams (16 non-hidden, all DTD BVR) live-view and recordings had started showing the same sort of choppy behaviour your BVR vid does (sometimes much worse). One cam in particular was worse than the rest, so after reading your post I tried changing it to MP4 DTD. Now not only is it nice and smooth, but so are all of the others despite not having changed any of them. Weird, but good, so thanks for posting about this.


I have another cam that's the same as the one above, running the same settings, and it has no issues with BVR. And they're Dahua's, so it's not as if it's something unusual or non-standard.


As future updates come out I'll retry BVR for the particular cam to see if anything has changed because I do like the ability to go back over recent footage.
 
One problem with MP4 clips. When I try to play clips on my Android device's I get this, but only if I try to play from alert list:

hot.png
 
mcx said:
One problem with MP4 clips. When I try to play clips on my Android device's I get this, but only if I try to play from alert list:

View attachment 8926
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That would indicate your files are probably jpg files instead of videos....I can't reproduce this on my Nexus 6 with the BI client. I don't know why BI would do that....but one thing is for sure, using MP4 for recording is not very stable. I switched all my cams over to MP4 recording because, simply stated, the video is much smoother. However there appears to be a trade-off because I've noticed a couple of issues that I'm going to let Ken know about.

When motion is detected you have to close the file to future recording in order to view it. I usually hit the stoplight then reenable it...that closes the file for recording and the red box around the thumbnail disappears. Then, I double click the thumbnail to view the video, but often times the video does not play, but the slider moves to indicate it is playing....so I'll stop and restart the video....it'll sometimes take three or four attempts before the video plays normally.
 
atom said:
This is an interesting one for me too beepsilver. For a while now I've noticed most of my cams (16 non-hidden, all DTD BVR) live-view and recordings had started showing the same sort of choppy behaviour your BVR vid does (sometimes much worse). One cam in particular was worse than the rest, so after reading your post I tried changing it to MP4 DTD. Now not only is it nice and smooth, but so are all of the others despite not having changed any of them. Weird, but good, so thanks for posting about this.


I have another cam that's the same as the one above, running the same settings, and it has no issues with BVR. And they're Dahua's, so it's not as if it's something unusual or non-standard.


As future updates come out I'll retry BVR for the particular cam to see if anything has changed because I do like the ability to go back over recent footage.
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I don't understand it, but I'm glad changing only one camera fixed the others for you!
 
You're not alone beepsilver. I just looked at your .bvr file and that is exactly what mine does. Every once in a while it seems to get stuck for a very short period of time.

I had another issue where I was told I should uncheck the "use RTSP/stream timecode" checkbox and that seemed to fix my one issue, but my .bvr files are still slightly choppy like yours.

All 4 of my cameras are HikVision's as well (different models than yours, but still).

How is your live viewing of video in BI? Is it choppy or smooth? I know mine is a little choppy which translates into a choppy .bvr file.

If I go to the live view directly to the camera, it's as smooth as silk.
 
Rockford622 said:
How is your live viewing of video in BI? Is it choppy or smooth? I know mine is a little choppy which translates into a choppy .bvr file.

If I go to the live view directly to the camera, it's as smooth as silk.
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My live viewing of video in BI (changed to 30 fps for testing) is choppy just like in the bvr files. Live viewing in my Hikvision software (run through Firefox) looks very good, but the video freezes for several seconds quite often--but when it's not freezing, it's smooth as silk like you say. I don't see the freezing in BI, so I don't know if the freezing is a function of the firmware or not....I'd like to know what's causing it, but I'm just happy there's no freezing in BI. I've tried many many many combinations of variable/constant/bitrate/fps/resolution, etc, but I still get the freezing...

Thanks for the feedback; hopefully future updates will address the bvr issue.
 
Ok, my expert opinion on this is that Blue Iris BVR playback attempts to decode each frame "just in time" and it apparently takes longer than the 1/30 of a second to decode those very large key frames ...

ACTUALLY, that's Ken's opinion :D and here's what he's looking at doing to mitigate: I will have to see about making this double-buffered/threaded ...

I also mentioned to him that live preview is also affected. Bottom-line, Ken is aware and he'll likely have something for us soon.
 
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Well, that's good news!

Your bit rate of 12288 Kbps is really high...mine is only at 4000 Kbps. Have you tried to reduce that and see if the stuttering is at least less than it is now? Maybe if decoding is the issue, the less data to decode would be better.
 
Rockford622 said:
Well, that's good news!

Your bit rate of 12288 Kbps is really high...mine is only at 4000 Kbps. Have you tried to reduce that and see if the stuttering is at least less than it is now? Maybe if decoding is the issue, the less data to decode would be better.
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I can certainly test lower bitrates, perhaps tomorrow morning, but I have used 8192 and 6144 and the stuttering is still present....
 
Not fixed with 4.3.0.10
 
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Rockford622 said:
I upgraded to the latest and came to that same conclusion as well.
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Ken said it's not a trivial fix unfortunately....so I'll bet it gets updated with one of his larger releases.
 
beepsilver said:
...Live viewing in my Hikvision software (run through Firefox) looks very good, but the video freezes for several seconds quite often--but when it's not freezing, it's smooth as silk like you say. I don't see the freezing in BI, so I don't know if the freezing is a function of the firmware or not....I'd like to know what's causing it, but I'm just happy there's no freezing in BI. I've tried many many many combinations of variable/constant/bitrate/fps/resolution, etc, but I still get the freezing...
Click to expand...

I resolved this (embarrassingly simple solution) by logging in to the Hikvision camera (via Firefox) and going to Local Configuration and changing the stream to "HTTP." The video does not freeze and runs very very smooth.
 
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