5442 varifocal - Substream 1 is a bit "lurchy"

[ipmania]

Still very new to cameras, though I am playing with an Andy 5442 varifocal now.

With all settings at default and viewing Substream 1 through a web browser, the video is a bit lurchy.

Specifically, it's smooth except that at 1 second intervals, it will lurch momentarily. It's easily seen with a car passing by from left to right (one side to another). The car moves smoothly except for the lurch at about every second. I noticed it with the car because when there is no movement in frame, the picture (video) is, of course, nice and still.

I haven't fired up my trial of Blue Iris yet so this is just a camera test. I'm just evaluating various locations using the bucket-and-2x4 method and noticed this lurching.

Is this normal? If the lurching is visible through the web browser, is this what Blue Iris will see or record?

 

[wittaj]

BI simply accepts whatever the camera provides.

What is your bitrate and FPS and iframe?

Try H264 for main and substream

15FPS
15 frame
CBR
8192 bitrate mainstream
512 for substream

See if that fixes it.

 

[ipmania]

Yes! Lowering the FPS fixed it. Thanks for the fast response, @wittaj

By the way, I had it at default and the default for Substream 1 (lurchy) is: 30fps, i frame 60, 256 bitrate.

And I didn't have to go down as far as 15 fps. The video was "lurch-free" at 20 fps, i frame 20 (whatever that means; I've yet to learn about i frames), 512 bitrate. Also, I kept it at .265.

 

[wittaj]

You want to match FPS with iframes - otherwise BI could miss motion.

15FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras. Movies are shot for the big screen at 24FPS.

Over time I have dropped many of mine to 10FPS. Saves space and the systems usually get more responsive.

Watch these, for most of us, it isn't annoying until below 10FPS



The reason we suggest H264 is that has shown to be consistently the best overall image. Many can run H265 without a problem, but each field of view is different.

This will explain H264 versus H265 a little better.

H265 in theory provides more storage as it compresses differently, but part of that compression means it macro blocks big areas of the image that it thinks isn't moving. However, it also takes more processing power of the already small CPU in the camera and that can be problematic if someone is maxing out the camera and then it stutters.

In theory it is supposed to need 30% less storage than H264, but most of us have found it isn't that much. My savings were less than few minutes per day. And to my eye and others that I showed clips to and just said do you like video 1 or video 2 better, everyone thought the H264 provided a better image.

The left image is H264, so all the blocks are the same size corresponding to the resolution of the camera. H265 takes areas that it doesn't think has motion and makes them into bigger blocks and in doing so lessens the resolution yet increases the CPU demand to develop these larger blocks.

In theory H265 is supposed to need half the bitrate because of the macroblocking. But if there is a lot of motion in the image, then it becomes a pixelated mess. The only way to get around that is a higher bitrate. But if you need to run the same bitrate for H265 as you do H264, then the storage savings is zero. Storage is computed based on multiplying bitrate, FPS, and resolution.

In my testing I have one camera that sees a parked car in front of my house. H265 sees that the car isn't moving, so it macroblocks the whole car and surrounding area. Then the car owner walked up to the car and got in and the motion is missed because of the macroblock being so large. Or if it catches it, because the bitrate is low, it is a pixelated mess during the critical capture point and by the time H265 adjusts to there is now motion, the ideal capture is missed.

In my case, the car is clear and defined in H264, but is blurry and soft edges in H265.

Digital zooming is never really good, but you stand a better chance with H264 rather than a large macroblocked H265. I can digital zoom on my overview camera and kinda make out the address number of the house across the street with H264, but not a chance with H265 as it macroblocked his whole house.

H265 is one of those theory things that sounds good, but reality use is much different.

As always, YMMV.

 

[ipmania]

Thanks again. I will switch to .264 then. Minor savings in disk space aren't important to me (I have lots of disk space).

 

[10eighty]

@wittaj Excellent explanation, thank you, this really helps us new guys wrap our heads around some of the camera settings.

 

[10eighty]

@ipmania, for what it's worth, I was having some problems with my picture on the same cam. I ended up switching it up to CBR as high as I could at 15fps which I think was 8192. This seemed to clear everything up. For some reason when set on variable the bitrate kept spiking and going as low as 500 which was creating a really bad picture. I couldn't seem to figure out why. The cabling was clean and I definitely had the bandwidth. When I set it to CBR, it has been clean. I'm going to play with it some more and try and figure out why vbr was causing the issues

 

[wittaj]

@ipmania, for what it's worth, I was having some problems with my picture on the same cam. I ended up switching it up to CBR as high as I could at 15fps which I think was 8192. This seemed to clear everything up. For some reason when set on variable the bitrate kept spiking and going as low as 500 which was creating a really bad picture. I couldn't seem to figure out why. The cabling was clean and I definitely had the bandwidth. When I set it to CBR, it has been clean. I'm going to play with it some more and try and figure out why vbr was causing the issues

Yes, many of us have seen CBR is the better option. Again each field of view is different, but VBR can drop pretty low and create a bad picture, but then not be able to ramp up fast enough when there is motion and then the clean shot is missed.

 

[10eighty]

Yes, many of us have seen CBR is the better option. Again each field of view is different, but VBR can drop pretty low and create a bad picture, but then not be able to ramp up fast enough when there is motion and then the clean shot is missed.

@wittaj, did you happen to catch my "Acid Rain Video" post? I had a video in there. If you watch the short video, it's crazy that that was seemingly just a vbr thing....

 

[wittaj]

Yes I did see that - not sure how I missed your first post because when I saw that thread I immediately knew that was a VBR issue LOL.

 

[10eighty]

Yes I did see that - not sure how I missed your first post because when I saw that thread I immediately knew that was a VBR issue LOL.

Well Crap!!!! You could have saved me some time in testing all my cables, bandwidth and factory resetting that cam a bunch of times! LOL