Hikvison - H264+ Faulty continous recording

[andyblac]

Hi guys,

After several weeks of testing on various devices I was forced to return old 7732 NVR to my HIKVISION dealer. Other problematic devices has been returned to H264 and it works fine.

Here is what i have found about this issue (Based on about 400 IPcams installed so far):
- this issue occurs only on NVRs that has been made BEFORE firmware that supports H264+ (idk 3.3.4?), every new device (4k line) has no problem at all
- issue is not based on camera type or camera FW from 5.3.6 - 5.4.0 (if it supports H264+)
- it must be HARDWARE PROBLEM of NVR and I tried many many many configurations with various firmwares and devices... no chance to get it work properly

So... if you buy NVR that has been released before official FW that supports H264+ (and it comes updated or you will update it to latest FW that supports H264+) there is CHANCE that it will not work and that chance is not so small

sorry but disagree, i have 4k NVR (DS-7716NI-I4 / 16P), also you get same issue direct from CAM's when not linked through NVR, as i said above i spent over 6 weeks on these issue direct with HikVision support in china, and they have confirm a firmware bug in firmware 5.4.xx i proved to them that h264+ had no such issue in 5.3.8, anyway they have acknowledged the BUG and are working on the fix, now we just have to wait and see.

 

[vrbikk]

thank you for your answer

recently i have installed DS-7716NI-I4, DS-7732NI-I4 and DS-7608-K2 with no problem on H264+ all of them running newest FW on various cameras too

maybe i have just luck or I dont know, its definetely weird issue

 

[Brocky120]

I turned H.264+ off. I have dropped all bitrates to 5Mbits and then turned H.264+ back on. It is a lot better now and every 4-6 hours there is a roughly 2 second delay on creating a new recording file, so I'm happy with that. Would like a higher bit rate and Frame rate however...

 

[andyblac]

I turned H.264+ off. I have dropped all bitrates to 5Mbits and then turned H.264+ back on. It is a lot better now and every 4-6 hours there is a roughly 2 second delay on creating a new recording file, so I'm happy with that. Would like a higher bit rate and Frame rate however...

did you drop the 'Sharpness' to 18, this is a must when use H264+, that the main BUG in camera firmware.

 

[Brocky120]

No, I dont have a monitor for the NVR unless I take my Gaming one to the other room. I might check it now though actually.

 

[andyblac]

No, I dont have a monitor for the NVR unless I take my Gaming one to the other room. I might check it now though actually.

connect to cam direct via webpage

1: Enable Virtual Host


2: then clink on camera



3: login to camera webpage, and go to configure, then to Image, and change Sharpness to 18.

 

[Brocky120]

Ok. A little update. It did seem to work very well to start with, but now there are still 2 or 3 camera's that are delaying in making a new recording file (one stopped at 394mb and didnt started again for another 2 hours). Really annoyed.

Does anyone know why when I download (export) the recording onto my laptop, when I view it, it looks like this?

 

[Brad_C]

That's a classic "I missed an I-frame" artifact. What are you viewing it with? Hik's "h264+" does strange things with I frames and most standard players don't cope well at all. You might need to use a Hikvision player that is recent enough that it understands what they've done with the stream.
I've played about with h264+ on a number of non-Hik NVR & VMS and the compatibility can change significant;y between camera minor software versions, so it's obviously something they're still tweaking/developing.

 

[Brocky120]

That's a classic "I missed an I-frame" artifact. What are you viewing it with? Hik's "h264+" does strange things with I frames and most standard players don't cope well at all. You might need to use a Hikvision player that is recent enough that it understands what they've done with the stream.
I've played about with h264+ on a number of non-Hik NVR & VMS and the compatibility can change significant;y between camera minor software versions, so it's obviously something they're still tweaking/developing.

Ahh I see. When I Playback using the 4500 App or through the browser, say I select 18:00 (and its currently 18:35), It wont show me 18:00, it drops back to 17:53:07 - 17:53:09 and repeats them 3 seconds like its stopped recording but its solid blue. The bar at the bottom where the blue bar is carry's on past 17:53:09 but the playback sticks there. Any idea's of this?

 

[Brad_C]

No, sorry. No idea. I reverted all my cameras back to pre-h264+ software versions. I couldn't find enough benefit in there because it just made playback, scrubbing and searching that much harder as it was always held up looking for an iframe.

i don't use the Hik software much either. I use 4500 on an iPad for live views sometimes, but everything else is done on an nvr.

 

[wimlem]

Same issue here with a DS-7616NI-E2/A recorder. I also used H264+ for all camera's, and all of them had gaps between the recordings. Also, the smart Events (motion detection) markings seem to disappear from the playback option.

I reverted back to the H264, and the gaps are gone.

 

[Brocky120]

I have 3 camera's using H.264+ which are working 99% good (touch wood!). The other two are exactly the same however one was not recording for 2-4 hours at a time and when it did record, it only recorded 5% of what it saw and the rest was frozen!?

I have turned H.264+ off on these two camera's and I am still getting 2-3 second gaps between recordings which isnt a major issue but a little annoying.

 

[Brad_C]

I have turned H.264+ off on these two camera's and I am still getting 2-3 second gaps between recordings which isnt a major issue but a little annoying.

Whatis your iframe interval? I wonder whether one clip is stopping mid GOP and the next clip has to wait for an iframe to come along to start?

 

[Brocky120]

They are all set at 50.. i don't know how to change them...

 

[nayr]

do you have different profile options for recording clips? if so make sure they are configured the same.. if its changing quality on the fly because of events it can cause this

 

[Brocky120]

I'll check now, thanks

 

[vincent55]

Same issue here with a DS-7616NI-E2/A recorder. I also used H264+ for all camera's, and all of them had gaps between the recordings

Had same issue with same NVR, bug fixed in 3.4.80. From changelog: "Optimize E series NVR’s recording stability when switching to next packet".
After upgrading firmware, bad gaps turned to good ones, i.e. end time of previous file is now greater than start time of next file.
Slightly annoying during playback(when switching files), but at least no more loss of information.

I reverted back to the H264, and the gaps are gone.

With firmware 3.4.62, if I set I-frame too high - had the gaps even with H.264+ off.
I think you don't see gaps just because H.264 has low I-frame value by default.

 

[Brad_C]

With firmware 3.4.62, if I set I-frame too high - had the gaps even with H.264+ off.
I think you don't see gaps just because H.264 has low I-frame value by default.

You'll need to clarify what you mean here by high and low. If you mean "low" as in the setting in the camera is a lower number, then you make the number of B frames between I frames smaller, so you get the I frames more often, and vice versa for "high".

h264+ has very long intervals between I-frames making searching, reverse playback and scrubbing quite challenging. It also exacerbates the issues being discussed here with the long gaps between clips on some recording systems. The "default" I-frame setting is very device specific. From memory all my cameras defaulted to about 50, which with a frame rate of 12 made for up to 4 second delays when switching up a stream, and would certainly contribute to the issue being discussed.

My experience with h264+ was even longer and variable periods between I-frames.

Some recommendations are setting the I-frame interval the same as the frame rate. That can be useful when you need rapid switching between live streams (like in a control room), however I suspect it's recommended here to work around deficiencies in either the cameras encoder or the recording system.

 

[vincent55]

You'll need to clarify what you mean here by high and low. If you mean "low" as in the setting in the camera is a lower number

Exactly. Sorry for confusion.

With firmware 3.4.62, I tested configuration H.264=off, fps=25, I-Frame=250 and had the gaps.
I mean that from my experience the bug depends of I-frame interval only and it doesn't matter whether H264+ on or off.

 

[Brad_C]

Exactly. Sorry for confusion.

With firmware 3.4.62, I tested configuration H.264=off, fps=25, I-Frame=250 and had the gaps.
I mean that from my experience the bug depends of I-frame interval only and it doesn't matter whether H264+ on or off.

Nicely diagnosed. Yes, h264+ really stretches out the I-frames and you have no control over it, so turning that off at least gives you a bit of control over that.

I'm starting to think h264+ is pretty much mostly h264 compliant, it just uses some of the motion compensation features in perverse ways that are mostly compatible with existing decoders. I've been meaning to pull the stream apart to try and figure out what they are doing, because there is no doubt that it does use less bandwidth. The I-frames are the same size, the I-frame intervals are much further apart than is normally reasonable, but they do something with the B frames that does seem to compact them significantly.