Blue Iris UI3

bp2008

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I suspect something else changed then. I'm also on the latest BI (4.8.4.4) and nothing strange has happened like this. The sharp blocky artifacts are likely due to the use of the "ultrafast" encoding preset combined with a bit rate that is too low.

There is a lot you can read about H.264 encoding in UI3's help file. Here is a copy of it that is hosted on github: UI3 Help
 

hefebreo

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I suspect something else changed then. I'm also on the latest BI (4.8.4.4) and nothing strange has happened like this. The sharp blocky artifacts are likely due to the use of the "ultrafast" encoding preset combined with a bit rate that is too low.

There is a lot you can read about H.264 encoding in UI3's help file. Here is a copy of it that is hosted on github: UI3 Help
thx i will check it out
 

erkme73

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This may be entirely on my end, but for the last two days, my UI3 page won't display anything when on h264 streams. FPS shows it pushing something, but the delay warning pops up, and nothing ever shows. It does this with both Chrome and Brave. JPG works fine. I restarted the client PC, no change. I restarted the BI server and it worked for one session - then went to just black again.

Just wondering if it's me or if something has changed on BI or UI3?

upload_2018-12-13_11-18-55.png
 

bp2008

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This may be entirely on my end, but for the last two days, my UI3 page won't display anything when on h264 streams. FPS shows it pushing something, but the delay warning pops up, and nothing ever shows. It does this with both Chrome and Brave. JPG works fine. I restarted the client PC, no change. I restarted the BI server and it worked for one session - then went to just black again.

Just wondering if it's me or if something has changed on BI or UI3?

View attachment 36325
I don't have this problem. Here are some things you could do to troubleshoot.

* Open the developer console (ctrl + shift + i) and click the Console tab. Then refresh the UI3 page and see what appears in the console.

* Try a different H.264 player (UI Settings > Video Player > H.264 Player). As inefficient as it is, at least the JavaScript player should work. If it doesn't then there may be a problem with how BI is encoding the stream. What might be wrong, I have no idea.
 

erkme73

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It does work with java, and as stated, jpg. I just tested it with my phone (using chrome browser) and HTML5 worked. So it must be on my machine. Sorry for the false alarm. Just stumped as to why it does this on both chrome and brave (both Chromium).
 

erkme73

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Graphics driver is a possible culprit. It would likely be responsible for the hardware acceleration.
Do you think it's going bad or corrupt drivers? It was working fine 3 days ago. I'll try to remove and add it via device manager, and failing that, I'll try to update from manufacturer... It's an intel iris on a mini Brix machine.
 

bp2008

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Probably not failing. Probably Windows snuck in a driver update or something. Or it could be something else entirely, not graphics driver related.
 

erkme73

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Well, you appear to be a lot closer to the culprit than I would have gotten. I deleted the driver, which put me back to the super-sized generic VGA driver. While I download the latest intel drivers (slow DSL) I tried to run UI3 with H264... and it works just fine.

As soon as my 8mbps DSL finishes the 200mb driver download, I'll report back.
 

erkme73

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Well, that's disappointing. After installing the latest intel drivers and rebooting, the browser is once again showing a black screen. Bummer. Oh well, guess java will have to be good enough - unless you have other ideas ;)

ETA: It really is only with the streaming. If I pause, or move frame-by-frame, I see images. Something is preventing the rendering of the streamed H264...
 

erkme73

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Ok, so I got it to work by rolling back to a 3yo Intel driver. I wish there was a way to lock the driver to not auto update!
 

TonyR

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Ok, so I got it to work by rolling back to a 3yo Intel driver. I wish there was a way to lock the driver to not auto update!
Not sure if you have Win 10 or 7, but my Win 7 allows you to uncheck "Recommended Updates" which says it will NOT treat them as "Important" and download them. Most driver updates I've seen in Win 7 are considered "Recommended". Maybe Win 10 has the same (or similar) feature wherein only "Important Updates" are downloaded.
 

erkme73

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Sorry, I should have specified. Win7. I'll start searching now. Thx again for the support.

ETA: I have all OS updates set to OFF - and it's been that way since setting it up. I did have an intel utility in the taskbar, which I'm sure probably did the install. I've disabled it completely.
 

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bp2008

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Ok, so I got it to work by rolling back to a 3yo Intel driver. I wish there was a way to lock the driver to not auto update!
This is for Win10 but there might be something similar for 7. Disable Windows 10's Automatic Driver Updates | IP Cam Talk

One alternative that is faster than the JavaScript player but doesn't use hardware acceleration is the NaCl player in the no-hardware-acceleration mode. Only available in Chrome and likely will stop working in Q2 2019 which is Google's new planned date for the removal of support for portable native client executables in web content.
 

erkme73

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This is for Win10 but there might be something similar for 7. Disable Windows 10's Automatic Driver Updates | IP Cam Talk

One alternative that is faster than the JavaScript player but doesn't use hardware acceleration is the NaCl player in the no-hardware-acceleration mode. Only available in Chrome and likely will stop working in Q2 2019 which is Google's new planned date for the removal of support for portable native client executables in web content.
Well, the problem returned. And the drivers have NOT been updated. But, after some more troubleshooting, I've determined that the blacked out screen has to do with the resolution. If I pick anything less than HD streaming, the stream plays fine. So 480P works, but 720 goes black. This is the case with both H264 or Java.

Does that point at anything specific? The other thing that happened after I switched to JPG HD, after leaving the screen up for a while, I got a memory error, and my browser crashed. I wonder if I'm not running out of resources. The PC (client) has 16gb or ram:

upload_2018-12-15_12-43-1.png

But not a dedicated video card:

upload_2018-12-15_12-46-46.png

I just have no clue what happened, since it was humming along just fine until earlier this week...
 

bp2008

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Check that your Streaming 0 profile in bi settings is sane. Like 50% quality with a bit rate limit enabled. BI recently stopped honoring UI3s requested bit rates and it has not been fixed yet. Too high of a bit rate can yield instability.
 

erkme73

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FIGURED IT OUT!!!

You posted your last suggestion as I was writing this up...

I had unchecked my streaming 0 bandwidth limit. I just turned it back on again (limited to 5k) and now it all works again:

upload_2018-12-15_13-15-53.png

Funny how we both nailed it at the same time.
 
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