Choppy Footage (In Motion) – 6 Empire Tech IPC-T5442T-ZE Mounted on RV

[RiversideBrian]

Hello,

I have 6 Empire Tech IPC-T5442T-ZE installed on my 5th wheel and upon reviewing recordings after a recent travel day it seems the cameras capture very choppy video.

Obviously the cameras are not designed for in-motion use, but am I chasing my tail trying to smoothen it up? My NVR could of course be better and I’m willing to upgrade it, but I don’t want to spend any money that won’t fix my problem.

Here are the specs:

Blue Iris

Dell Optiplex 7040

I7-6700 2.4ghz

8gb RAM

Seagate Skyhawk 6TB ST6000VX001


Would appreciate any suggestions, including those that advise me not to waste money if this is a losing battle.

Thank you all, this forum is an amazing source of information.

 

[wittaj]

What FPS are you running the cams?

And yes it may be an uphill battle as these cams do not have stabilization algorithms (except for the PTZs)

Could you post a sample video as that may help us determine if it is something fixable.

 

[TonyR]

+1^^.
Also, may I suggest:

• Do a clean install of Windows with the MS Media Creation Tool with only Windows, BI and BI's "db" folder on a good SSD, video clips to the HDD (preferably a surveillance-rated one).
• Follow @SouthernYankee 's standard post for storage and drive allocation.
• Optimize the CPU and use sub streams
• Bump RAM to 16GB

 

[RiversideBrian]

I suppose FPS would have been a good place to start. It's at 20, so I will bump down to 15. Beyond that I am using sub streams and doing direct to disk recording per the wiki and will check out the standard post @TonyR mentioned. Thank you both!

 

[fenderman]

Ensure that Blue Iris and storage folders are excluded from antivirus. Also post the video settings from the cameras web interface. Make sure you're not using any Smart codecs. The best way to test is to put an SD card in the camera then download that video and see if you have the same problem.

 

[RiversideBrian]

Here's a sample of the video @wittaj.

I will also grab those settings as well Fenderman. Thank you all!

New video by Brian Schroeder

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[samplenhold]

What does a video from the cams look like when recorded while not travelling? What does a video look like when recorded while plugged into shore power?

 

[dimammx]

I think there are few possible factors contributing in.
I think the codec on the Surveillance cameras are tweaked towards having a static image with a very few changes frame to frame.
Dropping from 20 to 15 may actually increase the choppiness
Seagate Skyhawk 6TB ST6000VX001 is a mechanical drive, not sure how well it handles vibrations in the moving vehicle. When laptops had mechanical drives, those drives would stop reading/writing and park the heads when g forces reached preset limit.
Can you try SSD at least to test if it fixes the issue?

 

[Perimeter]

What happens if you record to SDcard and up the bandwidth to 20000 wih h264 codec?

 

[RiversideBrian]

Stationary video link below @samplenhold . It looks like this whether or not it's on shore power and stationary.

New video by Brian Schroeder

photos.app.goo.gl

I have a pretty elaborate electrical system for boondocking, so that paired with the fact that shore power (or lack thereof) doesn't make a quality difference when stationary, I can't see it being a big factor?

I will try out the SD card option on a camera as well as SSD on our next travel day. Thank you for the suggestions @Perimeter and @dimammx.

 

[RiversideBrian]

I'm also going to go ahead and get 8gb additional RAM. it's not a big expense, so why not.

 

[samplenhold]

Well the stationary video does not have the huge jumps in time, like several seconds, that the video from travel has. So that seems to indicate that it is something to do with being in motion.

One thing I wonder about is the difference between being in motion and a cam that stays put. Our normal cams stay put so that very little changes in the video from frame to frame. But the in motion cam has every pixel changing rapidly from frame to frame. Could this be an IFrame issue? Or is it a bumpy HDD issue?

So the test of using the SD card recording could answer that.

 

[dimammx]

What is FPS on stationary video? I have few 10 MP cameras running at 8 FPS. And passing cars do look similar to what you have in your stationary video.

 

[RiversideBrian]

The one I just shared is 15FPS.

 

[pc750]

Are the cameras recording 24/7 or only on motion and events?
What bandwidth are you trying to record at?
Maybe try a lower bandwidth and CBR on the cameras to see if it's the hard drive not keeping up with the data input.
You mention an NVR in your post, what are the specs of that?
I have had corrupt NVR firmware cause similar issues.