Choppy video with the IE active X

[t_andersen]

Hi All,

I have a problem with choppy video and hope for some advice. I am running BI ver 4.2.7.1 on a dedicated Windows 7 computer with an i7-4790S processor at 3.2 GHz. I have four IP cams and I record clips on motion only. I monitor BI from a remote site using the Active X plugin for Internet Explorer. When viewing clips at the remote site, I consistently get choppy videos. They freeze for a moment at every keyframe. When I instead ftp the files to the remote site and look at them with a VLC media player, they are smooth, so I know that the recorded video clips are ok. I have done a lot of experimenting but still feel rather lost.


Here is some info:
-CPU-load around 15%
-RAM memory 8 Gb
-Frame rate 30 Hz, same as IP cams
-All cameras and the Win7 computer are “hard” wired in the network (not WiFi) through a 1 GB/s switch.
-I am not using “direct-to-disc” mode but I have tried to do so and it did not change anything
-Max bitrate is set to 2048 MB/s, but I have tried other values and it did not change anything
-Pre-trigger video buffer 25 frames, but I have tried to set it to zero with no improvement
-If I run Internet Explorer on another computer, located on the same LAN as the Blue Iris server, then streaming is equally chopped
-I have measured upstream bandwidth from the Blue Iris to the internet to 10 Mbit/s and the downstream bandwidth at the remote site also to 10 Mbit/s.


I don’t understand that I can watch Netflix with a very good quality (sometimes even two streams at the same time) but when I stream from BI it gets choppy?

 

[t_andersen]

OK, let me rephrase it: Does everybody else see smooth video clips when using the active x with Internet Explorer at another location?

 

[fenderman]

OK, let me rephrase it: Does everybody else see smooth video clips when using the active x with Internet Explorer at another location?

Post a video of what you are seeing.

 

[bp2008]

Here is some info:
-CPU-load around 15%
-RAM memory 8 Gb
-Frame rate 30 Hz, same as IP cams
-All cameras and the Win7 computer are “hard” wired in the network (not WiFi) through a 1 GB/s switch.
-I am not using “direct-to-disc” mode but I have tried to do so and it did not change anything
-Max bitrate is set to 2048 MB/s, but I have tried other values and it did not change anything
-Pre-trigger video buffer 25 frames, but I have tried to set it to zero with no improvement
-If I run Internet Explorer on another computer, located on the same LAN as the Blue Iris server, then streaming is equally chopped
-I have measured upstream bandwidth from the Blue Iris to the internet to 10 Mbit/s and the downstream bandwidth at the remote site also to 10 Mbit/s.

Your abbreviations are mixed up. 8 Gb of ram is 8 gigabits or literally 1 gigabyte. 2048 MB/s is 2048 megabytes per second, or 16.384 Gigabits per second (either way, what you said is 8000 times higher than what you meant) Likewise a 1 GB/s switch would be 8 times faster than a gigabit switch.

Anyway, regarding your streaming problem, look at the Blue Iris Options, Web Server tab. Near the bottom you have "Encoder profiles" where you can set up 3 individual streaming profiles. These are used by default.htm in internet explorer. In Internet Exporer, you can right click the video to change between the 3 streaming profiles. So try a bunch of different options there to see if you can improve the streaming.

 

[t_andersen]

Hi again guys,

Regarding bp2008's proposal to adjust the encoder profiles, I had in fact done that with no result. Fenderman proposes to post a video example, so I do that below. I wanted to make sure not to load the receiving computer with the task of encoding the new video, so I simply made the videos with a camera looking at the screen of the receiving computer, so the quality is a little lousy. The receiving computer is in this case on the same LAN as the Blue Iris computer. They are both 64 bit i7's.

This is the file that Blue Iris saved on its own harddisk. Nice and smooth video:

And here is the file as seen when streamed by Blue Iris over the LAN to another, receiving computer. The bandwidth setting of the BI web server is 2048 kbps:

Finally the same file with a BI bandwidth setting of 512 kbps:

It appears that the BI web server somehow chokes whenever the motion boxes turn up on the screen? Could that be the issue? Is it because the sharp edges give the encoder a hard time?


PS: Thanks to bp2008 for noting that I had swapped the units "b" and "B". :redface-new:

 

[fenderman]

That is certainly not normal, though I dont know what is causing it. Does tuning off the motion markers help?

 

[ruppmeister]

Interesting... I have the same problem with my remote access to BI through a browser (and @bp2008 UI2). Never thought about it not being normal as it has always been like this for me. I always thought that I was hitting the ceiling for my upload speed (6Mbps for me) but then I tried it on another machine in my LAN and same thing, slow choppy playback. And with UI2 I have an ability to see the frame rate that it is playing back at. I can get it to be around 12-15 fps if the browser window is made small-ish but it still plays back choppy.

Go figure...

 

[fenderman]

Ui2 will be not be as smooth as the activex. That is not normal for active x.

 

[t_andersen]

I tried to run without motion boxes and, in fact, it did not improve the situation. So the theory that they are causing the problem does not hold. See video below taken from a "remote" pc on the same LAN as the BI pc. I wonder whether something strange goes on in the BI web server? How can it be that we can watch Netflix and general TV streaming in fine quality but not our surveillance clips? Maybe the BI web server should have a larger buffer?

 

[fenderman]

@t_andersen The issue is not with the webserver. The video you display is not normal using the active x option. There is something else going on here. Make sure you have the latest BI active x version installed. Even using ui2 is pretty smooth,

 

[t_andersen]

I am running BI 4.2.7.1 on the BI machine and I have now also upgraded the active x to the latest version 4.0.0.4. The problem still remains. Apparently Ruppmeister has the same problem. It would be good to hear from others to know whether they see choppy videos or not on a remote system running the active x?

I still wonder whether there is a bug in the web server (or the active x)? I see this issue on two different remote laptops. Fenderman, your video clips look good, but would it not be conceivable for the video to be quite smooth on the UI2 but not on IE with the active x?

 

[nayr]

What version of IE are you and @ruppmeister running? there has to be something common between your two machines and his.. perhaps some Web Security software thats in the middle and causing interference.. with ActiveX's security history I could see some security software scrutinizing it more than others.

I dont think Netflix or anyone uses ActiveX anymore for video streaming, so saying 'it works fine on netflix' is pretty worthless measurement.. I suspect plugin problem, if it was a webserver issue you'd likely see the same issue with the UI2

 

[t_andersen]

I am running IE 11 but I believe that I had the same choppy videos, when I was back at IE 10. For a while I thought that the problem was bandwidth related but that is obviously not the case. What I meant by the Netflix analogy is that you really do not need much bandwidth to get smooth videos in very good quality.... Anyway the latest tests have been done on the same LAN as the BI computer, so bandwidth is not an issue.

On the remote computer I normally use, I made a clean install of Win 10 about a month ago, so it's really a rather neat PC. It would be nice to hear from others running the active x.

Here are the web server settings I am using

 

[ruppmeister]

I too am running IE 11 with the BI Active X version 4.0.0.4. I thought it might be the network but I don't think it is based on results I can see on my BI machine with outgoing data and my Internet upload speed. I also have pinned it down to a problem with Active X while on the same LAN as my BI machine. If I use a remote machine on a different network completely, the lag isn't a problem. When I am on the same LAN, then it is a problem. I tested both with my internal IP address to connect as well as my external IP but while on the LAN and in both cases it stutters. Look at the videos below.

Lag Free on Remote System

Lagging While on LAN

 

[nayr]

I also have pinned it down to a problem with Active X while on the same LAN as my BI machine. If I use a remote machine on a different network completely, the lag isn't a problem. When I am on the same LAN, then it is a problem. I tested both with my internal IP address to connect as well as my external IP but while on the LAN and in both cases it stutters.

Your remote machine on a completely different network was a completely different machine yes? Until you take your stuttering computer and plug it into another network and the problem gets better you dont have the evidence needed to prove your hypothesis..

All signs are pointing to something local on your machines, I bet it dont matter at all what network your on... and I dont see how it could make much of a difference.

Start shutting down all services and processes on your Windows PC's until your left with the minimum needed to get IE online.. What video cards do both of you have? mebe this is a Video Driver problem.

The more people that report this problem the easier it'll be to track it down.. so the two of you just doubled the chances of figuring this out

 

[ruppmeister]

Yes @nayr, you are right. The machine without stuttering is a completely different rig than the one used for LAN testing. Not sure that I will be able to relocate the LAN test machine to another network to verify this myself. I don't have a mobile windows machine (laptop or tablet) to test any further with so...

 

[t_andersen]

I do not get smooth videos while on the WAN as Ruppmeister does. I see the same issue when connecting the remote pc to the LAN and the WAN.

I now took a completely different "remote" pc running Win7 and IE11 (again on the same LAN as the BI pc) and I see exactly the same problem. It seems to suggest that it is not an issue on the remote pc side. I hope that others will let us know how their remote pc's with active x perform....

 

[fenderman]

I do not get smooth videos while on the WAN as Ruppmeister does. I see the same issue when connecting the remote pc to the LAN and the WAN.

I now took a completely different "remote" pc running Win7 and IE11 (again on the same LAN as the BI pc) and I see exactly the same problem. It seems to suggest that it is not an issue on the remote pc side. I hope that others will let us know how their remote pc's with active x perform....

I have over 20 BI pc's. They all play back smooth remote or local.

 

[mcx]

Videos are also a bit choppy when viewed on BI viewer. For testing I installed BI demo version to this i7-3770k, Nvidia Q600, Win7 pro 64 PC and shutting down some services and processes.

Original clip is recorded BI version 4.3.0.7, direct to disc and BVR format. PC is Windows 8.1 pro 64, i7-4770s HA enabled. Huisun mini PTZ video settings are 20 fps, I Frame interval 10 and bitrate 10240 (BI shows ~850 kB/s).

Video below. Top left is remote BI web server (mobile 4G ~15 Mbps upstream) and right is BI viewer on this computer. Both look a little choppy, but WMP (bottom left) look smooth like... a snowflake falling from the sky.

 

[t_andersen]

I have over 20 BI pc's. They all play back smooth remote or local.

Wow, 20 BI's, that's impressive

Do you use UI2?