Problems configuring Reolink 823-A with BI5

[Michael James]

Having a lot of problems here configuring the 823-A with BI5.

Purchased a RLC 823-A last week. Updated the firmware today and now its not interfacing with Blue Iris properly.
Using the Reolink App and Reolink desktop, everything seems ok running at CLEAR (3840x2160 25 fps).
But trying to configure to BI5 has been a challenge
Any configuration advice to configure with Blue Iris?

An image comes up in Blue iris, but it freezes often for up to 30 seconds at a time.
Also, it gets even more choppy (missing frames of 5-10 seconds) when I am using BI5 desktop or the BI Android app and/or I use the Reolink PC interface or the Reolink Android interface to look at this same cameras, they almost seem like they are playing tug of war over the stream..

I tried using:
Make: Reolink
H.265 RTSP
Recieve Buffer 40 mb
Seems to work the best but getting huge lag times of 15-20 seconds

Also tried using ONVIF. That was worse with delays or no picture at all.

Reolink:
Build 22011511
Hardware IPC_523128M8MP
Config ver: v3.1.0.0
Firmware: v3.1.0.804_22011511v1.0.0.30 (this is the new firmware I installed off Reolinks firmware page, not the original version that came with the camera)

Blue Iris version 5.5.5.5 x64
Using Find/Inspect, ONIF to find the camera and it identifies it as IPC-BO, Generic/ONVIF/RTSP H.264/265/MJPG/MPEG4
RTSP Port: 544
ONVIF 8000

 

[wittaj]

Those cameras are your problem. Reolinks do not work well with Blue Iris and is even worse with DeepStack if you ever decide to go that route.

Blue Iris is great and works with probably more camera brands than most VMS programs, but there are brands that don't work well or not at all - Rings, Arlos, Nest, Some Zmodo cams use proprietary systems and cannot be used with Blue Iris, and for a lot of people Reolink doesn't work well either. Some people have got some of the models to work with BI kinda, but it still doesn't overcome the poor night performance.

Blue Iris and Reolinks do not work well together, but the same principles applies for almost any low end consumer grade camera. It is just Reolinks is one of the more consumer end cameras people buy and come to this site as to why it is pointed out often about. I have a cheapo camera for overview purposes so it doesn't matter, but it exhibits this same behavior even though in the settings I can set an iframe...

This was a screenshot of a member here where they had set these cameras to 15FPS within the cameras (and look some of the sub FPS were dropped to 5 and KEY of 0.25 which is a recipe for missed motion):

Now look at the key - that is the iframes ratio. Blue Iris works best when the FPS and the iframes match. Now this is a ratio, so it should be a 1.00 if it matches the FPS. The iframes not matching (that you cannot fix or change with a reolink) is why they miss motion in Blue Iris and why people have problems. This is mainly why people are having issues with these cameras and there are many threads showing the issues people have with this manufacturer and Blue Iris. It is these same games that make the camera look great as a still image or video but turn to crap once motion is introduced.

The Blue Iris developer has indicated that for best reliability, sub stream frame rate should be equal to the main stream frame rate and these cameras cannot do that and there is nothing you can do about that with these cameras... The iframe rates (something these cameras do not allow you to set) should equal the FPS, but at worse case be no more than double. This example shows the cameras going down to a keyrate of 0.25 means that the iframe rates are over 4 times the FPS and that is why motion detection is a disaster with these cameras and Blue Iris...A value of 0.5 or less is considered insufficient to trust for motion triggers reliably...we have seen people come here where the reo/BI combo missed them pulling their car into their garage, so it would probably miss your little thief LOL.

A key of 0.25 means that if the object can be in and off of your camera view in under 4 seconds, it will miss the motion. Folks have seen the key drop to 0.10 with these cams, which means if an object is not on your screen for longer than 10 seconds, it will miss the motion.

Compounding the matter even worse...motion detection is based on the substream and look at the substream FPS - they dropped down to below 6 FPS with an iframe/key rate of 0.25 - you will miss motion most of the time with that issue...DeepStack probably won't work at all...

Now compare above to mine and cameras that follow industry standards that allow you to actually set parameters and they don't manipulate them. You will see that my FPS match what I set in the camera, and the 1.00 key means the iframe matches:

Return them if you can.

Here is the unofficial thread showing all the issues folks have with Reolinks. Despite our repeated attempts to ask people to share a good quality night time motion video, as you will see, it doesn't exist. If all you care about knowing is what time something happened, then maybe these are the right cameras if the person is in the field of view long enough, but you will never be able to IDENTIFY them at night unless they stop for 5 seconds (does no thief ever)...

Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

Executive Summary: DO NOT be a sheep. Ask what a reviewer can be missing, ask if a reviewer is using hype words to sell the cheapest product. Test your cameras and kits right away. Just do a bench test. Test real world conditions. Test moving suspects. Test at night, test at day. Use a test rig...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[mat200]

FYI - camera in question:


Reolink RLC-823A

 

[Michael James]

If I cant figure this out, what PTZ cameras are better that work well with BI5 that has People, Car, or maybe pet tracking?

 

[wittaj]

The 49225 (a Dahua OEM) from @EMPIRETECANDY is the best sub $700 autotracking PTZ out there. But he is the only one that still has this model with autotracking.

People have come and gone here trying to find an autotrack camera cheaper than this $400 model, and they have bought and returned several models in the process such as Jidetech, Sunba, Reolinks, and a host of other non-name cameras.

It has great AI for human and car. Couple it with BI and Deepstack if you want pet tracking.

https://www.amazon.com/Loryta-SD49225XA-HNR-Starlight-Network-Tracking/dp/B081RJJQT4/ref=sr_1_12?imprToken=eNnu.Pmf5hsW5hcTVECAQg&linkCode=w61&m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1644450780&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&slotNum=0&sr=1-12

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

The 4K one can't get real good pics if the place has poor light in the night, use the SD49225XA-HNR or the SD49425XB-HNR is the best choice.
We have the Ultra 4K one, but price is 1700usd

A SD8A840-HNF-PA 4K 40X PTZ Demo

Hey guys Get a good demo for this crazy PTZ, a latest new one. Video provided by @n0xlf Select 4K to watch. Nightvision Video

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Michael James]

Do both come with a power supply? I have a 110 outlet and Im not using POE. I have a CAT6 running to it from an ASUS AX5400 (Mesh). I guess I could run POE if needed. I'm attaching pics using the IR emitters off the Reolink 823-A. So Im not sure if thats enough light for both cameras?

Would these work?

Amazon.com: PoE Injector Adapter, PoE+ Injector 30W 10/100/1000Mbps IEEE 802.3af Compliant, Up to 100 Meters (325 Feet) : Electronics

Amazon.com: Cat6a Outdoor Ethernet Cable 35 Feet/2 Pack,Adoreen Heavy-Duty Shielded Cord(15ft-to-250ft),SFTP,24AWG Pure Solid Copper,Direct Burial,Waterproof,UV PE Jacket,Cat6 Cat 6,10Gbps 550MHz with 30pcs Ties : Electronics

 

[wittaj]

They do not come with power, but the POE injector you show is fine for it. Since you already have ethernet running to it, you do not need another cable. One cable is all that is needed to power and get the data from the camera. Simply add that POE+ injector right after your mesh.

Based on your images, the 49225 would probably be the better choice.

 

[Michael James]

Ordered. I may need help configuring the software though.

 

[wittaj]

That is what we are here for!

It certainly isn't plug-n-play like a Reolink, but it is much better. The plug-n-play comes at the expense of poor night time quality with motion in the video.

 

[wittaj]

Some tips to get you started:

The default IP address of the camera is 192.168.1.108, which may or may not be the IP address range of your system.

Go into ethernet settings and using the IPv4 settings manually change the IP address to 192.168.1.100

Then go to INTERNET EXPLORER (needs to be Explorer and not Edge or Chrome with IE tab) and type in 192.168.1.108 (default IP address of Dahua cameras) and you will then access the camera.

Tell it you are in the USA and give it a user and password.

Then go to the camera Network settings and change the camera IP address to the range of your system and hit save.

You will then lose the camera connection.

Next open up INTERNET EXPLORER and type in the new IP address that you just gave the camera to access it.

 

[wittaj]

These are not plug and play. You have to dial them in. But once you do, they are incredible. Mine hits the mark over 95% of the time.

Do not run default/auto settings?

It is a matter of getting the brightness/contrast and target ratio settings correct.

I always knew that you shouldn't chase a bright picture - it looks nice and people migrate towards a brighter TV for example, but upon closer examination, most images need to be toned down in order to get all the details. You will be surprised how much changing a parameter like gamma could impact tracking. For example, if you have a pesky tree or something in the middle of the view during an autotrack, just by changing some image parameters you can get autotrack to pass it. Making the image a little darker at night actually helped with tracking someone across the street, which was opposite of what I thought you would think to do. So add some contrast to your image and see if it improves.

I have a yard lamp post that more times than not autotrack would get stuck on it as someone was walking and the autotrack would only go so far. Because my image has soo much contrast (bright white concrete a third, blacktop road a third, grass a third), knocking down the gamma made the lamp post not be so "trackable" lol, and along with that I turned of PFA and that gave it just enough time to retrack the person walking past the lamp post. The camera may still autotrack the lamp post when a small kid goes by, but an adult it was autotracking past the lamp post.

Ideally for an intrusion box or tripwires, you should have the initial field of view be such that the camera doesn't have to initially pan too much up/down or left/right to get the object in the center of the screen to start tracking. The closer the object is to the center of the image, the better the chance that it will track correctly.

The reason it starts looking upward or left or right is usually because the intrusion box is too big so the camera identifies the object before it is in the center of the field of view and then sometimes something else matches the "algorithm signature" of the initial object and then starts trying to track something that isn't there. Adjusting the field of view and the locations of the IVS rules to be closer to the center can fix that.

Autotracking PTZs are great, but they have limitations like everything else. Installed in a wrong location or with fields of view that do not give it a chance will be problematic.

You also need to use INTERNET EXPLORER as the camera track time will change to 15 seconds in any other browser.

 

[Michael James]

Which website do I download the Windows PC tool from? And how about Android app?
DahuaWiki or somewhere else?

 

[wittaj]

Along with the above, in my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

But first, run H264, smart codec off, CBR, and 8192 bitrate to start. This should make it more crisp.

I think you should also take off manual IR - your camera is low so you are getting a lot of IR bounce off the ground that is degrading the picture.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-30 (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared.

Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night image results in Casper during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

So if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.

Now with a PTZ, there is the challenge in that at night, it will see a wide array of lighting depending on where it is pointed and the amount of zoom. So it takes additional dialing in to make sure it performs in all the different field of views that it might see.

Most of us have found that IVS rules work much better than motion detection or Smart Motion Detection if you are only interested in human or vehicle triggers.

But you only use one. So if you use IVS, then turn off MD and SMD.

Intrusion boxes and tripwires are two ways to trigger the IVS. Each has a use case.

The tripwire works in a 3 dimensional way, so the object has to travel halfway through the line. Tripwires work well if you only care about triggers in one direction. You need to leave some buffer between the edge of the camera view and the tripwire or it will miss it. The camera needs time to ID the motion and determine if it meets the criteria to trigger on the tripwire.

The intrusion box is the simplest because you just draw a box and tell it to trigger if the object crosses or appears. However, it then is looking at the entire frame and that can contribute to it wandering off in some field of views.

The best thing to do is try each one individually and see which one performs better for your field of view.

 

[wittaj]

Which website do I download the Windows PC tool from? And how about Android app?
DahuaWiki or somewhere else?

Yeah you can pull it from the DahuaWiki.

You can download the android app from the playstore. I think DMSS is the most stable one right now.

But since you have Blue Iris, you do not need either one. Simply follow the steps above to setup the camera and then add the camera to Blue Iris.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

If I cant figure this out, what PTZ cameras are better that work well with BI5 that has People, Car, or maybe pet tracking?

Latest new camera with SMD, will track human and cars, but no pet. The SMD mainly to ease the wrong alarms.

 

[Michael James]

Latest new camera with SMD, will track human and cars, but no pet. The SMD mainly to ease the wrong alarms.

I assume when you say "latest new camera" its one of the 2 models you refer to above?

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Actually have this one, SD5A425XA-HNR but price is bit higher with 1/1.8cmos. Best one below 750usd.
For cost saving models those 2 ones i told you are the best choice.

 

[Michael James]

Some tips to get you started:

The default IP address of the camera is 192.168.1.108, which may or may not be the IP address range of your system.

Go into ethernet settings and using the IPv4 settings manually change the IP address to 192.168.1.100

Then go to INTERNET EXPLORER (needs to be Explorer and not Edge or Chrome with IE tab) and type in 192.168.1.108 (default IP address of Dahua cameras) and you will then access the camera.

Tell it you are in the USA and give it a user and password.

Then go to the camera Network settings and change the camera IP address to the range of your system and hit save.

You will then lose the camera connection.

Next open up INTERNET EXPLORER and type in the new IP address that you just gave the camera to access it.

Questions:
1. Can you use Windows 11 and use Edge in IE 11 mode?
2. I have 2 laptops: 1 is acting as the BI5 Server running Windows 10 and the other is the Windows 11 laptop I use every day. I can remote into the Windows 10 BI Server using Teamviewer. The BI5 Server already has IE11 installed. The Windows 11 laptop doesnt have IE11 installed and I guess its being block by the operating system from what I am reading. The best Windows 11 offers is running Edge in IE 11 mode. How to enable Internet Explorer on Windows 11 (windowsreport.com) . Will that work?
3. Range is 5-247 for client IP Addresses being assigned by the router. Right now 192.168.1.108 is not being used. Do I need to make the above changes?
4. Dahua's Config Tool: When you install it on Windows 10 or Windows 11 on either of my laptops, its really small and difficult to read. I have 4k/UHD screens on both .. How can I make it larger? I found the .exe file and was playing with compatability modes, running it as administrator and cant really get it to change size? Last time I worked with a Dahua camera on my houseboat, I used that tool. Not sure if I need to configure motion tracking with this camera or I can do it some other way. I also had a problem the last time that the IP address was not showing int he router.. that was on a different Asus router

 

[Michael James]

Actually have this one, SD5A425XA-HNR but price is bit higher with 1/1.8cmos. Best one below 750usd.
For cost saving models those 2 ones i told you are the best choice.

This is the one I ordered:
SD49425XB-HNR

Do you need to buy a seperate microphone? What would you recommend? I assume you need to run 110v power for the microphone?