Dahua IPC-HDW5442TM-AS VBR looks terrible

Of course, VBR saves disc space, no question. But as a residential user spending $2000-$3000+ on a system or even small business user for that matter, storage is cheap. I want the best possible image.

Geeking out about storage (unless in an enterprise environment where cost can become a factor) is akin to spending countless hours de-tuning your Ferrari to get better gas mileage.
 
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bigredfish said:
Of course, VBR saves disc space, no question. But as a residential user spending $2000-$3000+ on a system or even small business user for that matter, storage is cheap. I want the best possible image.

Geeking out about storage (unless in an enterprise environment where cost can become a factor) is akin to spending countless hours de-tuning your Ferrari to get better gas mileage.
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Lol.. that is a reach. There is a big difference to not wanting to pony up for cash and being wasteful. 3x the space usage (especially at night), could make the difference between someone using constant recording vs trigger recording. I also find that even with 1gb pipes, VBR places less stress on the system (disks usage and writes, networks and system IO).
Who realistically wants to turn down 4x storage? because that's the difference I experience, and with Hikvision CBR doesn't seem superior it just works!!

At night my cameras with VBR (Dahua or Hikvision) use about 200 at night and 500 during during the day. That's a heck of a lot waste compared to chewing up 8000.
Instead of 12 storage, for CBR I would need 48 TB to maintain the same retention period. That's not being cheap, that's wasteful, not to mention the stress on the system.

At the end of the day your right, but given 70% of my cams are Dahua I am just frustrated that Dahu's VBR implementation is well let's be honest, "extremely poor". Hikvision VBR just works and you save a boatload of system resources and get much more miles for your money.
 
@spammenotinoz - So every single one of your Dahua cams experiences this or just this model?

In my experience, I think just the 5442 series as a fixed cam is the issue - I think the wider field of view and allowing more scenery of differing colors and contrasts and what not and is having an effect on the still image processing as VBR. Does the image improve when there is motion introduced and the bitrate ramps up? If so, then you either live with the still image being a little blurry crap pixel mess knowing that the motion will improve the image when it matters or run CBR for a clean image all the time. Or you write a script to change it to VBR at night if the image looks better at night as VBR than it does during the day as VBR.

I do not experience this with my 5442 varifocals or any other model of Dahua that I have (doesn't mean it isn't an issue with a model I do not have)...

The only Dahua cam I have to run CBR on is the 5442 fixed model. The rest are VBR and are rock solid.
 
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48TB WOW. I’m happy with 2 weeks on 8TB with 12 cams. A matter of scale to be sure as I mentioned. For me as a home user, if it happened more than 2 weeks ago I probably don’t care.

I don’t have any experience with HiKs implementation, I can tell you I had similar problems with Axis used for LPR. It simply couldn’t ramp up fast enough with 1.5 seconds and 3-5 frames of viewing window.

I simply don’t care about “waste” when it comes to video storage as a home user. But then I don’t care that my vehicle only gets 12-15 mpg. I didn’t buy it for mpg.
 
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Me? I can’t say I’ve tried VBR on many of my cams. Having got a bad taste for it I just default to CBR and am happy with the image.
 
I do think @biggen and @bp2008 may have something on the relationship with Iframe interval. They are much more experienced than I. This may be part of the mystery.
 
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The 5442 series, while excellent overall, are definitely hampered in this area. I have to run CBR 8192 as well, and even then the bitrate isn't quite enough - there is image quality left on the table, but even at 8192 it's already having occasional dropouts in audio because it's tiny little CPU is overloaded and can't keep up. I'd run it at 12,288 if I could, but the audio and framerate dropouts are unacceptable at that rate. Would be nice if it had a faster CPU or a more efficient encoding algorithm so we could get higher bitrates out of it without FPS/audio dropouts.
 
Got mine a few days ago, Thanks Andy! It definitely needs the right setup, can look downright bad if not. For a while I thought I made a mistake buying it. Way more finicky than the 4231 or 2231. Running mine as BP2008 suggested. H.264H, 15 FR, VBR, Quality 5, 8192 rate, 30 I frame. Looks great! Not using the audio or IR. Makes my other cams look anemic. It came with FW V2.800.15OG004.0.R, Build Date: 2020-12-03. I believe newer than what Andy has posted.
 
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