Lorex Active Deterence 4K - Super H.264/5 & Recording Quality & Setup Questions?

[cybernetics1d]

Hello fellow ipcamtalkers,

Just recently got new Lorex Active Deterence 4K NVR camera system from Costco. Granted this is my first venture into NVR systems, but so far everything is working and picture quality looks good to me after some various tweaking.

On the Lorex NVR menu under Recording, when using H265 for recording, there's an option to enable/disabled "Super H.264/5", does anyone know what this is for and whether or not I should enabling it when using H265? I'm not able to find anything on Lorex's manual on their website. I saw someone posting asking similar question on previous ipcamtalk thread, but I didn't see any definite answer.

I'm currently using H265 with VBR sets to max(6) with 4096Kbps as bitrate and at 4K/10fps for mainstream. What does everyone normally use, H264 or H265 if it's available? Is H265 now good enough without sacrificing much picture quality in regards to consumer NVRs out there such as this LNR616X that Lorex uses in this camera system kit? Also, is it waste of a bandwidth if we're using CBR with max bitrate for continuous recording?

I've reviewing some previously recorded videos and notice picture is not as sharp as I'd like. This is especially when I zoom in on someone's face to test. I tweaked the recording quality and it seems to help a bit, but I'm just trying to find out if there's more I can do to help. I read somewhere I can increase the shutter speed to help this, but I'm not finding that option available even when connecting to individual camera itself. Does anyone else use this camera or something similar can comment on this? Would it help my sharpness if I increase my recording video from 10fps to 15fps?

I've messed with WDR settings on some of the cameras, but not too sure if I should be turning it on for all the cameras or not. Is everyone uses WDR only when it's really needed or does that depends on lighting conditions?

Finally, as far as continuous versus motion recording, does everyone usually stick to default continuous 24/7 recording or record only when motion is detected? How about 10 fps or 15fps?

Thanks in advance.

 

[cybernetics1d]

For anyone who may come across this thread later, I reached out to Lorex support about the Super H264/5 and this is their answer.

"Regarding your first question, the Super H264/5 option is there to get a better compression file type. When enabled, the video quality gets a little bit better and allows for more frames per second to be recorded smoothly."

I've been using SmartPSS software from Dahua and this setting is basically equivalent to Smart Codec open/close.

 

[cybernetics1d]

Thanks for your inputs on this NoneYa44.

I too have the 16 channels, 9 LAD cam kit like yours. This is my very first NVR camera system in general so researching and reading various threads online have been a little overwhelming, but somewhat enjoyable at the same time. I'm still trying to figure out all the available options, what it means or how it should be used, while trying to tweak it more to compare various settings and checking results.

You mentioned that you're using H265 on less important cameras. From what I've been reading around online, my impression is H265 is a more efficient codec that should produce better image quality while using lesser storage comparing to H264 at same bitrate. Am I misunderstanding this or do you just prefer H264 in regards to overall image quality? On the max FPS per channel, do you know what's the max number for this Lorex NVR? I notice you're using 25 FPS, but I don't see that's an available option when the camera's resolution sets to 4K. Are you using a lower resolution on these cams at 25fps by chance? Do you notice sharper image when using higher FPS?

I'm also doing both continuous and motion recording. Not sure if you're experiencing this or noticed it, but when I reviewed some past footage, I notice some frame skipping or time lapsed up to 30s when reviewing footage on NVR. When it goes from green to yellow (motion) on playback timeline, I started noticing this skipping or time lapsed jump. I'm not sure if this is a configuration issue here or NVR choking on playback while recording still going on in background or something else.

I've found shutter adjustment is possible on these LAD cameras. If you're using IE browser to access to the NVR, when you go into tab SETUP, under CAMERA SETTINGS > REMOTE DEVICE, you can click on the E browser icon and it will take you to the login page of the camera itself. From there, you can make some additional adjustments such as changing camera's setting to Shutter Priority Mode or manual that gives you some playroom in regards to shutter speed.

Thanks for the tips on WDR. I've enabled it on a couple of the cameras where I have lighting issue, but have not adjusted it much outside of the default value. Will try reducing contrast to 45 to see how it goes.

 

[aristobrat]

When it goes from green to yellow (motion) on playback timeline, I started noticing this skipping or time lapsed jump. I'm not sure if this is a configuration issue here or NVR choking on playback while recording still going on in background or something else.

There was a firmware issue with Dahua NVRs a year or so ago that caused glitching/jumping when a new recording started. Was it anything like these?


The issue was that the Dahua NVR was starting the recordings with a frame from the camera that didn't contain a full image. IIRC, with h.264, the majority of the frames sent are partial images ... specifically, only the part of the image that has moved since the previous frame was sent. A full image is sent in a frame called "iframe". I think Dahua only sends an iframe at twice the FPS... So if you have the camera set at 25 FPS, the iframe (the only frame with a full image) is sent every 50 frames. With Dahua, you can configure how frequently the iframe is sent, with the tradeoff being the more frequent it sent, the more bandwidth used.

Anyhow, with the NVR starting recordings on non-iframes, when that recording is played back, the player doesn't have a full image to show until it gets far enough into the recording and comes across an iframe. Sometimes recordings would just display black and jump ahead a second or two, sometimes players (like VLC) would actually display the content of the partial frames, so you'd see a gray screen with the partial image on it... It was all rather weird and irritating. They eventually fixed it with a firmware update (which I assume had the NVR start the recording with an iframe).

 

[cybernetics1d]

Yeah, this is similar what I'm seeing when viewing the playback from the NVR. Unfortunately, I think the system has the latest firmware as I don't see anything out there on Lorex site on newer firmware.

With that said, what's interesting is when I view the video playback using IE9 browser, I'm seeing less skips and transitions from continuous to motion recording seems very smooth. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the NVR itself as it jumps into separate recording files for the motion videos or it buggy software piece.