BI5 configuration

[DanDenver]

I get confused easily. You say you like reolink as they are inexpensive but now you say you want the best. You install a fast backbone but seem happy with cameras that don't need it?

 

[wittaj]

You're right. Gigabit is pretty quick, and I'd like these cameras to be gigabit cameras, but that's a hard one. The LAN backbone is. There's a collection of other stuff on the LAN, and this LAN is actually about 60 cameras and 7 servers with a collection of other PCs and phones and printers. It's grown. Still, dropped frames are not that common. I have to watch it. I drop the frame rates to around 10fps on the main stream, definitely use sub streams, and whatever else I can use to make it easier on the BI servers and LAN within reason.

I do like the 1080p size. It's all I really need, but it's harder to find now. Thus the 4-5MP. I buy the ReoLinks mostly because of the cost. But also because they're stable and look good (images). My last capture recently was a thief going into cars late at night, and I was really happy with the images I gave to the cops. My old Vivoteks are 1MP cameras. Still usable, not preferred, but they were in the mix with the thief. My next cameras might be Dahua. We'll see.

Thanks for taking the time to help, and the advice. I sincerely appreciate it.

We would love to see the images you provided for the police. We have yet to see anyone provide a capture at night of usable footage from Reolinks. Perhaps you will be the first...

 

[JPaul]

I'll see if I can still find a Reolink night shot for you that I gave to the cops. They aren't perfect videos, but the cops seem to like them ok. I guess the perfect camera is the one that's available. Although, the cops seem to know who the bad guys are, already.

Are you all using Dahua cameras and BI servers?

 

[DanDenver]

I mix it up based on what it is covering. So reolink inside as well as amcrest and dahua. Outside I have dahua/hikvision and a few on their 'last legs' LaView.
I ran an NVR for about 4 years, then I got BI with AI around 2 years ago and learned how much I was missing.

 

[wittaj]

I am using BI and a mix of cameras. Mostly Dahua from Andy but I have some cheapo ones before I knew any better that are used for overview purposes.

 

[JPaul]

Hi Dan. I'm a computer consultant and do some camera work. I built the LANs and service them. Trust me, the LAN is never fast enough. It's never big enough. I started with a TokenRing at 10Mbps and ran out of bandwidth. Then the Star LAN at 10Mbps. Fast Ethernet was a gift. There were just computers and a few printers then. GB is a dream come true. Now 2.5, 5, and 10Gbps. And at 2.5, I don't have to recable! Loving the tech.

Now I have lots of computers, servers, phones, printers, electrical meters, etc. My 640x480 sensors have grown. I began with perhaps 10 ip addresses, and now I have about 200.

And just as a basic philosophy, what guy goes fast enough?

 

[JPaul]

I am using BI and a mix of cameras. Mostly Dahua from Andy but I have some cheapo ones before I knew any better that are used for overview purposes.

I have some of those cheapo cameras, too. I test them by putting a few on the LAN and seeing how long they last and if I like using them. I really like the cheapo idea, but I need quality, too. The only reasons I use ReoLinks are (1) the cost, (2) the reviews, (3) the usability/stability. Not perfect, but adequate for me. My camera peers quote a 32-camera system installation for over $100,000. These guys are happy with adequate if it saves them $75K. And it does.

 

[wittaj]

LOL - most Reolink reviews are paid reviews and even those do not show good LOL.

What Reolink makes up in for static image quality (and the static image is what almost every NOOB gets fascinated with), they lack when it comes to motion at night...

What you mean a missing hand isn't normal LOL

How about missing everything but the head and upper torso

The invisible man, where can he be. Thank goodness he is carrying around a reflective plate to see where he is LOL (hint - the person is literally in the middle of the image at the end of the fence)

I've seen better images on an episode of ghost hunters

And of course, this is an example from Reolink's marketing videos - do you see a person in this picture...yes, there is a person in this picture.... Could this provide anything useful for the police other than the date and time something happened? Would this protect your home? The still picture looks great though except for the person and the blur of the vehicle... Will give you a hint - the person is in between the two visible columns:

Bad Boys
Bad Boys
Watcha gonna do
Watcha gonna do
When the camera can't see you

 

[JPaul]

That was fun (the example shots). So is it caused by dropped frames or the iframe interval (the missing hand)? I would give this to the cops anyway. You know who he is.

That last shot is a mess. It's like the shutter is really slow. The car seems to reinforce this. I don't see anything but a blur. So when I set the frame rate on the RLC-410/510/520, is it not that speed? If I'm at 10 fps in the main stream with CBR, I would think that the shutter speed would be no more than 0.1 seconds, and likely less. Yet this shot above seems to be much longer than this. Why is this?

Sorry to put you on this spot. Just trying to understand.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Reolink plays games with their firmware. You may set a frame rate, but the firmware varies it and rarely, if ever, meets the rate you set. If you check the frame rates seen by your VMS, like Blue Iris, you ill see the frame rate is not what you set. Worse yet, they play games with the iframe, key frame, and at best you might see that at .25 or .33. That, in turn, means that 3 or 4 seconds can go by before the camera see any motion. Not a good situation for any VMS. To top it all off Reolink does not use standard encoding which creates even more problems. But they are cheap and give good stills if that's your goal.

 

[wittaj]

That was fun (the example shots). So is it caused by dropped frames or the iframe interval (the missing hand)? I would give this to the cops anyway. You know who he is.

That last shot is a mess. It's like the shutter is really slow. The car seems to reinforce this. I don't see anything but a blur. So when I set the frame rate on the RLC-410/510/520, is it not that speed? If I'm at 10 fps in the main stream with CBR, I would think that the shutter speed would be no more than 0.1 seconds, and likely less. Yet this shot above seems to be much longer than this. Why is this?

Sorry to put you on this spot. Just trying to understand.

Not putting me on the spot, I can talk about this all day LOL.

So the first photo the guy was standing still but moving his arms, thus the missing hand. The next two samples, the whole body was moving, thus you see none of the body in image 2 and a barely there blur in image 3. How many perps will stand still and wave to the camera LOL.

So Reolink, and many consumer grade cameras and almost every cloud based camera, know that the naive consumer favors a bright static image, so the firmware is written to provide that. That comes at a cost of poor motion at night - the blur city and missing bodies of Reolinks LOL. The consumer grade cameras may "let" you change parameters, but the camera will override any setting that the user puts in that will darken the image too much.

These cameras let you "set" the parameters, but the camera will override any user settings the the camera believes are in error because those cameras algorithms are written to provide a nice, bright, STATIC image over anything else. I have a cheaper camera that lets me "set" the shutter. If you set a shutter for 1/10,000 at night, the image should be pitch black. But nope, the image still looks nice and bright because the cheapo camera internally says "user error on the shutter speed" and makes it what it wants it to be for a nice bright image...

So the car and brick look great, but the person moving is a blur:



FPS and shutter speed are related, but really too different things as it comes to these cameras. You can have a camera set at 10FPS but have a shutter speed a 1/3 of a second or 1/2,000 of a second, and anywhere in between and beyond. So at 10 FPS, it means every .1 second it will pull a frame. But that frame could be any shutter speed - the shutter speed will not be 0.1s. It is the shutter speed that eliminates blur, not FPS.

Let's take a look at capturing plates at night. Whether you make the FPS 1FPS or 1,000 FPS, if the shutter isn't right, it won't get the plate. At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera running 8 FPS:

So Reolink will brighten the image and how is that done, by slowing the shutter, regardless of what someone may set. It will up gain, brightness, and other parameters to give that great static image, but then motion is a blur. You cannot set a reolink to get the image above because it will favor a bright images as the firmware says "stupid user doesn't realize a shutter that fast will be a black image."

Blue Iris and Reolinks do not work well together (although some of the models will not allow the iframe and FPS to match), but the same principles applies for almost any low end consumer grade camera. It is just Reolinks is one of the more consumer end cameras people buy and come to this site as to why it is pointed out often about. I have a cheapo camera for overview purposes so it doesn't matter, but it exhibits this same behavior even though in the settings I can set an iframe...

This was a screenshot of a member here where they had set these cameras to 15FPS within the cameras (I suspect you will be missing motion that you do not know you are missing....):

Now look at they key - that is the iframes. Blue Iris works best when the FPS and the iframes match. Now this is a ratio, so it should be a 1 if it matches the FPS. The iframes not matching (that you cannot fix or change with a reolink) is why they miss motion in Blue Iris and why people have problems. This is mainly why people are having issues with these cameras and there are many threads showing the issues people have with this manufacturer and Blue Iris. It is these same games that make the camera look great as a still image or video but turn to crap once motion is introduced.

The Blue Iris developer has indicated that for best reliability, sub stream frame rate should be equal to the main stream frame rate and these cameras cannot do that and there is nothing you can do about that with these cameras... The iframe rates (something these cameras do not allow you to set) should equal the FPS, but at worse case be no more than double. This example shows the cameras going down to a keyrate of 0.25 means that the iframe rates are over 4 times the FPS and that is why motion detection is a disaster with these cameras and Blue Iris...A value of 0.5 or less is considered insufficient to trust for motion triggers reliably...try to do DeepStack and it will be useless...

Compounding the matter even worse...motion detection is based on the substream and look at the substream FPS - they dropped down to below 6 FPS with an iframe/key rate of 0.25 - you will miss motion most of the time with that issue...and that doesn't even account for the other adjustments they will do like slow the shutter. A KEY of 0.25 means any object in and out of the field of view in under 4 seconds will be missed.

Blue Iris is great and works with probably more camera brands than most VMS programs, but there are brands that don't work well or not at all - Rings, Arlos, Nest, Some Zmodo cams use proprietary systems and cannot be used with Blue Iris, and for a lot of people Reolink doesn't work well either.

Now compare above to mine and cameras that follow industry standards that allow you to actually set parameters and they don't manipulate them. You will see that my FPS match what I set in the camera, and the 1.00 key means the iframe matches:

 

[JPaul]

That was excellent! I'm gonna go back over it a few times and make sure I got all this. Can't tell you how much I appreciate this.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I have to wonder if you ever looked at the links I provided. They cover all the failings of Reolink and the other consumer grade junk hawked by YouTube "experts".

 

[JPaul]

I have to wonder if you ever looked at the links I provided. They cover all the failings of Reolink and the other consumer grade junk hawked by YouTube "experts".

Of course I looked at them. There are lots of opinions on YouTube, and many self-proclaimed experts and real experts, and many self-serving presentations. I sort through them as best as I can. It's a big bonus to get references like those from experts like yourself so that I can be confident in my new knowledge, and I like to think that I'm pretty careful about forming quick opinions. I may not have expressed my appreciation for this education enough, but I'm extremely grateful.