No image improvement, 1080p camera vs 4k

[wittaj]

oh wow, I've never fully understood why some mboards have 2 net ports until now. The problem i see with this approach is i would only being able to access the camera's gui's from the BI computer, correct? The problem has to be the way in which i'm currently running since when viewing the live feed in the camera gui it also has the same problem. cpu usage is under control at the moment. All but a couple cameras I could easily take the router out of the equation, a couple go through various switches before reaching the router, the others all go to a large POI switch which could be removed from the router and plugged directly into the BI pc. I have a netgear nighthawk router, everything is hard wired... it does have some setting for vlan but this is getting into uncharted territory for me. Thanks for all the info... btw, did you see my post earlier about your settings for the one camera?

Yeah, if you are seeing the problem live, then it is a bandwidth issue in your setup and likely all of them passing thru the router.

For $15ish dollars you can buy another Ethernet port if you don't have two on your computer and install it. And then connect all the cameras to that port.

You can then view and access the BI computer and camera GUI thru remote desktop on any other device in your house. I can pull it up on my phone. And then with OpenVPN, you can access the camera GUI anywhere.

I don't recall seeing the earlier post, let me go up and look.

 

[8trek]

Yeah, if you are seeing the problem live, then it is a bandwidth issue in your setup and likely all of them passing thru the router.

For $15ish dollars you can buy another Ethernet port if you don't have two on your computer and install it. And then connect all the cameras to that port.

You can then view and access the BI computer and camera GUI thru remote desktop on any other device in your house. I can pull it up on my phone. And then with OpenVPN, you can access the camera GUI anywhere.

I don't recall seeing the earlier post, let me go up and look.

Yea, i use AnyDesk to remote to all my computers so not a big deal, just a bit easier not having to remote into the BI first. What ip range are you using for the isolated camera network? My main network is 192.168.1.#

 

[wittaj]

Basically any IP that starts out 10. or 172. or 192. are reserved for the "home side" of the service so every home internally will be within this same range, so you can use any of these for your cameras, just don't make it the same as your main network LOL:

10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

 

[8trek]

Well I did it, put in a second net card, assigned it 10.0.0.1. Changed all the cameras accordingly, took the poe switch off the router and plugged directly into the 2nd net port. Sadly hasn't helped the stutter or whatever you want to call it. It's only happening to 4k cameras presumably because they are sending a significant amount more of data. This is my switch:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0939N12SQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

My understanding when buying the switch was no need for gigabit speeds on cameras... is that really the case?

Leaving out night time for now.. just focused on day time for the moment. Setting shutter as fast as it can go "0.5ms" still has stutter. Is this something that just can't be eliminated all together? Also for testing bumped everything up like frame rate and bit rates but still not able to eliminate.

EDIT setting the bit rate down rather than up seems to help the stutter issue... opposite effect of what i thought this was supposed to do. Any thoughts?

 

[looney2ns]

Well I did it, put in a second net card, assigned it 10.0.0.1. Changed all the cameras accordingly, took the poe switch off the router and plugged directly into the 2nd net port. Sadly hasn't helped the stutter or whatever you want to call it. It's only happening to 4k cameras presumably because they are sending a significant amount more of data. This is my switch:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0939N12SQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

My understanding when buying the switch was no need for gigabit speeds on cameras... is that really the case?

Leaving out night time for now.. just focused on day time for the moment. Setting shutter as fast as it can go "0.5ms" still has stutter. Is this something that just can't be eliminated all together? Also for testing bumped everything up like frame rate and bit rates but still not able to eliminate.

EDIT setting the bit rate down rather than up seems to help the stutter issue... opposite effect of what i thought this was supposed to do. Any thoughts?

Make sure to use H264H, CBR, Iframes and frame rate of 15 or lower.

 

[8trek]

Make sure to use H264H, CBR, Iframes and frame rate of 15 or lower.

All of those settings are set that way and hasn't changed.
wittaj curious to know what you think as well. Again reducing the bit rate has helped but am confused cause i thought that would make it worse. Would you care to share your settings? We have some of the same cameras.

 

[looney2ns]

What bitrate are you using, on what cameras? You seeing this on BI?

 

[8trek]

What bitrate are you using, on what cameras? You seeing this on BI?

IPC-Color4K-X-2.8MM & 3.8MM all on 4096 kb/s, much better than using 8192 but still not perfect

 

[looney2ns]

IPC-Color4K-X-2.8MM & 3.8MM all on 4096 kb/s, much better than using 8192 but still not perfect

Where do you see the stuttering?
4k cam you need to be using in the 12,000 to 14,000 range bit rate.

 

[wittaj]

Yeah my starting points are:

2MP - 4096
4MP - 8192
8MP - 12288

Certainly the number can then go up or down based on the field of view, but what I suspect what you see as in improvement at 4096 is actually a softening of the image.

Try a higher bitrate and adjust sharpness and NR to acceptable levels and I think you will see an overall better image.

 

[8trek]

Yeah my starting points are:

2MP - 4096
4MP - 8192
8MP - 12288

Certainly the number can then go up or down based on the field of view, but what I suspect what you see as in improvement at 4096 is actually a softening of the image.

Try a higher bitrate and adjust sharpness and NR to acceptable levels and I think you will see an overall better image.

To clarify... I'm running 4096 @4k/8MP any bitrate higher makes the problem much worse. Yes the downside I see to lower bit rates is the image isn't as good but as you've said it's more important to get good motion image vs. static. So are you saying I should be able to run higher bit rates at 8MP but will have to adjust the sharpness?

 

[wittaj]

I run higher bitrates on the 4K/X just fine. I had to knock the sharpness down as it was too sharp.

How else are you running the 4K/X? If you are running 30FPS that will cause problems. Or too many IVS rules.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Just out of curiosity, are you using a gigabit port on the switch to feed the BI machine?

 

[wittaj]

^And as a followup, make sure that some windows update didn't drop your NIC to 100Mbps instead of 1Gbps. Take it off auto negotiate and force it at 1Gbps

 

[looktall]

Just out of curiosity, are you using a gigabit port on the switch to feed the BI machine?

^And as a followup, make sure that some windows update didn't drop your NIC to 100Mbps instead of 1Gbps. Take it off auto negotiate and force it at 1Gbps

It definitely sounds like a bandwidth issue.
Could even be a bad cable or switch.

I'd be trying to remove as many factors out of the equation as possible.

 

[8trek]

Answering all questions posed up to this point.

As stated before all cameras are set to 15fps with matching i frame.

Changed auto negotiate to 1gbps (didn't help)

Nothing wrong with cables as this is happening to all 4k cameras.

Only using 1 ivs rule per camera. Tried disabling those to see if would make a noticeable difference and it did not.

No one answered my question before so here it is again... the poe switch does not have 1gb camera ports, just 100mb, the switch port connected to the pc is a 1gb port however. Do cameras benefit from having a 1000mb or is 100mb more than enough?

again here is my switch: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0939N12SQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

thanks.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Cameras don't even generate 10Mb/ps so a 100Mb/ps port is fine for them.

 

[8trek]

I run higher bitrates on the 4K/X just fine. I had to knock the sharpness down as it was too sharp.

How else are you running the 4K/X? If you are running 30FPS that will cause problems. Or too many IVS rules.

I don't know what else to try besides getting another poe switch. Any other thoughts? Are your 4k cameras perfect? I mean maybe i should expect a little stutter and my expectations are too high? I don't think so cause it's pretty bad at 8192. Anything higher than that I'd imagine would be unbearable. We have the same cameras.

 

[wittaj]

Personally, I have gigabit ports on my POE+ switches just because the price difference wasn't that much and I figure more headroom the better. I mean it shouldn't make a difference, until it does.

I re-read the thread to familiarize myself to everything tried.

I do not have butter smooth GoPro slow-mo smoothness, but it is more than adequate given the FPS I run and the fact that I am not making a Matrix sequel LOL, but trying to be able to get a nice freeze-frame capture.

I guess the next thing to try is disconnect the internet cable from the BI computer and let's confirm you don't have a cross-over somewhere that is causing the cameras to go thru the router. If the camera quality improves, then you know you have a switch with the cameras connected to the system with internet somewhere (we have seen that happen here).

Then if that doesn't improve it, post a snippet here and see if collectively we have got immune to a stutter that you see or if there is a really bad stutter. I am leaning towards a really bad stutter given you saying what happens upping the bitrate, so that would lead towards a bandwidth problem somewhere in the switch, NIC, or cable.

 

[looktall]

Nothing wrong with cables as this is happening to all 4k cameras

I may have missed it but have you said how many 4k cameras you're running and how many cameras total of all resolutions?

Have you unplugged all 4k cameras and then added them back one at a time to see if the issue stops and then returns as you plug more of them back in?