Only Getting 3fps on a Tablet Running tinyCam Pro

[essjay]

Hi guys,

Hoping someone can help me out.....

Picked up an Amazon Fire 7" tablet specifically to wall mount by my front door and to only show the front door camera. I've flashed the tablet with a Nexus ROM so it's only running vanilla Android and a couple of apps in total including tinyCam Pro.

Problem is I'm only getting 3fps on the tablet. The camera is sending 10fps and tinyCam is telling me I'm dropping 70%. tinyCam on both my Nvidia Shields are perfect as is Blue Iris and the BI iPhone app. The cameras are good I think.

The only two possibilities I can think of is 1) the tablet is crap on WiFi or 2) the hardware specs of the tablet are crap (well they are, but it should be ok for 1 solitary camera feed).

It's on RTSP over TCP, port 554. It's strange that it locks on 3fps. Very occasionally it drops to 2.7 for a couple of seconds but locked on 3fps otherwise......

 

[nayr]

Do you have the hardware decoders enabled? or do they even work with em? Sounds like the tablet is weak, but WiFI certainly isint helping either.

If you dont have hardware decoding support; then HD video is far too much to expect a tablet to do in software.

 

[essjay]

The WiFi might not be the issue. Just did a speed test and it's showing 40Mbps over the internet so that's at least the speeds I'm getting internally over WiFi.

Have hardware decoding on. No difference.

 

[nayr]

there should be a difference; that indicates its failing back to software mode.. have it show the overlay of details and it'll show what decoder its using along with framerate

 

[essjay]

Yeah think so. When looking at the frame rate it's telling me H264 SW.

Installed some Hikvision android app and the motion is perfect but the image not as sharp.

 

[nayr]

yeah its using software decoders; if tinyCamPro cant get h264 HW or HW+ to work then this tablet is entirely unsuitable for the task at hand..

Hikvision app probably pulling substream, do you have tinyCamPro in low bandwidth mode?

 

[essjay]

Nope it wasn't in low bandwidth. I guess 3fps will have to do. It only for a monitor anyway with no recording. BI handles all that stuff.

Thanks....

 

[alexvas]

I have Amazon Fire HD7 tablet and hardware decoding works as expected.
I think there are issues with HW/HW+ decoder issues on your custom ROM. Search for another ROM.

The issue you have is nothing to do with WiFi connectivity.

 

[essjay]

Thanks Alex. I believe you're the tinyCam developer? Nice app!

The HD7 is a different device to the Amazon Fire 7" I think. The one I have is a budget model (around $50 and $35 when on sale). I've tried tinyCam on both a Fire 7" with FireOS and with the Nexus ROM and the same issue on both.

PS - one bug I've noticed.... If I set the camera name first and then change details further down like IP address etc, the name resets to Cam1 (not a big issue at all tbh).

 

[alexvas]

Yes, I'm the developer behind tinyCam app.

Cannot reproduce the issue you have with name resets.

 

[essjay]

Yes, I'm the developer behind tinyCam app.

Cannot reproduce the issue you have with name resets.

Strange. Happens on the tablets and the Nvidia Shields (both of them). Like I said not a big issue.

Thanks for your input though!

 

[cadavjo]

I hate to revive a dead thread, but my search found this, so hoping if someone else has this problem they can find this.

I have an Amazon Fire HD8, also having the 3 fps limit with tinyCam Pro. I turned on hardware decoder and it fixed the issue on one camera, however, another, identical, camera still indicates "H264 SW" and is limited to 3 fps.

The cameras are set up identically, on the same network, etc. I do not have low bandwidth on. I've tried turning off stream on working as desired camera to see if it would have any impact on the other, but it didn't.

If it matters at all, these are Amcrest IP3M-941 cameras, not Hikvisions.

 

[alexvas]

Amazon Fire HD8 has extremely old and very weak CPU. That most probably causes 3fps issue.
Try to decrease fps and resolution on camera directly to have better frame rate in tinyCam app.

 

[cadavjo]

Well crap, that's the exclusive reason I bought the tablet... Thanks for the reply