Fine tuning questions regarding Deepstack and alerts

[Corvus85]

Ok this is weird.

So I got the deepstack analysis to work in the deepstack tab in the status window - but it's showing 5 stills 30 SECONDS BEFORE I actually walk in the frame.

It looks like it's trigging beforehand. How is this even possible?? This didn't happen before I turned object detection off.

This is what it's showing me. Mind you, I've got the clip open and paused at the point that I'm in the frame - but these stills aren't showing it.

This is now WORSE than what it was in my OP, because now it's unusable. Any help appreciated.

 

[Corvus85]

Ok I think I know what it's doing.


As I have to turn on the porch light to go outside, BI detects the whole scene as motion - which sends a trigger to start recording, since I've now got it set to 'continuous+trigger'. This also cues DeepStack to start looking for objects, now that it's linked to motion detection only - and since it takes me a while to walk through the door, DS was finished by the time I was outside.

This leads me to the believe that I NEED object detection turned on, right?
Surely object detection is used in conjunction with DS? Literally every DS tutorial in BI I've seen on YouTube uses it.

Is there any other way to fix this @wittaj ?

 

[wittaj]

You could try increasing the make time. 0.3 is low. Try 0.7 and see if that prevents the light turning off and on from triggering it.

Or you may need object detection, but just the reset, not the moves so many pixels.

But the problem with the object detection reset is if someone walks up to your camera from the side, the person will take up the whole screen and then the camera resets and doesn't trigger for motion. And because you have it set for 30 seconds of time and 500 seconds before timing out, someone could easily be in your house or steal something in that time frame....

And don't believe every thing you see on YT lol. Next you will say it was the hookup....

But many of us are using BI and deepstack just fine with no issues. It is a setup issue. It takes some tweaking to get it down for each field of view.

 

[wittaj]

Which Dahua models do you have? If you have ones with AI in it, you could simply do ONVIF triggers for human and let the camera take care of it....

Who uses Dahua AI capable cameras? Reliable AI for triggering events? Pro's/con's?

It has come to my attention that certain Dahua cameras come with built in AI that distinguishes between human & cars. I was unaware of this. Well, always saw the AI word used in the reviews but never really thought about it because I thought it was a Dahua NVR integration only. I am currently...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Corvus85]

But the problem with the object detection reset is if someone walks up to your camera from the side, the person will take up the whole screen and then the camera resets and doesn't trigger for motion. And because you have it set for 30 seconds of time and 500 seconds before timing out, someone could easily be in your house or steal something in that time frame....

I've just ticked 'object detection', but unticked both 'move pixels' and 'reset' - and now it seems to be working again. Phew.

Which Dahua models do you have? If you have ones with AI in it, you could simply do ONVIF triggers for human and let the camera take care of it....

Not sure. I know they have AI built-in, but I also want to recognize cats and dogs too, which it doesn't have.

Ok so now we're back to the original problem with the alerts not starting 5 seconds before a person walks in the frame, like it's supposed to.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[sebastiantombs]

Set record to continuous and alerts.

 

[Corvus85]

Set record to continuous and alerts.

I've done that. We've literally come full circle and we're back to the settings I had initially in my OP.
At this point I'm wondering if anybody here actually knows what they're talking about.

The problem still exists where my alert clips start too late.

 

[wittaj]

It works fine for us. User error with a setting somewhere in your setting that you changed elsewhere that we do not know about is usually the culprit.... It is clear you are using settings as not intended or changed something that is having the opposite affect elsewhere in your system...

Let's try something else, even though we should quit with your rudeness to free help....start a clip and play in reverse - is it in mainstream for the prebuffer time or is it immediately in mainstream at the start of your motion with no pre buffer. That will help guide as to where the problem may lie. Maybe you are running H264+ or some other smart codec in the camera that BI has trouble with for example.

 

[Corvus85]

is it in mainstream for the prebuffer time or is it immediately in mainstream at the start of your motion with no pre buffer.

The latter. As if there's no prebuffer. Literally the first frame at the start of the timestamp has me already in the frame.

 

[wittaj]

And you are running in the camera just plain H264 and no smart codec?

Try turning off hardware acceleration - that has been problematic for some people since Deepstack was introduced.

 

[Corvus85]

And you are running in the camera just plain H264 and no smart codec?

Correct.

 

[wittaj]

Change SVC to the default 1(off).

Then restart the camera in BI as this is a codec change and the existing BVR file will be all messed up until the camera is restarted.

 

[Corvus85]

I'll try those changes, but I'll have to wait till the morning to go outside to test them. It's late and I don't want to disturb my neighbors. I'll let you know how I go.

 

[Flintstone61]

My clips aren't starting at mainstream resolution early enough in BI. When I double click on one, it starts immediately when a person enters the frame - not 5 seconds before, like I've already set in the pre-trigger video buffer.

I use 9 seconds. Try 9 seconds

 

[sebastiantombs]

Since I apparently don't know what I'm talking about I won't comment further. Good luck.

 

[looney2ns]

You are very lucky anyone is left here trying to help you. Apparently your mother didn't teach you that being a dick, isn't a way to gain friends.
You are a candidate for a crap ring cam system.

In attempts to help you, request's have been made for further information (videos) that you have not been provided.

@sebastiantombs and @wittaj absolutely know what they are talking about. And instead of listening, you want to keep on bitching.

You need to take some initiative and take an afternoon, and read the BI help file. Much of your issue is explained in the help file. Your problems are ALL user error.

Turn OFF DS, and first focus on getting BI motion detection working properly before proceeding.

Don't change settings if you do not understand what that setting does. In a camera or in BI. Using SVC 3 will screw things up six ways to Sunday.

In the sample pic you posted above of your porch area, you don't need DS, BI motion PROPERLY configured will work just fine by it's self.

Watch these: Blue Iris Support - YouTube

 

[Corvus85]

In attempts to help you, request's have been made for further information (videos) that you have not been provided.

Who has asked for videos? Can you point to the post please?

You need to take some initiative and take an afternoon, and read the BI help file. Much of your issue is explained in the help file. Your problems are ALL user error.

Are you the manufacturer trying to deny a warranty request? Or are you just some guy on a forum trying to give advice? Of course my problems are user error. I wouldn't be on here otherwise. However I've spent the last week reading the help file, and it's actually really badly written. I'm a technical writer for a large consumer electronics company - so I actually write manuals for a living. This is missing details and uses confusing language.

Using SVC 3 will screw things up six ways to Sunday.

Funnily enough, I initially set that because the Dahua manual said that it's more efficient on resources. It said absolutely nothing about screwing things up 'six ways to Sunday'. Since all my problems are apparently in the manual, can you please point out where it says that in the BI manual?

In the sample pic you posted above of your porch area, you don't need DS, BI motion PROPERLY configured will work just fine by it's self.

How would you even know that without knowing what occurs during that frame throughout the day/night? That seems extremely presumptuous. Motion works fine, however it produces far too many false positives with birds, cats, changes in lighting from neighbours porch lights, moving plants, etc.

And yes, of course I've tried adjusting the min. size and contrast to no end - remember, I want to detect cats and dogs because my neighbours have them and they frequently come into the yard. So obviously the min. size already needs to be low, and the areas I could mask are also limited because there are entry points on all sides of the frame besides the top, so unless I use DS, my options are extremely limited.

Watch these: Blue Iris Support - YouTube

I actually watched the Deepstack one and the motion fine tuning one 3 days ago, but thanks.

 

[Corvus85]

Change SVC to the default 1(off).

Then restart the camera in BI as this is a codec change and the existing BVR file will be all messed up until the camera is restarted.

Ok so I just had a chance to try this. Doesn't seem like it's made any difference, although during the day it normally works pretty fine anyway. I'll have to wait till tonight to see if there's any improvement.

One thing I've noticed is that the sound doesn't line up exactly with the video. The sync in recorded clips is acceptable (but not perfect), but during live view, it's much worse. UI3 is by far out of sync the worst (by at least 1.5 seconds). Under 'stats for nerds', UI3 is reporting 0 network delay, and under 200ms of player delay. Initially I thought this is what it could be, but the audio sync viewing UI3 live is far more than 200ms, so not sure what else it could be.

How in-sync should it be reasonable to expect this? Is BI/UI3 able to synchronize audio with video perfectly during live view? Or is it normal to have a few ms of delay? For example if I stand in front of the camera and clap, there's a noticeable few ms between my hands coming together and the sound happening. It's slight, but it's there. Is 1.5 seconds of audio delay normal?

If not, what do you think I could do to improve it?

 

[wittaj]

The sound and audio should be matched up perfectly. If not, there is an adjustment you can make in BI under the audo tab, but usually that points to something else wrong in your setup that is causing that, especially on your processor and newer cameras.

I would suggest looking over the optimization wiki and do EVERYTHING it says. If you do not know what something means or do not think it is important, then ask. I do not know how many members here run Blue Iris, but those of us that have optimized the system according to the wiki do not have the problems many people that come here with looking for solutions.

Regarding the encoding, the help file states on Page 55:

For the best chance at compatibility, you should ensure that the stream is encoded as “simple” as possible via
direct camera settings. H.264 “main” profile without manufacturer-specific add-ons such as
+ or “smart” modes is most likely to be compatible.

SVC would be a manufacturer add-on codec.

Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage

Blue Iris uses a lot of CPU time. In most Blue Iris installations, your CPU is the limiting factor which determines how many cameras you can have. As such, it is extremely important to optimize your configuration to ensure you can get the most out of your system while consuming the least...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Corvus85]

I would suggest looking over the optimization wiki and do EVERYTHING it says. If you do not know what something means or do not think it is important, then ask. I do not know how many members here run Blue Iris, but those of us that have optimized the system according to the wiki do not have the problems many people that come here with looking for solutions.

Ok I ran through it all. The only thing I hadn't set was the 'ultrafast' profile in the webserver encoding settings. That seems to be problem, and it's fixed now for the live feeds. Thanks! Recordings are still a bit of out of sync though (0.5 secs). Any ideas there?

One thing I've just noticed when I went out there was that DS picked me up fine and started the recording a few seconds before I went out there (after increasing the prebuffer to 9), but when I was half way walking across the frame, the alert finishes and it reverts back to the continuous substream.

Any idea what could be causing that?