Annke 4K + Blue Iris = Lag

[tumtumsback]

Hey all,

Brand new here so don't be too hard on me!

Having some serious lag/pausing issues in Blue Iris [Release 5.3.0.1 x64] when it comes to using specifically 4K (3840x2160) resolution with my Annke C800 bullet cam. I can switch the resolution to 3072x1728 and I have absolutely no problems.

The issue appears to be strictly with the way Blue Iris is handling the high-res stream. I am having no problems for instance when I access the high-res streaming on the BlueIris server using VLC.

To test, I created two camera objects in BI -- one SD object @ 640x480 [using the camera's RTSP substream], and one HD object @ 3840x2160 [using the camera's RTSP main stream]. Both streams are set to H.264, both are capped at 15 FPS, I have a timestamp overlay on the feeds, provided by the camera itself (not BI). When I first start Blue Iris, the two objects time will be in sync for a second or two. Then, the HD object will slowly but surely start to fall behind the SD object; 20 seconds behind, 40 seconds behind, eventually multiple minutes behind, to the point where the timestamps on the HD object are way off. This happens not only in the live view, but also in the exported footage. In an exported footage example, if I pulled into the driveway, got out of the car, and walked up to the house, all the motion is very choppy and has pauses in it. If the event actually took approx 20 seconds in reality, the video clip is approx 30 seconds (for example)

As I mentioned before, I change the resolution (in the camera's Video settings) to 3072x1728 and the problems go away completely.

My Blue Iris / hardware setup is as follows:
Dell PowerEdge T630
Xeon E5-2609 v3 (6 core, 6 thread, no hyperthreading) @ 1.9GHz
Win 10 Pro running as a VM on FreeNAS [bhyve hypervisor]
Tried multiple different combinations, but VM currently has 6GB RAM, and 6 vCPUs.
The VM has a 40GB C: drive, used for the OS and BI Software, and a 1TB E: drive, used for the Recordings -- the drives are two separate zvols which come from a dataset comprised of 4x 1TB 7200RPM disks. Compression is lz4.
Virtual NIC is using VIRTIO [tried E1000 as well, makes no difference]

The ONLY camera currently joined to this instance of Blue Iris is this one single Annke C800. When @ 4K, the CPU/Memory are even not being hit hard -- still tons of breathing room. I have also gone through and taken care of all the optimizations listed here: Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage but still no luck.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

 

[tumtumsback]

FYI for anyone else who might be having this problem, I may have some sort of solution. I lowered the "Max. Bitrate" setting on the camera down to 5120 and the issue has gone away [for now].

 

[Fish Arndt]

FYI for anyone else who might be having this problem, I may have some sort of solution. I lowered the "Max. Bitrate" setting on the camera down to 5120 and the issue has gone away [for now].

That is interesting. Just interested, is your Bitrate Type on Variable or Constant?
I am having a fuzzy video problem on 4K cameras and wondering if Max Bitrate could be some of my problem. Thanks

 

[tumtumsback]

@Fish Arndt a lot has changed since my last post ... I am now on a bare metal box [i7 6700, 16GB DDR4, 128 SSD OS drive, 1TB HDD Recordings drive] and am utilizing the Intel + VPP option, and have the Dual NIC configuration in play. My 4K problems are gone.

As far as your fuzziness, where are you seeing the fuzziness? Is it when you access the video stream directly via the Live View within the WebUI of the camera itself, or does it only appear fuzzy once introduced to Blue Iris?

 

[Fish Arndt]

@Fish Arndt a lot has changed since my last post ... I am now on a bare metal box [i7 6700, 16GB DDR4, 128 SSD OS drive, 1TB HDD Recordings drive] and am utilizing the Intel + VPP option, and have the Dual NIC configuration in play. My 4K problems are gone.

As far as your fuzziness, where are you seeing the fuzziness? Is it when you access the video stream directly via the Live View within the WebUI of the camera itself, or does it only appear fuzzy once introduced to Blue Iris?

Not using Blue Iris. But just installed some 4K cameras where I was using 4MP cameras and now having fuzzyness on moving objects, even someone walking fast. Shows up on real time view from NVR and also on playback from NVR. I have tried changing a lot of set points, including Max Bitrate but not going below like 6500 Kbps, but also didn't try changing Resolution which would be interesting if problem went away.

 

[tumtumsback]

Is your NVR rated to be able to handle a 4K stream(s)?

 

[tumtumsback]

This is one of the reasons I went the BlueIris route -- if you buy a 4K NVR, then you know the manufacturer is going to spec the NVR (processor / memory) to be able to handle the 4K stream. I'd imagine that if you are using an NVR that wasn't spec'ed to handle 4K, then you put a 4K stream to it, it could choke @ most likely the CPU level. I don't think you can easily upgrade the processor on an NVR; might be soldered in?

 

[Fish Arndt]

This is one of the reasons I went the BlueIris route -- if you buy a 4K NVR, then you know the manufacturer is going to spec the NVR (processor / memory) to be able to handle the 4K stream. I'd imagine that if you are using an NVR that wasn't spec'ed to handle 4K, then you put a 4K stream to it, it could choke @ most likely the CPU level. I don't think you can easily upgrade the processor on an NVR; might be soldered in?

Yes, I agree with what u r saying. And yes my NVR is rated to use 4K cameras but not all 16 positions, however I am only running 7 cameras right now. 3 are 4MP & 4 are 4K. Thanks though for thinking of this.

 

[bp2008]

@tumtumsback It sounds like your problem with the original system was the underpowered CPU. I'm sure it being in a VM also didn't help. My information on bhyve performance is very out of date but what I remember is a LOT of CPU overhead from that hypervisor compared to something like VMWare ESXi. You didn't see high CPU usage because you assigned so many cores. On a 6 core system if you maxed out one core your CPU usage would only be at about 17%. The lower resolution of 3072x1728 is 5.3 megapixels (versus 8.3 megapixels at native resolution), so only about 2/3 of the load. It is only natural for that to run better. Anyway an i7-6700 with no virtualization should be more than twice as fast per core as your VM was, so I am not suprised that it works better

@Fish Arndt You need to post a sample video showing your problem. Not a video taken with a cell phone -- actually export a clip from your NVR.

 

[Fish Arndt]

@tumtumsback It sounds like your problem with the original system was the underpowered CPU. I'm sure it being in a VM also didn't help. My information on bhyve performance is very out of date but what I remember is a LOT of CPU overhead from that hypervisor compared to something like VMWare ESXi. You didn't see high CPU usage because you assigned so many cores. On a 6 core system if you maxed out one core your CPU usage would only be at about 17%. The lower resolution of 3072x1728 is 5.3 megapixels (versus 8.3 megapixels at native resolution), so only about 2/3 of the load. It is only natural for that to run better. Anyway an i7-6700 with no virtualization should be more than twice as fast per core as your VM was, so I am not suprised that it works better

@Fish Arndt You need to post a sample video showing your problem. Not a video taken with a cell phone -- actually export a clip from your NVR.

Good idea to post a video. Problem with that is I have changed so many parameters, trying to see what helps, I'm forgetting where I started. I will have to see what the video looks like with the set points I currently have on the cameras and then good idea to post copy of NVR file. Thanks