H265 bitrate issue with IPC-T5442TM-AS - lower than expected

[Druzhe Orest]

Here is the strange issue with bitrate (and quality) on my new 4MP IPC-T5442TM-AS - it's significantly lower than expected.

For reference, my other 2MP IPC-HDW5231R-ZE cameras are set to:
H265 smart=off 1920x1080 FPS and iFrame =15 VBR (6) Max bitrate 4096kbps.
4096 kbps = 512 KB/s and BI shows those came feed actual bitrate 490-520 KB/s, which is exactly what expected

So I set my 4MP IPC-T5442TM-AS as following:
H265 smart=off 2688x1520 FPS and iFrame =15 VBR (6) Max bitrate 8192kbps (i.e. bitrate is twice higher as pictures is approximately twice bigger)
8192 kpbs = 1024 KB/s however it's not what I'm getting from camera in BI. BI shows actual bitrate only 530-580 KB/s

It's not BI issue, I can see on camera web interface bitrate is 4300-4600 with the settings above. And saved video on camera or on BI of course have heavy artifacts.
So to get close to desirable level of actual bitrate of 8192 kpbs = 1024 KB/s I have to up Max bitrate to 14336 kpbs .
Now I see camera reporting ~7500kbps and BI reporting 950 KB/s.

What am I doing wrong? Why do I have to jack up Max setting almost twice to get a required bitrate?

P.S. FW V2.800.0000000.11.R, Build Date: 2019-12-30

 

[DWinters1979]

Is the bitrate an issue? I try to set it on maximum due best quality. Or is that not the right thing to do?

 

[Druzhe Orest]

I guess it's more like "how do you guys get desirable bitrate on this camera with H265 VBR?"
My way doesn't seem right. Also setting it to highest max doesn't seem right as after certain bitrate there's no visual advantage but bandwidth and storage consumption will increase.

 

[DWinters1979]

I guess it's more like "how do you guys get desirable bitrate on this camera with H265 VBR?"
My way doesn't seem right. Also setting it to highest max doesn't seem right as after certain bitrate there's no visual advantage but bandwidth and storage consumption will increase.

I’ll get it, I have plenty of hdd space. So no issues for me. I have it on cbr

 

[aristobrat]

I thought that with VBR, the camera uses a lower bit rate when there isn’t much activity in the scene and then automatically scales it up as activity increases. So if you have the camera pointed at a scene with not much going on

 

[Druzhe Orest]

530-580 KB/s provides awful level of artifacts for 4MP, so whatever logic is - it does not work very good. Another 2MP looking at the same spot at different angle has 490-520 KB/s and that is good, but that's for twice lower resolution. There's definitely something wrong here.

 

[DWinters1979]

530-580 KB/s provides awful level of artifacts for 4MP, so whatever logic is - it does not work very good. Another 2MP looking at the same spot at different angle has 490-520 KB/s and that is good, but that's for twice lower resolution. There's definitely something wrong here.

The higher the Kb/s the better the image quality is

 

[Druzhe Orest]

I have no doubt about it.
The issue is to get to desirable actual bitrate one has to jack up MAX bitrate setting way too high. This will eventually produce good quality, however occasionally camera will start using MAX bitrate causing excessive bandwidth and space usage. Again, this issue I observe only on my new 4MP IPC-T5442TM-AS. On my 2MP IPC-HDW5231R-ZE VBR settings for H265 work as expected.

 

[DWinters1979]

I have no doubt about it.
The issue is to get to desirable actual bitrate one has to jack up MAX bitrate setting way too high. This will eventually produce good quality, however occasionally camera will start using MAX bitrate causing excessive bandwidth and space usage. Again, this issue I observe only on my new 4MP IPC-T5442TM-AS. On my 2MP IPC-HDW5231R-ZE VBR settings for H265 work as expected.

Do you like the T5442TM-AS?
Mine is on route, but I think I made a mistake by choosing the 2.8mm lens

 

[Druzhe Orest]

I have just started using it, early to say, I haven't setup any advanced features, just a continues feed of video in full resolution to BI. I like night and day picture quality (sans this strange bitrate issue).

 

[Druzhe Orest]

Further investigation. 4MP IPC-T5442TM-AS and 2MP IPC-HDW5231R-ZE clearly handle bitrate settings very differently.

I played with Substream and used same settings on both cameras:
H265, 704x480, 15 FPS/iFrame, VBR6 and Max bitrate 256kbps
This results in acceptable quality with lightly higher actual bitrate on IPC-HDW5231R-ZE - average 336 kbps (according to Live tab)
and IPC-T5442TM-AS abysmal quality with very low actual bitrate of average 160 kpbs

Now changing both cameras to
H265, 704x480, 15 FPS/iFrame, CBR and bitrate 256kbps
IPC-HDW5231R-ZE - avg 350 kbps
IPC-T5442TM-AS - avg 360 kpbs

So basically the same. It looks like some kind of issue wit how camera treats H265 VBR bitrate setting. Not sure if it's defect or FW issue.

 

[Warptrooper]

I wanted to report my relevant findings here.

My 5442 is spitting out a lower bitrate than my 2431 somehow.

I think they do handle bitrates differently. Now I can set my 5442 all the way to 20Mbps while 2432 maxes out at around 6Mbps but during idle scenes somehow the 5442 is lowering it a lot more for reasons I do not know.

 

[djernie]

Here are my settings with this camera and i am pleased with the results day and night.

 

[Warptrooper]

@djernie Why reduced resolution and CBR instead of VBR ?

 

[djernie]

@djernie Why reduced resolution and CBR instead of VBR ?

I read a lot of post and the wiki and cliff notes and i setup my system to run efficiently and this is what works for me. I have 13 cameras and will be adding three more. They are 2mp,4mp, and 2 8mp. The wiki and cliff notes explain good settings to optimize the cameras and blue iris. i have used the optimization settings and they work for me. Every ones setup is different so we should read as many post and the cliff notes and wiki and try out the tips and see if they work for your situation.

 

[Warptrooper]

That's a lot of cams! Luckily I will only have 4 (up to max 8 in the future) so I can run everything at full resolution full framerate xD

 

[fenderman]

That's a lot of cams! Luckily I will only have 4 (up to max 8 in the future) so I can run everything at full resolution full framerate xD

Very lucky that you need 30fps...

 

[djernie]

That's a lot of cams! Luckily I will only have 4 (up to max 8 in the future) so I can run everything at full resolution full framerate xD

I have this camera at 25 but i will change it as i am running all my cameras at 15 fps. Looks like i missed changing this one. 15 fps was a recommendation in the cliff notes and wiki for optimization and i have changed all of my cameras and it works just fine.

 

[Warptrooper]

Very lucky that you need 30fps...

Need ? No.
Lets me catch more frames of birds flying by ? Yes.
Impacts performance? Lol no Milestone is so freaking efficient my CPU is basically idle.

So I mean there's literally no reason for me not to turn everything to 11 yet

 

[fenderman]

Need ? No.
Lets me catch more frames of birds flying by ? Yes.
Impacts performance? Lol no Milestone is so freaking efficient my CPU is basically idle.

So I mean there's literally no reason for me not to turn everything to 11 yet

I guess you have unlimited storage.....try playing back your cams all at once in milestone using high res feeds...lets see how efficient it is..