Hey, I have noticed that a few of my cameras internal timestamp is not matching the BI timestamp. If I log directly into the camera the timestamp is correct. If I compare that to BI the camera is about a minute behind. I have 2 cameras that are doing this, 1 - 8 MP and 1 - 5 MP camera. BI shows a yellow warning icon and it appears the FPS is lower than what it should be (both should be at 15 FPS). If I lower the resolution to 2 MP for both cameras, they catch back up and stay fine. That leads me to believe I have a bandwith issue. Any ideas on what is happening? Can Cat 5e cable not handle higher MP cameras?
Lagging Video in BI
- Thread starter archedraft
- Start date
Thanks for the reply Fenderman. The BI PC is on the same switch as 6 of the 8 cameras. The switch is a managed UniFi 60W switch. Could the switch be the issue?
SouthernYankee
IPCT Contributor
1) what is the video compression h.264 or h.265 ?
2) are you using any advance Codex, provided a screen shot of each camera setting from the camera (NOT BI) .
3) provided a screen shot of Blue iris status (lighting bolt graph) clip storage tab.
4) what is your average CPU load. on the PC. provide a screen shot of the windows windows task manager process tab sorted by memory (most at the top), Must contain, memory, disk, network, GPU, GPU engine columns.
5) what is your CPU type and memory.
6) how are you keeping the camera and BI PC times in-sync
It is not really possible for a single camera to over drive your network cable, with the current camera speeds.
2) are you using any advance Codex, provided a screen shot of each camera setting from the camera (NOT BI) .
3) provided a screen shot of Blue iris status (lighting bolt graph) clip storage tab.
4) what is your average CPU load. on the PC. provide a screen shot of the windows windows task manager process tab sorted by memory (most at the top), Must contain, memory, disk, network, GPU, GPU engine columns.
5) what is your CPU type and memory.
6) how are you keeping the camera and BI PC times in-sync
It is not really possible for a single camera to over drive your network cable, with the current camera speeds.
1. h.264 - (side question, are we able to switch to h.265, I thought I read we could if the CPU is newer?)
2. Not that I am aware of, see screenshots of each camera. I labeled each in case that helps.
3. Attached (I think this is what you are wanting, let me know if I took the wrong screenshots)
4. Attached.
5. Attached.
6. I have NetTime installed on my BI machine and each camera is set to sync up every 15 minutes.
Thanks for your time!
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SouthernYankee
IPCT Contributor
1)The only thing I see is that you appear to be writing the new data to a network drive. This is not a good idea.
2) Also do not use 100% of the drive space for BI storage. It is recommend to leave 5-10% of the drive free and not allocated to BI. This is not the cause of the problem.
3) For the number of cameras, your MP/SEC and your CPU (I7-8700T) and memory (16GB) a CPU load of 40% seems little high.
4) on the task manager on the screen shot, it does not show the GPU being used. But it does show the GPU in BI beng configured . I do not understand this. (anybody??)
5) the camera setting looks OK, i prefer a frame rate of 15 and an Iframe of 15. I know nothing about the door bell, settings.
6) net time should keep the cameras and BI in sync.
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1) The current version of BI will support H.265 with hardware acceleration, I believe but am not positive that your CPU supports it also.
2) Check the receive buffer size on each camera, i recommend at least 15 mb. Also 20 MB for the 8MP camera.
3) what version of BI are you using ?
4) The 5.1 and 8MP cameras the ones causing the problem. Are they plugged into the same switch as BI. Are any other cameras having problems with time ?
5) as you are using direct to disk in BI. ?
I know nothing about managed UniFi switch. All my switches are dumb.
2) Also do not use 100% of the drive space for BI storage. It is recommend to leave 5-10% of the drive free and not allocated to BI. This is not the cause of the problem.
3) For the number of cameras, your MP/SEC and your CPU (I7-8700T) and memory (16GB) a CPU load of 40% seems little high.
4) on the task manager on the screen shot, it does not show the GPU being used. But it does show the GPU in BI beng configured . I do not understand this. (anybody??)
5) the camera setting looks OK, i prefer a frame rate of 15 and an Iframe of 15. I know nothing about the door bell, settings.
6) net time should keep the cameras and BI in sync.
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1) The current version of BI will support H.265 with hardware acceleration, I believe but am not positive that your CPU supports it also.
2) Check the receive buffer size on each camera, i recommend at least 15 mb. Also 20 MB for the 8MP camera.
3) what version of BI are you using ?
4) The 5.1 and 8MP cameras the ones causing the problem. Are they plugged into the same switch as BI. Are any other cameras having problems with time ?
5) as you are using direct to disk in BI. ?
I know nothing about managed UniFi switch. All my switches are dumb.
as SY indicates, BI's default setting of 6MB receive buffer for each camera (in each cam's video/configure page) is too low, especially for today's hi-rez/hi-bitrate cams.
This may not be your problem, but try setting that buffer to 20MB (if not already) and see if it helps...
This may not be your problem, but try setting that buffer to 20MB (if not already) and see if it helps...
1 & 2) Makes sense, Corrected (attached screenshot)
3) That screenshot was taken via a RDP session as it is a headless machine. I attached a monitor and took another although it still is around 40% CPU.
5) Updated all my cameras so that the Iframes matches the frame rate. The door bell camera settings are very limited.
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2) I updated each of my cameras so that the buffer size is now 15 MB and the 8 MP is at 20 MB.
3) BI Release 5.2.9.20 x64 (6/29/2020)
4) Correct, although the 5.1 MP Camera starting working fine after earlier today. I changed some settings in the camera config and something appears to have helped that one. I tried to match the settings as best I could on the 8 MP but it is a different manufacture so the settings options are a little different. The 8 MP camera is plugged into the same switch as BI. The 5 MP camera is not, currently, but it will be, it's a new camera that will get installed once I can get in the attic without melting. All the other cameras are fine with the time.
5) Correct, Direct to Disk
Other thoughts, it appears that the 8 MP camera is not recording fluidly either. If I playback the video it is missing sections of the time. Also, I changed the IFrame to be 15 and all the other cameras show a key of 1.0 but this one moves around somewhere around 0.5 which if the FPS is also half of what it should maybe that makes sense??
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I was able to figure out what was going one with the help from one of @SouthernYankee comments. He noticed that the CPU and memory seemed pretty high for what it was. I just recently bought a new to me computer from eBay so I took a deeper look at everything. As I was researching the Dell specifications I noticed that the power supply brick that came with the computer was rated at 65W and was undersized for this computer which recommended 90W. I was able to un-suppress a bios message (attached). The system had adjusted the performance to match the power available. After contacting the seller and receiving the correct dell power supply unit, the camera doesn't miss a beat at 8 MP. The computer now idles at 8% CPU! I am pretty amazed that an undersized power supply can affect the performance to the degree I was seeing. Thank you @SouthernYankee for taking the time to investigate, you really know your stuff!
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looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
So you purchased a mini pc? Never a good idea for BI use. As a SFF and up in size would have the power supply built in....not a brick.
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor