Color4K-X - one man's journey towards clarity
- Thread starter NightLife
- Start date
Mike, I'll track any live tearing going forward, but I can definitely say that watching recordings (on the NAS!) can be pretty frustrating right now, and the NAS is only using less than 60% RAM, and an average of 5% CPU. But ask it to play an earlier recording, and you'd swear settings must be whack BUT when you log into the camera itself to watch the edge recordings of the same IVS events, and their perfect.
Can tearing artifact manifest 'after' a recording of an event has occurred? IOW's could my NAS have recorded an event perfectly like the edge recording appears, but later when asked to serve up that file, could the NAS have a fit and produce that same tearing artifact, OR is tearing 'only' produced during recording? (in this case, because live was fine I believe, as are the edge recordings.)
I can watch last nights recordings, and they reveal tearing on the NAS side, but on the camera edge recordings the same events are good.
Here is a type of example of what appears to be the Synology having issues recording smoothly - when I watch this here I see the red fox has tripped the wire, the camera goes back the 5 seconds prior and begins recording, but then you'll see the fox freeze as does the clock in the upper left, only to suddenly jump forward in time and space towards the upper left frame, preceded by some tearing before the fox fully materializes in the new position.. On the edge recording of this exact event, it is smooth, with no skipping, or freezing etc. This is generally where I will also see tearing artifact on my NAS recordings.
*The lighting is only really the camera right now until I get the upper deck shovelled, and the new lights installed. But even at this low light level, the edge recordings are perfect with zero artifact.
View attachment Color4K-X East-20211210-004237.mp4
sebastiantombs
Known around here
If you did the terminations on the cable I'd suggest giving re-termination a try. I know it's cold up there in the Great White North, but be really careful and methodical when doing the camera end. Be sure to use some dielectric grease on the RJ45 connection and properly weatherproof it as well.
My next suggestion would be to try the demo version of Blue Iris and see if you get tearing there if re-terminating doesn't fix it. I'm not a big fan of NAS based VMS.
My next suggestion would be to try the demo version of Blue Iris and see if you get tearing there if re-terminating doesn't fix it. I'm not a big fan of NAS based VMS.
Mike A.
Known around here
- Joined
- May 6, 2017
- Messages
- 3,828
- Reaction score
- 6,387
So again that would tend to point me to something happening on the Synology side.
I don't know anything about the Synology and how it deals with video but I'd suppose that a recording could be saved fine and then some other issue/settings/limitation/whatever could come into play when asked to stream it. How are the video files saved on the Synology? Can you copy a file from it to try directly in some other media player? That would answer your question.
How are you capturing the video that you post here?
The videos I post are generally, as above, downloaded directly off the NAS. There is a timeline one can download from, or a repository of recordings in a separate folder which one can access to download there. And often any of these sources will produce great results. Other times, seemingly randomly, there will be tearing left and right.
@sebastiantombs , unfortunately I didn't have my dielectric grease on hand at the time, and rather than let the camera dangle as I f*'k around trying to get the CAT7 cable to fit with the guts of the camera wiring, my wife held the camera as I carefully modified the cable, and the cable closure. It was an awkward, and the camera became pretty heavy for her after 10-15 minutes so I did what I could which wasn't optimal. I split the piece that secures the cable ends (PoE to camera) down one side so it would flex to applow the larger CAT7 cable within, plugged in to the camera, then wrapped the heck out of it all in electrical tape. I knew CAT7 would be robust, particularly the outdoor rated type I bought, but I had no idea the headache I was in for until that moment when I tried to fit the 7 through the part on the camera which encapsulates and secures the 2 cable ends. That is where the sh!t show began lol. Not optimal by any means, but my gut says it's ok. It's the NAS. Remember, the camera can be streaming and doing what it normally does, yet I can log into it and review edge recordings perfectly .. recordings which are coming through that same cable, like everything else. Which to me, points back to the NAS as some sort of bottleneck.
*It might be good if I reboot this laptop as well. It's probably been over a month since I did so, and memory is using 13GB swap right now so even this laptop may be suspect right now. *I was looking at an email reply from a friend just now, and we were referencing something in a security video I 'd sent. When I scrolled down a minute ago to review the video I'd sent it played ok the first time, and then subsequent play attempts were whack, and it would freeze and skip etc. Time for a reboot...after which I will try everything again, edge, NAS, and even try logging into the NAS from windows on this MAC. So far, where IE is concerned, I cannot access the NAS. It freezes after I try and log in. Perhaps the NAS recognizes the weathered old IE browser, and says nope. But I did acknowledge the page as not being secure etc, and proceeded yet still it locks up.
Mike A.
Known around here
- Joined
- May 6, 2017
- Messages
- 3,828
- Reaction score
- 6,387
So in that case it would seem to be happening on recording. Is there an export process or can you just pull the file off in whatever native/standard form?
Your local machine could have an effect on playback for various reasons but if you're posting the files as they exist (vs say capturing in some way) that shouldn't affect how the rest of our machines play them.
I'm going to have to loop back to this Mike...I just made a discovery here. Before rebooting the laptop I decided to poke around my Netgear switch UI. I saw that the cables could all be tested, including the uplink so I chose all the cables to test, and damn if it isn't revealing what it terms a 'short'. At first I was puzzled, thinking why the heck would the 2' cable to my router have a short. But then 2 things caught my eye - the short it determined was 44 m away from the switch. NOT my router! AND I knew I had my camera plugged into port "1". So I realized when I was configuring the switch I must have transposed a couple ports, and mislabelled the camera port as the wireless router/access point.
Here is a capture .. "AX11000 Wifi" is actually my Color4K-X camera. So the switch is sensing a 'short'... I haven't fiddled with anything cable-wise just yet. I wanted to get the capture of the test results first in case it is transient.
*I'm not sure how sensitive the switch is where distance to short is concerned, but if my cable was indeed 150, then 44 m is only 5.5ish feet from the end. I'd argue that the short is likely at the terminal end, and not some short random distance from the end..could I have a redo on Fall? This is going to kinda suck..
Here is a capture .. "AX11000 Wifi" is actually my Color4K-X camera. So the switch is sensing a 'short'... I haven't fiddled with anything cable-wise just yet. I wanted to get the capture of the test results first in case it is transient.
*I'm not sure how sensitive the switch is where distance to short is concerned, but if my cable was indeed 150, then 44 m is only 5.5ish feet from the end. I'd argue that the short is likely at the terminal end, and not some short random distance from the end..could I have a redo on Fall? This is going to kinda suck..
Last edited:
It gets odder. But this result likely won't stand the test of time (even in hours) if something is off in the camera-cat7 cable union. But I decided to power cycle port 1 which the camera is on to reset that PSE port. The 'immediate' result is that the cable test which I repeated on the switch UI now indicates the cable is "OK", with no issues. It won't be nice outside for a few days anyways, so I'll just continue to monitor.
When I think back over the weeks, there have been times when I recall noting on the NAS, that it was sending me a message stating the camera connection was lost .. then restored, and I recall thinking that was odd since it wasn't scheduled to do that, and I hadn't initiated it.
* Do these numbers below seem correct for this Dahua camera?
That took all of a few minutes, and the fault is back...short @ 44 meters out.
*Good catch @sebastiantombs !
When I think back over the weeks, there have been times when I recall noting on the NAS, that it was sending me a message stating the camera connection was lost .. then restored, and I recall thinking that was odd since it wasn't scheduled to do that, and I hadn't initiated it.
* Do these numbers below seem correct for this Dahua camera?
That took all of a few minutes, and the fault is back...short @ 44 meters out.
*Good catch @sebastiantombs !
Last edited:
Mike A.
Known around here
- Joined
- May 6, 2017
- Messages
- 3,828
- Reaction score
- 6,387
Not sure about the power specs for that cam but looks within general range.
My Netgear switch is older but I'd think that you also should have a page that gives port-by-port traffic statistics including errors. Might take a look there too and see what that looks like. A few errors will be normal. Mine shows, for example, 1-5 receive errors for several ports over about the last half-year since last restarted. If much more than a trivial level like that, then there's an issue. Conversely, could not show any errors and there still could be a problem if it's on the POE vs data side of the cable/termination. There also are cases where some cams will show short or open apparently due to how POE is set up. I had one that always showed open no matter what I did, reterminated, checked full length of cable and patch panel, tested fine with another basic continuity/pair tester, etc. Still worked fine.
That was an oddball though. I've not seen that on any of my Dahua/Hikvision cams.
My Netgear switch is older but I'd think that you also should have a page that gives port-by-port traffic statistics including errors. Might take a look there too and see what that looks like. A few errors will be normal. Mine shows, for example, 1-5 receive errors for several ports over about the last half-year since last restarted. If much more than a trivial level like that, then there's an issue. Conversely, could not show any errors and there still could be a problem if it's on the POE vs data side of the cable/termination. There also are cases where some cams will show short or open apparently due to how POE is set up. I had one that always showed open no matter what I did, reterminated, checked full length of cable and patch panel, tested fine with another basic continuity/pair tester, etc. Still worked fine.
That was an oddball though. I've not seen that on any of my Dahua/Hikvision cams.This might be what you're referring to @Mike A. It looks like 0 errors. *What about a way to test the cable sans camera? There's probably a gizmo tester of some sort on Amazon, but on the day I do this all I can try which seems most expedient is to have my cell handy, and logged into the switch, and then do a cable test on a coffee break to see after a short while (as above) if the cable craps again. My next camera will have less robust cable...
It's like a car electrical gremlin. Tonights videos aren't bad so far ..
View attachment Color4K-X East-20211210-152723.mp4
Until they aren't .. tearing on the fox, as well as the clock. The clock is always a great barometer. When it's whack something is bound to degrade.
View attachment Foxes, clock tearing issue.mov
View attachment Color4K-X East-20211210-152723.mp4
Until they aren't .. tearing on the fox, as well as the clock. The clock is always a great barometer. When it's whack something is bound to degrade.
View attachment Foxes, clock tearing issue.mov
sebastiantombs
Known around here
If this was BI I'd say shut off hardware acceleration, but it's not BI and I have no idea how a NAS processes video at all.
Just to come back to the fact that the edge recording always seem perfect, here is that last video event but played on the camera, and screen captured.
View attachment Dahua edge recording shows no signs of tearing.mov
View attachment Dahua edge recording shows no signs of tearing.mov
My cable is supposed to be 150' long. The switch is indicating a short at 44 meters, which is why I question the cable length, or the Netgear switches accuracy. I would think the short would be in the junction box..
This is my switch. It has plenty of power, and seemed decent for my needs right now. I have the GS305EPP
----------
In the interim to try and mitigate degradation I've knocked my bitrate down to the default 8192, from the 12288 had it at. The Synology repeatedly put it back to 8192 anyway, so perhaps it was trying to tell me something. 8192 ought to be enough bandwidth with no loss of quality. I'll poke around the web to see if Synology has any weaknesses which might be coming into play here on the off chance the cable short indicator is a false positive.
Last edited:
Mike A.
Known around here
- Joined
- May 6, 2017
- Messages
- 3,828
- Reaction score
- 6,387
Yeah, I'm still leaning more to the Synology side. You may well have some issue with cable/termination but I think this probably is something else.
The simple little continuity/pairing testers are cheap and worth having just as a basic check. If you don't have one, you should pick up. Worth the ~$10-$20 just to save some trips back up the ladder. You won't get anything much better unless you spend a bunch more money and not worth it for most just installing a few cams.
The stats on mine are more detailed but if that's what you've got that's what you've got. The distance is just a guesstimate. I'm sure somewhere I've seen that it can vary some by type of cable, patch panels, etc.
Which Synology box? Wish I knew more about them but I don't.
ETA re the Netgear cable test:
The simple little continuity/pairing testers are cheap and worth having just as a basic check. If you don't have one, you should pick up. Worth the ~$10-$20 just to save some trips back up the ladder. You won't get anything much better unless you spend a bunch more money and not worth it for most just installing a few cams.
The stats on mine are more detailed but if that's what you've got that's what you've got. The distance is just a guesstimate. I'm sure somewhere I've seen that it can vary some by type of cable, patch panels, etc.
Which Synology box? Wish I knew more about them but I don't.
ETA re the Netgear cable test:
Last edited:
I bought the most modest they had at the time because it was really only meant as a repository for game cam videos, but seeing how it had 2 free licenses and Surveillance Station already I've begun my foray into IPC's by just running the camera back to the NAS for now.
I'm reviewing this video now, to see if the reviewer has seen any issues. So far, I've yet to catch the NAS straining. If anything it looks like everything camera related is a breeze for the NAS. It's the Synology 220J. I have 2x4TB drives configured as a Synology Hybrid Raid and have 2 TB space remaining.
*I'll look into one of those continuity/pairing testers on Amazon.
I'm reviewing this video now, to see if the reviewer has seen any issues. So far, I've yet to catch the NAS straining. If anything it looks like everything camera related is a breeze for the NAS. It's the Synology 220J. I have 2x4TB drives configured as a Synology Hybrid Raid and have 2 TB space remaining.
*I'll look into one of those continuity/pairing testers on Amazon.
@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?
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?
sebastiantombs
Known around here
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.
DanDenver
Getting comfortable
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!
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!