I've recently made a switch after using Hikvision NVR for many years to Blue Iris. (I wish I've done that sooner!) All new hardware with i9-12900H CPU 32GB Ram /1TB SSD (minisforum nad9) and performance been excellent with 9 cams (Mostly 4k Hikvision cams, a few 5MP). CPU usage is showing very low generally under 5%. Locally in BI everything runs smoothly, but in UI3 web interface playback is choppy (FPS is starting up at 30 on 5MP cams or 20 fps on 4k ones, but quickly drops between 5-10) regardless which stream I use. It certainly not a network issue or cpu issue as both are unaffected. Is there some configuration that I should check for this to work more smoothly? Thank you
Choppy playback in web interface UI3
- Thread starter ZeeCam
- Start date
Any suggestions how to resolve choppiness/fps drop appreciated!
It's only occuring in the browser (chrome) playback of the recorded motion clip. Live stream or same clip on BI server is smooth. If I download clip it also works fine.
It's only occuring in the browser (chrome) playback of the recorded motion clip. Live stream or same clip on BI server is smooth. If I download clip it also works fine.
Lets clarify a few things:
1. When you view a clip, are you using the Clips tab or the Timeline tab?
2. For an affected camera, go to Blue Iris > Camera Settings > Record > Video file format and compression. This opens a "Format" dialog box. Is it set to "Blue Iris DVR" and "Direct-to-disk"?
3. Screenshot the Blue Iris Status window on the Cameras tab.
4. In Blue Iris Settings > Web server > Advanced, click "Configure..." next to "Streaming 0". This opens an "Encoder options" dialog. Screenshot that.
1. When you view a clip, are you using the Clips tab or the Timeline tab?
2. For an affected camera, go to Blue Iris > Camera Settings > Record > Video file format and compression. This opens a "Format" dialog box. Is it set to "Blue Iris DVR" and "Direct-to-disk"?
3. Screenshot the Blue Iris Status window on the Cameras tab.
4. In Blue Iris Settings > Web server > Advanced, click "Configure..." next to "Streaming 0". This opens an "Encoder options" dialog. Screenshot that.
Now that you mention it some of my cameras may be affected by the same issue. For example I have a 4MP PTZ running at 30 FPS, iframe interval 30 for both main and sub streams. Its clips begin with a smooth 30 fps for a second or two, then dip down as low as 10-15 FPS and suffer from a very inconsistent frame rate for the remainder of the clip. The same behavior is witnessed when playing the same clip in the local console. Exporting the clip without re-encoding, the clip is fine and plays smoothly, indicating that the problem is occurring when Blue Iris tries to play it.
I suspect that the use of sub streams is partially responsible for this, because Blue Iris tries to do something silly like use the timecodes from the sub stream in order to play the main stream, which is simply a ridiculous thing to do but nonetheless I think Blue Iris does it (hence their recommendation to match the FPS and i-frame rates on main and sub streams). However even on some 2MP @ 30 FPS cams I do not use sub streams with, I get significant frame rate drops during playback in UI3 (down to about 23 FPS and back up to like 29 FPS it seems). Not as bad as my 4MP PTZ that drops to 15 FPS or below.
I don't know of any solution for this. Frankly Blue Iris has never been optimized for smooth playback. In my experience, frames are dropped regularly and often during both live and recorded playback which causes playback to be very choppy. I have always just ignored it because smooth playback is not a requirement for a video surveillance system. It would absolutely be nice to have but I can't remember a time when Blue Iris has been as good at smooth playback as literally any other video player.
I suspect that the use of sub streams is partially responsible for this, because Blue Iris tries to do something silly like use the timecodes from the sub stream in order to play the main stream, which is simply a ridiculous thing to do but nonetheless I think Blue Iris does it (hence their recommendation to match the FPS and i-frame rates on main and sub streams). However even on some 2MP @ 30 FPS cams I do not use sub streams with, I get significant frame rate drops during playback in UI3 (down to about 23 FPS and back up to like 29 FPS it seems). Not as bad as my 4MP PTZ that drops to 15 FPS or below.
I don't know of any solution for this. Frankly Blue Iris has never been optimized for smooth playback. In my experience, frames are dropped regularly and often during both live and recorded playback which causes playback to be very choppy. I have always just ignored it because smooth playback is not a requirement for a video surveillance system. It would absolutely be nice to have but I can't remember a time when Blue Iris has been as good at smooth playback as literally any other video player.
Yeah that's exactly the issue I have. It's manageable but I thought I misconfigured something. I generally review clips in web UI on my smartphone and it being new to BI it's a noticable issue.
I have D2D, and matched iframes setup as well. I have 4k, 4MP and 5MP cams and they all experience same choppy playback.
You might look at Camera Settings > Record > Record dual-streams if available. If you uncheck that box, it may improve or eliminate the playback timing issues on clips that are recorded without sub streams. It seems to help on my system anyway, but I like having the sub stream available in clips for other reasons (it helps with seeking/scrubbing and Timeline playback).
Although even with the sub stream turned off, Blue Iris still is going to drop a lot of frames during playback because of being so poorly tuned for that purpose. On my system I can help it significantly by enabling Nvidia NVDEC with Also BVR on Camera Settings > Video tab (because my current BI box uses an AMD 5950x CPU, and Nvidia is the only video hardware I have in there). But even then it isn't perfect. Cars driving by still stutter as the occasional frame is dropped. Just not as often. I think using Nvidia hardware acceleration still is less energy efficient than software decoding so I normally leave hardware acceleration turned off.
Although even with the sub stream turned off, Blue Iris still is going to drop a lot of frames during playback because of being so poorly tuned for that purpose. On my system I can help it significantly by enabling Nvidia NVDEC with Also BVR on Camera Settings > Video tab (because my current BI box uses an AMD 5950x CPU, and Nvidia is the only video hardware I have in there). But even then it isn't perfect. Cars driving by still stutter as the occasional frame is dropped. Just not as often. I think using Nvidia hardware acceleration still is less energy efficient than software decoding so I normally leave hardware acceleration turned off.