Mic too sensitive, what mic do I need?

[Daniel Ripley]

Hello

I have reolink 423 PTZ camera. I got this mic for it with this POE splitter. Im using Blue Iris software. When I turned on the audio with the gain set the lowest at 50% I hear what I describe as a bad snr where the noise is louder than the sound it should be picking up. I also head crackling randomly. The camera does have a eath wire but I have nowhere to put it? Another very bad side effect is the fps goes from 15fps down to as low as 1fps fluctuating.

My question is this the wrong mic, is it the camera, and should adding audio make the stream take such a hit? Here is a cropped video segment.


Thanks, Dan

 

[Bradmph]

I am using this mic below. I am getting that crackling sound mostly when wind hits the mic and a loud vehicle drives by. I did turn down the mic volume on the assigned camera Ajhua webpage and it helped but not 100% yet. Going to try a foam ball over mic and maybe move it around to other areas to hide it from direct hits of harsh sounds and wind.

 

[Daniel Ripley]

Thanks for your reply, do you also have a reolink, or is this a thing that happends for other brands too? The crackling issue also happnds when a sound is louse like a bike driving by, its like a distortion but in my case the mic in these videos is inside a junction box so no wind can get to it.

Let ,me know how you get on.

Thanks, Dan

 

[Homer]

That's interesting. I have a very similar Ebay microphone to the OP, and it sounds exactly the same as the "poor sound" video. I have a different cheap IP camera and BI. It sounds like a feedback loop to me rather than a snr issue. I actually bought two of the microphones, and they sound the same so I just thought they were wrong for my camera. I originally had a pc microphone plugged in, but the audio was too quiet (It actually only picked up percussive sound, so if somebody close by was talking, you would only hear tak tak tak until they stopped), and so I thought I needed the powered version.
Wrong again I didn't want to waste any more money with the cheap camera, so left it at that.

Now where can we find that microphone that Bradmph is showing - in the UK ? Worth a try ?

 

[J Sigmo]

It sounds to me like you are getting clipping (hard limiting) due to audio signals that are too loud.

Is it possible that the microphone you are using includes a built-in pre-amp, but the input on the camera is set up to use a non-amplified microphone? So you're feeding a "line level" signal into a "microphone level" input?

Even with my cameras that have built-in microphones, wind can easily create large enough subsonic audio levels to drive them into clipping. And that kid with the car that has no mufflers or the grown-up kids on their Harleys can also generate clipping.

But we expect clipping with extremely loud sounds if no audio compression is applied early enough in the signal chain.

But in your case, it seems like the audio out of your particular microphone is pre-amplified up to a level that is too high even for normal sound levels to then be accommodated by the rest of the system.

You may need a different (non-amplified) microphone. Or you could build an attenuator to reduce its level down to match the input on your system.

 

[SkyLake]

Or you could use something like this on external microphones

 

[Daniel Ripley]

My issue is not wind, is just way to sensitive plus crackling, and background noise. I wish I could have it like the Arlo Pro 2, the sound on that was just amazing.

Dan

 

[J Sigmo]

A fuzzy microphone cover (AKA "dead cat") can be a lot of help for wind noise, which is a huge problem at my location.

But if the signal level from the microphone is simply too high, the dead cat won't help for that.

It looks like both of the microphones shown in the above posts require power to operate. That implies that they may contain built-in preamplifiers. (You need some power just to operate a condenser microphone, but even some of the electret condenser microphone capsules contain a built-in FET preamp if only to lower the output impedance.

Anyhow, it seems clear that the signal levels from these particular microphones are too high for what the Reolink camera can handle. Turning the volume down doesn't help because the clipping has already occurred before the point in the system where the gain adjustment is being made. So you just get the same distorted, crackling (clipped) audio, but you can adjust how loud that bad audio is.

The mic to which the OP linked claims the audio output runs from 0 to 6V! 6V is an enormous level for an audio signal. They don't actually specify the sensitivity with respect to a reference sound level the way proper microphone manufacturers do, so we have no way of getting a feel for what sort of signal level we'd expect based on a particular sound pressure level. So we can only speculate.

The manufacturer does claim the mic is "high gain" and talk about being able to hear very faint sounds with it, even calling it a "spy mic". Normally, microphone/transmitter units designed to be used as "bugging devices" for spying have very high sensitivity, since the spy would want to hear and understand talking perhaps taking place fairly far distant from the bug's location. That's probably not what we really want for a normal security camera location because the wind, road noise, etc., will overwhelm things.

That microphone is very inexpensive, so it might be better to just find one with a lower output. But you could build an attenuator to insert in-line with the signal from the microphone.

The output impedance is stated to be 600 Ohms, which is good for this. Simply buy a 10K Ohm audio-taper potentiometer, and mount it in a small metal enclosure. Get a cable with an RCA male on each end (you probably already have one to connect the mic to the camera, anyhow). Cut the RCA Male-Male cable in half and solder the shields of both half-cables to the CCW (counter clockwise) terminal of the pot.

Solder the center conductor of the half cable that will be coming from the microphone to the CW (clockwise) terminal of the pot.

Solder the center conductor of the half-cable that will be feeding the camera's input to the middle terminal of the pot.

The shields of the two half-cables should also be tied to the metal enclosure to provide that shielding to the whole box, including the potentiometer.

Now you can adjust the signal level down to whatever you want. That will all need to either be in a dry location or be waterproofed, of course.

Looking at Reolink's site, I see no mention of the audio signal levels that the camera expects to see. So as with the microphone, this is only a matter of speculation unless I have one in my hands to test.

 

[Homer]

J Sigmo,
I can feel a bodge cable coming on

Now where did I put my electronic components.......

 

[Daniel Ripley]

A fuzzy microphone cover (AKA "dead cat") can be a lot of help for wind noise, which is a huge problem at my location.

But if the signal level from the microphone is simply too high, the dead cat won't help for that.

It looks like both of the microphones shown in the above posts require power to operate. That implies that they may contain built-in preamplifiers. (You need some power just to operate a condenser microphone, but even some of the electret condenser microphone capsules contain a built-in FET preamp if only to lower the output impedance.

Anyhow, it seems clear that the signal levels from these particular microphones are too high for what the Reolink camera can handle. Turning the volume down doesn't help because the clipping has already occurred before the point in the system where the gain adjustment is being made. So you just get the same distorted, crackling (clipped) audio, but you can adjust how loud that bad audio is.

The mic to which the OP linked claims the audio output runs from 0 to 6V! 6V is an enormous level for an audio signal. They don't actually specify the sensitivity with respect to a reference sound level the way proper microphone manufacturers do, so we have no way of getting a feel for what sort of signal level we'd expect based on a particular sound pressure level. So we can only speculate.

The manufacturer does claim the mic is "high gain" and talk about being able to hear very faint sounds with it, even calling it a "spy mic". Normally, microphone/transmitter units designed to be used as "bugging devices" for spying have very high sensitivity, since the spy would want to hear and understand talking perhaps taking place fairly far distant from the bug's location. That's probably not what we really want for a normal security camera location because the wind, road noise, etc., will overwhelm things.

That microphone is very inexpensive, so it might be better to just find one with a lower output. But you could build an attenuator to insert in-line with the signal from the microphone.

The output impedance is stated to be 600 Ohms, which is good for this. Simply buy a 10K Ohm audio-taper potentiometer, and mount it in a small metal enclosure. Get a cable with an RCA male on each end (you probably already have one to connect the mic to the camera, anyhow). Cut the RCA Male-Male cable in half and solder the shields of both half-cables to the CCW (counter clockwise) terminal of the pot.

Solder the center conductor of the half cable that will be coming from the microphone to the CW (clockwise) terminal of the pot.

Solder the center conductor of the half-cable that will be feeding the camera's input to the middle terminal of the pot.

The shields of the two half-cables should also be tied to the metal enclosure to provide that shielding to the whole box, including the potentiometer.

Now you can adjust the signal level down to whatever you want. That will all need to either be in a dry location or be waterproofed, of course.

Looking at Reolink's site, I see no mention of the audio signal levels that the camera expects to see. So as with the microphone, this is only a matter of speculation unless I have one in my hands to test.

Thanks for your detailed reply. While I dont mind opening things and having a tinker to fix things, this is one of thoes things that has dragged out the whole process of getting a camera with many issues along the way from the Blue Iris server, faulty poe splitters. PC over heating issues to name a new, I just need one thing to work without any more problems and just want to plug a mic in and have it work.

The mic as you said is way too sensitive, I cant find what one will be suitable. Contacting reolink does not get me far, they seem very willing to help but dont seem to have much idea on anything. Iv sent the poe splitter back now, and the mic also, and will not bother unless I see someone get down to a mic that does work. Your explanation on the distortion sounds logical, turning down the sound level only effects how loud the distortion is but does and wont remove it as its already clipped at the source, the mic itself.

Thanks, Dan

 

[fenderman]

My issue is not wind, is just way to sensitive plus crackling, and background noise. I wish I could have it like the Arlo Pro 2, the sound on that was just amazing.

Dan

You either have a crap camera or a crap Mic likely both...Arlo is garbage reolink is garbage .. stop buying garbage and you won't have these problems..

 

[Daniel Ripley]

You either have a crap camera or a crap Mic likely both...Arlo is garbage reolink is garbage .. stop buying garbage and you won't have these problems..

While you may be right to some degree that neither of these cameras mentioned are not the best, for general home security either are fine, but there are trade offs between the two.

Rather than right them off as both "garbage" it would be helpful to mention why, and what experience you personally have with either. Iv picked up that most here have a somewhat hate for Reolink, but I do wonder how many have hands on experience, and how many just relay what they have said and read. In either case dont take it that Im somehow offended, Im not, they are just tools to me, I dont have a personal connection with things.

As you brought up that they are garbage, this is not the first time iv heard this, and I do agree with that to some degree. I may as well dedicate a few min of my time to give my personal experience on both as this would be more helpful to other potential first time IP camera buyers.

Arlo Pro 2:

Pros:

They are small
Easy to fit
Totaly Wireless (see cons)
Good image quality for 1080p
very good 130 degree wide angle
Sound quality is exelent
Software requires no technical experience
Free cloud service

Cons:

Way too expensive
Motion Zones only work when camera is powered
Sofware simple, only basic motion detection offered
Zones dont always work as expected
Cloud service not always reliable
Poor tech support.
No ONVIF support

The Arlo Pro 2 gve me a mixed bag of feelings by the time I had decided to send mine back. It was bad timing as a new firmware update was given to the cameras and this one in question was a very bad one, I think it was March 14 2018 from memory. This caused a number of issues. I also had issues with motion zones in which they would either not pick up motion in the zone, or pick up motion way outside the zone. After spending much time contacting tech support while willing to help they failed in every way to help. I think by the end of it I had a faulty set up as some of the issues I had where not relayed across the community. The image quality was sharp, great colour, and the sound was very very high quality. The remote viewing was always working well for me while their current firware had caused issues with the mobile app. They are significantly over priced, but if them few issues I had where sorted, along with the free 7 day cloud recording, and USB back up I would have stuck with them as the alternative route was way more complex.

Reolink 422 dome, and 423 PTZ cameras

Pros:

Cheaper than alternitives
Welcoming web site with plenty of good knowledge share for a new user
Built reasonable
5MP high res cameras
Simple software, easy to set up
ONVIF support

Cons:

No sound for 422 dome, 423 can rca for sound (No recommended mic found)
Sofware too basic, lack of motion detection options, poor fps, exposure settings do not work for day light.
Over exposure issues towards outer frame.
Colour is a bit under saturated
PTZ is slow to focus but fine for its price.

I have both the Reolink 422 and 423 cameras. The 422 dome has a memory card slot which is handy if the server for Blue Iris goes down. If I didnt use Blue Iris I would have sent them back purely on the basis of their software, it has a very low frame rate, motion detection settings are limited, and the at times over exposed image can be a issue during the day, it can not be adjusted with the exposure settings. What saves this camera it is ONVIF which opens the camera up to 3rd party software. I used Blue Iris. It played well, and was easy to set up. The frame rate is decent at 15fps, and there is no taring, or IR bleeding as many had reported in the past. The IR for both the 422 dome and 423 PTZ works best at distance so this is not a issue for the 423 PTZ camera as you dont need to have it mounted too low, however the 422 dome while picks up very well at night, if you get too close the person will be blown out in which makes face recognition useless. The 422 camera has no audio which is a shame while the 423 offers a RCA audio in but Reolink offers no recommendations, or gives any details. As of yet iv not found a compatible mic. The 422 dome camera offers great resolution but 4mp is more than enough. The zoom for 422 is fine but it is of little use when you really need to be able to pan because the chances that your camera is facing right on a area of interest while being placed to cover a wider area when zoomed out may be unlikely unless your looking down a straight lawn. The 423 PTZ is made well, easy to install, and has a very fast PTZ response. The focus is slower than other cameras out there but its not too much of a issue for home use.

The presets for the PTZ all worked well, and played well with Blue Iris. Because Blue Iris has such a vast amount of control I could trigger the PTZ presets from cloned cameras with different zones so I a cloned camera that has a motion zone was at the fence and picked up motion the PTZ preset can be trigged that pans and zoomes on that location. Reolink tech support was fast to respond and friendly in their mannor, however it came across after several attempts in resolving a issue with Over exposure that they didnt have the experties that they should due to the things I was asked to try to resolve the issue. They did offer a full refund, or replacement, but by then I had had enough and needed to get back to some normality of life. While Reolink on some forums gets a bad press, I would say they are not as bad as iv read, but certainly have their issues, more so if you rely totally on their very limited software.

 

[TonyR]

@Daniel Ripley , I'm curious....
What is your Internet download AND upload speeds where you had/have the Arlo deployed and you were happy with its performance?

 

[Daniel Ripley]

@Daniel Ripley , I'm curious....
What is your Internet download AND upload speeds where you had/have the Arlo deployed and you were happy with its performance?

Im on Fiber Optic and Im getting on avg 25ping 38 mps download and 21mps upload. The Arlo pro 2 when the server was working I was able to connect instantly while out to real time footage, and watch recorded clips much faster than what I can now do with Blue Iris, but to be fair Im now running 2x 4mp cameras as apposed to 2x 2mp cameras. With the Arlo at the time I had issues with the firmware for cameras, the mobile app, and their servers had issues. Because the footage comes from the camera to the Arlo Hub where its encoded real time, then gets uploaded to their cloud and finaly streams, there is a 3 second lag, but this I found let the buffer give non interrupted streams. When the server was down from Arlos end id get time out messages on the app.

Regarding the battery life, I got little over 1 week from the camera out the front of house as it just got triggered too often. If the zones actually worked how they should have done then it would have made for a much better experience, but they failed badly. The other thing with the Arlo was if it did capture anyone, unless you had it low enough to get the face the footage it would not be clear enough for evidence without a optical zoom, and at night even worse, much worse. You cant have then skins on either, not the ones that have the peeks on them as they make the IR bounce and offer poor IR footage. With my current set up not only do I not get false triggers like I did before, but I can digitaly zoom right in and see the face of that person. The PTZ of course offers the best of both worlds, in which I can move and zoom my camera when out and about from my mobile phone.

Dan

 

[TonyR]

Thanks for the reply.

I asked about upload speed because there is a HUGE part of the population in the U.S. that does not have 38m down & 21m up as you do and as used in the Arlo ads. Many of us don't live in downtown Utopia and instead have 1.5m to 4.0m down and .5m to 2m up....yes, believe it or not....and we are in the continental U.S. We may not be in the 21st century (just barely the 20th, IMO), but it's all we have. Cloud based stuff just plain will not work under these conditions, therefore, it provides even more reason for many of us to monitor and record locally.

When all you have are lemons, you make lemonade, I guess.

 

[Daniel Ripley]

Thanks for the reply.

I asked about upload speed because there is a HUGE part of the population in the U.S. that does not have 38m down & 21m up as you do and as used in the Arlo ads. Many of us don't live in downtown Utopia and instead have 1.5m to 4.0m down and .5m to 2m up....yes, believe it or not....and we are in the continental U.S. We may not be in the 21st century (just barely the 20th, IMO), but it's all we have. Cloud based stuff just plain will not work under these conditions, therefore, it provides even more reason for many of us to monitor and record locally.

When all you have are lemons, you make lemonade, I guess.

Ahh yes there is no chance on 1.5mb, and being the video has to upload before you can even stream it back causes you double trouble and delays.

Dan

 

[fenderman]

While you may be right to some degree that neither of these cameras mentioned are not the best, for general home security either are fine, but there are trade offs between the two.

Rather than right them off as both "garbage" it would be helpful to mention why, and what experience you personally have with either. Iv picked up that most here have a somewhat hate for Reolink, but I do wonder how many have hands on experience, and how many just relay what they have said and read. In either case dont take it that Im somehow offended, Im not, they are just tools to me, I dont have a personal connection with things.

As you brought up that they are garbage, this is not the first time iv heard this, and I do agree with that to some degree. I may as well dedicate a few min of my time to give my personal experience on both as this would be more helpful to other potential first time IP camera buyers.

Arlo Pro 2:

Pros:

They are small
Easy to fit
Totaly Wireless (see cons)
Good image quality for 1080p
very good 130 degree wide angle
Sound quality is exelent
Software requires no technical experience
Free cloud service

Cons:

Way too expensive
Motion Zones only work when camera is powered
Sofware simple, only basic motion detection offered
Zones dont always work as expected
Cloud service not always reliable
Poor tech support.
No ONVIF support

The Arlo Pro 2 gve me a mixed bag of feelings by the time I had decided to send mine back. It was bad timing as a new firmware update was given to the cameras and this one in question was a very bad one, I think it was March 14 2018 from memory. This caused a number of issues. I also had issues with motion zones in which they would either not pick up motion in the zone, or pick up motion way outside the zone. After spending much time contacting tech support while willing to help they failed in every way to help. I think by the end of it I had a faulty set up as some of the issues I had where not relayed across the community. The image quality was sharp, great colour, and the sound was very very high quality. The remote viewing was always working well for me while their current firware had caused issues with the mobile app. They are significantly over priced, but if them few issues I had where sorted, along with the free 7 day cloud recording, and USB back up I would have stuck with them as the alternative route was way more complex.

Reolink 422 dome, and 423 PTZ cameras

Pros:

Cheaper than alternitives
Welcoming web site with plenty of good knowledge share for a new user
Built reasonable
5MP high res cameras
Simple software, easy to set up
ONVIF support

Cons:

No sound for 422 dome, 423 can rca for sound (No recommended mic found)
Sofware too basic, lack of motion detection options, poor fps, exposure settings do not work for day light.
Over exposure issues towards outer frame.
Colour is a bit under saturated
PTZ is slow to focus but fine for its price.

I have both the Reolink 422 and 423 cameras. The 422 dome has a memory card slot which is handy if the server for Blue Iris goes down. If I didnt use Blue Iris I would have sent them back purely on the basis of their software, it has a very low frame rate, motion detection settings are limited, and the at times over exposed image can be a issue during the day, it can not be adjusted with the exposure settings. What saves this camera it is ONVIF which opens the camera up to 3rd party software. I used Blue Iris. It played well, and was easy to set up. The frame rate is decent at 15fps, and there is no taring, or IR bleeding as many had reported in the past. The IR for both the 422 dome and 423 PTZ works best at distance so this is not a issue for the 423 PTZ camera as you dont need to have it mounted too low, however the 422 dome while picks up very well at night, if you get too close the person will be blown out in which makes face recognition useless. The 422 camera has no audio which is a shame while the 423 offers a RCA audio in but Reolink offers no recommendations, or gives any details. As of yet iv not found a compatible mic. The 422 dome camera offers great resolution but 4mp is more than enough. The zoom for 422 is fine but it is of little use when you really need to be able to pan because the chances that your camera is facing right on a area of interest while being placed to cover a wider area when zoomed out may be unlikely unless your looking down a straight lawn. The 423 PTZ is made well, easy to install, and has a very fast PTZ response. The focus is slower than other cameras out there but its not too much of a issue for home use.

The presets for the PTZ all worked well, and played well with Blue Iris. Because Blue Iris has such a vast amount of control I could trigger the PTZ presets from cloned cameras with different zones so I a cloned camera that has a motion zone was at the fence and picked up motion the PTZ preset can be trigged that pans and zoomes on that location. Reolink tech support was fast to respond and friendly in their mannor, however it came across after several attempts in resolving a issue with Over exposure that they didnt have the experties that they should due to the things I was asked to try to resolve the issue. They did offer a full refund, or replacement, but by then I had had enough and needed to get back to some normality of life. While Reolink on some forums gets a bad press, I would say they are not as bad as iv read, but certainly have their issues, more so if you rely totally on their very limited software.

That's a long Manifesto... I won't repeat why they're garbage... You can use the Forum search capability to read it for yourself... But you seem to be an expert in this area and know better...