Color4K-X - one man's journey towards clarity

[wittaj]

This thread reads very much as an advertisement for Blue Iris, especially for someone willing to twiddle the settings so much. For about 5 years I ran an LaView NVR. I had friends with BI but I believed it to not be very ”plug and play” like my NVR. Boy did that turn out to be the wrong impression. It was about one year ago I made the leap to BI due to all the ongoing longstanding issues very similar in this thread (essentially being no real control over what/how the NVR processed the images).

Setup was no more or less complicated than my NVR. I could not be happier with BI, especially since I started using BI right after they integrated with AI. Now I can twiddle with the settings just like you, and I have dropped my false positive alerts by about 98 percent. But even aside from the alerts, just what gets recorded is so much better. No more catching the trees bending to the wind and other useless recordings.

As for image quality, I have been put into the pilots seat with BI. With BI, It became clear very quickly that the limitation to image quality was the camera, not the processing (so my latest passion is to upgrade all my cameras and WHOA! the images are so much better). With my NVR setup, the limitation was almost always the NVR. It was very frustrating for me and I was too stubborn to move to BI any earlier.

BI very much renewed my interest and belief in my security camera setup and it being a useful addition to my every day life!

Awesome post. Very much the experience that I and others here that started the NVR route and moved to BI have had and could never see myself going back. The customization and flexibility is just so great.

And yes, I too found that setting up BI is no more difficult than an NVR. NVRs are only plug-n-play if you don't care about anything other than getting notifications of poor quality images of every movement. Once you dial in the settings and parameters, you are spending more time than if you had BI. In fact I find BI even easier than an NVR due to the customization it has. My parents still have an NVR and whenever I have to make some tweaks, the userface is slow, the customization isn't near as sophisticated, and is just a frustrating experience.

 

[NightLife]

@NightLife, have you thought about a polarized filter? I've noticed how the UV and IR
work with the coats of the animals to camouflage them. The shadows in the snow,
might be giving the decoder fits as it plays back. Especially if it is compressing only
the moving parts.

Is this also Buffer Bloat?

Gary, does that entail pulling the camera apart then? That sounds like a great spring project. Might give things a bit of a pop. By UV & IR, are you referring to those natural parts of the suns spectrum? I agree, the IR can definitely dull the red parts of these animals coats. I noticed that a lot with my game cams.

Just a thought, but are you running H265? If so try H264. That's probably already been mentioned but my memory isn't what it once was.

Thanks Sebastian - I did, early on, try H.265 and it was a bust. Then I read up on here the 'why', explaining why H.265 makes things worse, and swore off it. I always use H.264 now.

This thread reads very much as an advertisement for Blue Iris, especially for someone willing to twiddle the settings so much. For about 5 years I ran an LaView NVR. I had friends with BI but I believed it to not be very ”plug and play” like my NVR. Boy did that turn out to be the wrong impression. It was about one year ago I made the leap to BI due to all the ongoing longstanding issues very similar in this thread (essentially being no real control over what/how the NVR processed the images).

Setup was no more or less complicated than my NVR. I could not be happier with BI, especially since I started using BI right after they integrated with AI. Now I can twiddle with the settings just like you, and I have dropped my false positive alerts by about 98 percent. But even aside from the alerts, just what gets recorded is so much better. No more catching the trees bending to the wind and other useless recordings.

As for image quality, I have been put into the pilots seat with BI. With BI, It became clear very quickly that the limitation to image quality was the camera, not the processing (so my latest passion is to upgrade all my cameras and WHOA! the images are so much better). With my NVR setup, the limitation was almost always the NVR. It was very frustrating for me and I was too stubborn to move to BI any earlier.

BI very much renewed my interest and belief in my security camera setup and it being a useful addition to my every day life!

Great BI endorsement Dan. I'm going to do everything in my power to give the Synology a go before I bail. The 220J may be a modest NAS, but I never see it break a sweat so I think something else is afoot. I'm definitely picking up a good amount of experience, all things IPC, that if I ever do switch over I will have a great foundation which should go a long way. And I have silly endurance where tweaking things is concerned, so I won't shy away from any of the BI set up, and maintenance.

Awesome post. Very much the experience that I and others here that started the NVR route and moved to BI have had and could never see myself going back. The customization and flexibility is just so great.

And yes, I too found that setting up BI is no more difficult than an NVR. NVRs are only plug-n-play if you don't care about anything other than getting notifications of poor quality images of every movement. Once you dial in the settings and parameters, you are spending more time than if you had BI. In fact I find BI even easier than an NVR due to the customization it has. My parents still have an NVR and whenever I have to make some tweaks, the userface is slow, the customization isn't near as sophisticated, and is just a frustrating experience.

At least now I have the Synology Surveillance Station working in Windows 10. Initially through IE I couldn't log in, so I reverted back to Edge emulating IE and was able to log in, and once in I downloaded the Synology Surveillance Station App for Windows, and so now I have a proper means to make lasting setting changes in Windows when those times arise.

I'm giving this till spring - I'll troubleshoot cable shorts, go to battle with the NAS, and everything in between and if by spring I have no hair left to pull, then BI it is! Pivoting now would be a slap in the face to Synology, and would be too easy. My instinct is to crash through any obstacles I come across in the meantime, versus turning and running off in another direction so soon. I know the next Synology guy will be around soon enough, and I'd like that user to see some level of success in what I do here.

 

[DanDenver]

My instinct is to crash through any obstacles I come across in the meantime, versus turning and running off in another direction so soon. I know the next Synology guy will be around soon enough, and I'd like that user to see some level of success in what I do here.

This would have been my post several years ago : )
I do wish you luck in sorting out your concerns. It is a good thread.

 

[garycrist]

Cheap trick

Amazon.com

I am trying a neutral density filter off my binos taped to the front of the cam. A Tiffan 58mm UV so far.

 

[NightLife]

This would have been my post several years ago : )
I do wish you luck in sorting out your concerns. It is a good thread.

lol - I hear ya Dan. I'm still in that stubborn, heels dug in, doubling down phase of my relationship with Synology. It could go either way!

And thanks for the kind words. It's a bit of a stream of consciousness, but hopefully in yrs to come some other user in a similar boat will pick up something from our collective observations.

Cheap trick

Amazon.com

I am trying a neutral density filter off my binos taped to the front of the cam. A Tiffan 58mm UV so far.

Bookmarked. Thanks Gary, this is an interesting idea. If you've done a with and without (polarizer sheet) I'd love a link. Just out of curiosity, since these cameras can be taken apart to adjust focus, could one do so to install a filter? Would it be different from any traditional camera?

 

[garycrist]

I'm to shaky for that stuff anymore.... I can send 40 words a minute
holding my hands still. Well maybe just a whole bunch of gibberish... ha ha ha

 

[NightLife]

I've been tracking the switch, and any shorts, or errors and have seen an escalation in errors. Even from 1 minute to 2 minutes later the camera port on the Netgear switch shows a 40% jump in errors. Interestingly though, the Netgear community forums have more than a few threads from users seeing 'short' when performing a cable test. In some cases it is may be the cable length to blame (greater than 25 meters), so that may be a bug.

What do you suppose is shorting out in the junction box. I could see a break, or disconnect because the 2 cable ends pulled apart slightly when stuffing it all back in the junction, but a 'short'? What is that, moisture jumping pins?




A minute later ..


And a few minutes after that .. massive jump in errors. All I did prior to all this was change the link speed from "Auto" to "100M Full" on the camera port on the Netgear switch.


And yet so far, my cable test now shows OK .. no fault. I think I may swap my camera to port 2 later tonight to trial that.

 

[Mike A.]

The CRC errors could be either a hardware or cable issue or also result from simply changing the speed/duplex. If you leave speed as is and don't see another similar jump, then likely the cause for the big jump was the latter. You also could test by changing speed again and you'll probably see the same.

Good to try another port but I'll guess now that the issue will follow. Probably not the port but good troubleshooting practice to test and eliminate.

 

[NightLife]

I left the speed as it was after my changing it to 100M Full, and just sat down and checked on the errors. Whoa .. mucho errors. I'll switch back to "Auto" I think; it seemed a whole lot happier with that. And when it was auto, even in the midst of the video tearing issues, I never had a single error. If I was particle physicist, I'd say that the Netgear switch's behaviour is being influenced by my merely observing it. Maybe I'll leave it alone haha



The really odd part is that since I did change the "Linked Speed" to 100M Full, I have tested, and retested the cable and it now always shows "OK", no short...

This IPC stuff would be a breeze if there were less moving parts to it, and I have a skeleton system. Camera, switch, NAS, & firewall device.

Ok, I'm going to plug the camera into port #2, test. Then just to piss it off, I'll return the linked speed to "Auto".

 

[NightLife]

Confirmed - If I leave the Link Speed on "Auto", I get the "short" error on the cable test, and no CRC Error Packets. However if I set the linked speed to "100M Full", I begin to rack up the CRC Error Packets, but the cable test shows "OK", with no indication of a short.


I switched the camera to port #2, and did a cable test which came back "OK", but this was after making that port 2 link speed "100M Full". So I'm racking up errors, but no short in the cable. Stupid sh!t like this is fascinating. Maybe I'll stumble upon a link speed, which incurs no errors, and doesn't result in a cable short error in a cable test.

5 minutes later, and the cable test is still "OK", but the errors are doubling every few minutes and are already up over 100.

I'll have to dig around to see what you guys with Netgear PoE switches are running for port settings. Maybe it would be happier in "Auto" linked speed. The fact that the cable test is predictable seem really suspect.

*And for another data point - changing the Linked Speed to "10M Full" triggers the "Short @ 44m" error. Changing it immediately back to "100M Full" = "OK", no short.

**I found a sweet spot. Linked Speed set to "100M HALF" with no further CRC errors, and cable test reveals "OK", with no short. I would have thought the cameras would be Full Duplex...But it's actively triggering IVS rules, and is recording fine, and the live feed is ok. A tiny bit of tearing, but fairly stable.

 

[Mike A.]

I have several Netgear switches of various types. All of mine are set to auto. I've not had any issues or reasons to set them otherwise. I think that I'd be less concerned with the "short" showing than a bunch of errors but even at the level that you show it's not likely at a level of concern that it's affecting performance of the network. You just end up with a bunch more retransmissions but still below any real noticeable effect.

Read here re forcing speeds:

Archived - NETGEAR Communities

community.netgear.com

I'd guess that's probably what you're seeing when you do it. Don't know if you can set flow control or buffers on yours but again, unless you have some specific need, just leave set to auto. Work on figuring out why it shows the short and whether that's real or imagined on the part of the switch for whatever reason. Not showing the "short" when forced to 100 full-duplex could just be some flaky result of that affecting the test.

 

[NightLife]

I have several Netgear switches of various types. All of mine are set to auto. I've not had any issues or reasons to set them otherwise. I think that I'd be less concerned with the "short" showing than a bunch of errors but even at the level that you show it's not likely at a level of concern that it's affecting performance of the network. You just end up with a bunch more retransmissions but still below any real noticeable effect.

Read here re forcing speeds:

Archived - NETGEAR Communities

community.netgear.com

I'd guess that's probably what you're seeing when you do it. Don't know if you can set flow control or buffers on yours but again, unless you have some specific need, just leave set to auto. Work on figuring out why it shows the short and whether that's real or imagined on the part of the switch for whatever reason.

I saw flow control, but didn't flip that switch. It sounds like the article above. I have now tested and retested the "100M Half" link speed, and that fixes everything error wise. No "Short" in the cable test, and no more CRC errors. Ok, next...



Keep in mind I switched the camera to Port #2 in the following 2 captures.


And I cleared everything a few minutes prior to this capture, so the old errors aren't represented. I wanted a clean slate, but 10 minutes later, and still zero errors, and no short in cable.

 

[Mike A.]

Some of this stuff starts to get into the realm of things that you don't want to look at too much or you'll drive yourself nuts and waste your time going down different rabbit holes.

Set the damn thing to auto and leave it alone. lol As long as you're not seeing a bunch of errors when set to auto, which you didn't seem to be, should be good as far as that goes.

 

[NightLife]

I'll leave it at "Link Speed = 100M Half" for now only because it alleviates any errors, and also dismisses the cable short error, which may have been a false positive all along.


And I agree .. I'll be happy to not look at this part of things for a while. The only real issue outstanding is the transient tearing. That's the overarching nut I need to crack one day soon.

 

[wittaj]

What is fun about leaving well enough alone

 

[NightLife]

lalalalala

 

[Mike A.]

Probably don't want to leave it set that way longer term. What the half duplex setting means is that data can only flow in one direction at a time. Full you have simultaneous bidirectional flow. Half is kind of a leftover from earlier times and generally not used other than in some odd circumstances. Won't hurt anything but won't get full performance.

 

[wittaj]

I have been known to break a thing or two by tempting leaving well enough alone LOL.

 

[NightLife]

Probably don't want to leave it set that way longer term. What the half duplex setting means is that data can only flow in one direction at a time. Full you have simultaneous bidirectional flow. Half is kind of a leftover from earlier times and generally not used other than in some odd circumstances. Won't hurt anything but won't get full performance.

That's what I thought, and why I remarked above that I figured IPC's would have been Full Duplex. I'm happy to see everything error free, but yeah, not at the expense of bilateral data. So in the spirit, of getting nearly nowhere, I'll plug 'er back into port #1, and return the Link Speed to "Auto".


Nothing ventured, nothing gained @wittaj

 

[Mike A.]

Yeah, I know you don't like seeing "short" but showing that's not causing any problem in and of itself. Still want to know why but not worth a performance hit or introducing errors just to try to get rid of seeing it there.