Problems configuring Reolink 823-A with BI5

wittaj

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That was one of them - and make sure to do it in Explorer!

But all of those parameters, including shutter/gain, etc. all come into play in how well it tracks, especially at night. Do not be afraid for the image to be a little darker than you like.

We are groomed to wanting nice bright images, but they are not properly calibrated to get the most out of the camera (or a TV).

There needs to be enough contrast that the camera can pick up the moving object. If the screen is set to default, while we can see it, it is all too bright and one shade for the algorithm.
 

The Automation Guy

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.......... I thought I made this change but now doesnt seem like it stuck. What was that suggestion?
When settings are not "sticking" that is due to the browser being used. These cameras are so sensitive to the browser being used (and I don't know why). This is why it is suggested that you use the old, plain Windows Internet Explorer (blue/green "E" icon), but I realize it isn't available anymore on Windows 11 machines. Can you manually download and install Windows Internet Explorer on Windows 11? If not, you might just have to try other browsers (Chrome, Mozilla, etc) until you find one that works. Even then it might not work for every setting and every button.
 

jsdoc1

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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?

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
Think I can help:
Just had same issue with this firmware update - for me couldn't get any connection / stream in BI after the firmware update which of course was very odd since it configured quite nicely with BI with default firmware.

HOWEVER, the firmware update is significant both with features and configurations. Gotta read those release notes !! (and, uh, they might have put this one at the top, you'd think....)
Punchline: It now offers toggles for various connection/stream types, including all the typical ones for 3rd party software.

Downloaded the Reolink Windows client and of course it immediately connects with that or Reolink phone app.

Solve:
In the Reolink app, do as follows:
SETTINGS -> NETWORK SETTINGS -> ADVANCED -> PORT SETTINGS -> SET UP
Now you can toggle on/off RTMP, RTSP, ONVIF, HTTP (vs HTTPS), and you can set/change the port numbers if needed.
NO IDEA why at least ONVIF isn't toggled on by default :facepalm:, hopefully they'll change that in a future update. But that's what (of course) immediately solved it for me and BI's IP auto-detect worked and made it one click setup basically.

Interesting feature updates including better up/down tracking for the "follow me" motion sensing, which is awesome, I use this to have the spotlight follow me out to my shed and back, wouldn't pivot on the vertical axis before. Also better AI / some Pet detector (beta) features to record your Cat's antics etc., and a few other goodies (FTPS encryption for example). Really like this camera so far. And BI / Reolink CAN coexist nicely "out of the box", which is good to see.
Download Center – Reolink scroll down and click on Firmware to see release notes.
 

wittaj

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Think I can help:
Just had same issue with this firmware update - for me couldn't get any connection / stream in BI after the firmware update which of course was very odd since it configured quite nicely with BI with default firmware.

HOWEVER, the firmware update is significant both with features and configurations. Gotta read those release notes !! (and, uh, they might have put this one at the top, you'd think....)
Punchline: It now offers toggles for various connection/stream types, including all the typical ones for 3rd party software.

Downloaded the Reolink Windows client and of course it immediately connects with that or Reolink phone app.

Solve:
In the Reolink app, do as follows:
SETTINGS -> NETWORK SETTINGS -> ADVANCED -> PORT SETTINGS -> SET UP
Now you can toggle on/off RTMP, RTSP, ONVIF, HTTP (vs HTTPS), and you can set/change the port numbers if needed.
NO IDEA why at least ONVIF isn't toggled on by default :facepalm:, hopefully they'll change that in a future update. But that's what (of course) immediately solved it for me and BI's IP auto-detect worked and made it one click setup basically.

Interesting feature updates including better up/down tracking for the "follow me" motion sensing, which is awesome, I use this to have the spotlight follow me out to my shed and back, wouldn't pivot on the vertical axis before. Also better AI / some Pet detector (beta) features to record your Cat's antics etc., and a few other goodies (FTPS encryption for example). Really like this camera so far. And BI / Reolink CAN coexist nicely "out of the box", which is good to see.
Download Center – Reolink scroll down and click on Firmware to see release notes.
Can you please post some night time video with motion (car passing by or a person walking by) demonstrating that this new firmware fixes the problems with the cam?

Can you also post a screenshot from the BI Camera Status page at night that shows that?

I am looking for the screenshot that looks like this:

1647142378881.png
 

jsdoc

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Can you please post some night time video with motion (car passing by or a person walking by) demonstrating that this new firmware fixes the problems with the cam?

Can you also post a screenshot from the BI Camera Status page at night that shows that?

I am looking for the screenshot that looks like this:

View attachment 121941
Sorry, we're perhaps on different convos - I was replying to the original poster's particular (config) problem for this particular firmware release vs. the deeper dive in to BI vs Reolink tech talk, to the extent that (bonehead default of OVMIF toggled off aside) they seem to be making an effort to be more 3rd party DVR friendly / less proprietary, at least with respect to type of streams offered and, once enabled, config and autodiscovery for things like BI is truly plug n play, etc.

I don't have a dog in the fight of BI with respect to motion capture -- I'm likely not dealing with the same use case, I record the main stream constantly and use the memory card in the camera and it's own firmware to do the event trigger / event recording and review those on it's app. Tho in live motion the infared/night vision quality this new (RLC-823A) is IMO punching above it's paygrade. But for motion capture it's limited to just being configured to turn on the (>900 lumen) spotlight (and use the motion tracking "follow me" feature which does work fairly well), and actually my other stationary bullet cam Reolink RLC-410-5MP is pointing at the driveway with downfiring LED garage lights, and it actually is better served turning infared lights off. Frankly I assumed all budget cameras sucked at what you are describing above, so I'll admit now you have me curious and I fear I may be getting sucked into the rabbit hole :cool:. I don't think I'm even recording a sub stream on this new cam, but I'll see what I can do configure it to produce some data for you. I will say the 823A's infared range is no joke, my shed >100 feet from house is lit up bright and with optical zoom it does impress.

For now, related to this new RLC-823A (which I do think seems to be a significant upgrade to historical Reolink) I can link to and quote the specs. It shows H.265 as it's codec (not the H26x+ like I believe my other Reolink 5MP has) and specs show substream options of 4-15FPS default 10 and main stream 2-25 default 25. So maybe there's some potential here, I'll see what I can gather. Reolink RLC-823A - 8MP PTZ PoE Security Camera with Person/Vehicle Detection
 

jsdoc

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1647150032659.png

WittaJ Here's stats -- Top is the 823A and bottom is my couple year old RLC-410-5MP. I was able to set the FPS to match. Still don't have a reference or much comprehension of the key / ratio HA etc. other than reading the SubStream Guide post Sub Stream Guide Pretty sure that 5MP camera is using a 264+ codec, but at least looking online a few places, think the new one is standard H.265

I started to make some motion capture video but it's a bright moon tonight and my concrete patio is still snow covered and I was getting some bad washout of my face on the video trying to use infared, may need to look at some of the cameras attenuation settings for that, it wasn't like that without the snow. I did confirm the vertical axis is now working with new firmware for the "follow me" feature. The movements are a bit jerky (probably better for farther away scenarios like driveways or mounted higher looking down both for it's powerful infared and the motion speed). I'm often walking right in front of it. It's Warming tomorrow, I'll see if I can try soon for some night motion video.
 
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wittaj

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@jsdoc - no we are on the same page regarding " the original poster's particular (config) problem for this particular firmware release vs. the deeper dive in to BI vs Reolink tech talk, to the extent that (bonehead default of OVMIF toggled off aside) they seem to be making an effort to be more 3rd party DVR friendly / less proprietary, at least with respect to type of streams offered and, once enabled, config and autodiscovery for things like BI is truly plug n play, etc."

Reolink claims to have fixed the issues associated with their cameras as it relates to 3rd party VMS platforms (but stay kinda silent regarding the poor motion quality at night), and your screenshot of your BI camera status shows it has not.

From your own screenshot:

1647179750366.png

You said the top camera (backyard) is the camera running the new firmware.

OK, so they finally made the FPS match, but the KEY does not. That is still a problem with a 3rd party VMS like Blue Iris.

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 iframe/key rate of 0.25 - you will miss motion most of the time with that issue...DeepStack probably won't work at all...

So yes, this does apply to the original poster having issues with it in BI. But the OP ended up returning it and getting a real camera LOL.
 

jsdoc

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Reolink claims to have fixed the issues associated with their cameras as it relates to 3rd party VMS platforms (but stay kinda silent regarding the poor motion quality at night), and your screenshot of your BI camera status shows it has not.

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 iframe/key rate of 0.25 - you will miss motion most of the time with that issue...DeepStack probably won't work at all...
Appreciate the info, very interesting. You've sucked me in for sure now lol. Can certainly see why the consumer wouldn't easily get to this level of info to make a more informed choice. I did find Github pages indicating that Reolink has / is working on an API (IE so homelink can intercept events etc.) via the OMVIF feed, so they're making some type of effort, so perhaps not quite ready to call it a complete pig of a brand (support actually responds, they do seem to truly attempt to help, and of course we've already eliminated 99% of their customer base by going beyond their proprietary app), and it passes the "wife can use it" test out of the box -- but still sounds like they have a ways to go on the firmware side / customer access to settings, etc. to the extent they are willing to step up to the plate with the big vendors.

Not sure we got to the point of you opining on if it's firmware or hardware that's more lacking in the Reolinks (vs. other brands in similar price ranges). Obviously never fair to compare a $12K Hyundai to an $80K Mercedez....

Also Not completely sure I still quite understand the definition of Keyframe yet (deductively from your last response thought it was a % of the FPS used for AI analysis) but I see it seems to be more of a representation of time to properly process the AI or something more of that nature. But totally get your point and the inference in cause -> effect. Definitely on the bad to unusuable side of the spectrum for Deepstack.

So I am now curious why BI doesn't allow the use of the higher def signal for signal processing - seems like for example GPU's could handle that load if the "average" CPU good enough to run Windows could not and help overcome some of this, but of course I'm still coming at this with minimal understanding of Deepstack or night vision AI etc. I presume custom AI hardware or system on chip (Apple's M1 chip as perfect example) would be the solve there for the high end brands, IE much like custom video capture cards are little ARM / SOC devices, not x86 cpus, etc. And/or was thinking leaning more on the PC could be a good way to potentially get a way different value out of lower quality/cost cameras as one of the intended benefits of BI as a product. I suppose the compute requirement goes thru the roof exponentially or something of that nature with higher resolution ? -- esp. given already higher demand compression codecs for high res like H.265 ? Guess that's more a Geek question than a pragmatic one, but still interesting to understand where BI is attempting to position itself.

Since I am sort of ridiculously overpowered on the CPU side for basic DVR purposes, let me ask - what's the better value, a camera with great night vision hardware / generic outfeed and (very) fast CPU to let BI do deepstack / manage the triggers, or a quality brand camera with great AI/sensor combo and disable Deepstack in BI for motion triggers and let camera firmware do the work? Knowing that would allow me to make my consumer choice to "step it up" beyond just dabbling with these cameras and getting serious about fit for purpose decisions.

Lets say for simplicity we're talking just a basic bullet / stationary cam designed for Driveway use (person / vehicle and perhaps license plate detection etc.) where the quality of detection and night image quality / motion capture accuracy was the main objective. I saw from other postings you were a fan of Dahua's AI, and I'm guessing brands like Lorex or others more pointed toward pro grade security systems would be better choices, but admittedly that's without digging to far into the forums.

I guess my objective is to see what this spectrum of choice is within "sane" levels of cost in concert with BI, and a presumption that if you get too far down the price vs performance curve, you get to that point of whether you should just buy the compute hardware with the camera system as an all-in-one and sort of obviate the use case for BI and a PC, etc. Minus the fun of tinkering of course....

Thanks for the interesting info ! Obviously you may choose to point me to other existing threads than author a detailed response, but would still appreciate if you could respond to the "better value" question above. Thx !
 
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wittaj

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@jsdoc - let me clear up some confusion you still have:

I did find Github pages indicating that Reolink has / is working on an API (IE so homelink can intercept events etc.) via the OMVIF feed, so they're making some type of effort, so perhaps not quite ready to call it a complete pig of a brand (support actually responds, - This is a totally separate issue and has nothing to do with the issue with Reolink and BI. An API is a completely different command.

Not sure we got to the point of you opining on if it's firmware or hardware that's more lacking in the Reolinks (vs. other brands in similar price ranges). It is a little bit of both. Consumer grade cameras will use lower quality sensors. Think 4k on the 1/3" sensor. That sensor is good for 720P, not 4K. Almost every camera in that price range and below suffer from this.

Further, the consumer grade cameras know that the naive consumer favors a bright static image, so the firmware is written to provide that. That comes at a cost of poor motion at night - the blur city and missing bodies of Reos LOL. The consumer grade cameras may "let" you change parameters, but the camera will override any setting that the user puts in that will darken the image too much.

Also Not completely sure I still quite understand the definition of Keyframe yet (deductively from your last response thought it was a % of the FPS used for AI analysis) but I see it seems to be more of a representation of time to properly process the AI or something more of that nature. But totally get your point and the inference in cause -> effect. Definitely on the bad to unusuable side of the spectrum for Deepstack. Key frame has nothing to do with actually processing time. Key frame or Iframe is how often a complete image is taken. In between they are partial to put together the image. If the FPS and iframes match (say they are both 15), then the KEY is 1.00, which means every second BI is pulling the full frame image to check for motion. Most low end consumer cameras will make the iframe double or triple or quadruple the FPS to lower bandwidth needs. This impacts BI and AI (Deepstack) because in certain fields of view, with a low enough KEY, the object could be completely out of the image before the next full frame is taken and analyzed.

So I am now curious why BI doesn't allow the use of the higher def signal for signal processing - seems like for example GPU's could handle that load if the "average" CPU good enough to run Windows could not and help overcome some of this, but of course I'm still coming at this with minimal understanding of Deepstack or night vision AI etc - This has nothing to do with BI, this is a DeepStack issue. Deepstack is a 3rd party platform and that is how it is set up because it doesn't need all the fine details. It is just detecting outlines for object detection. Using too high quality and the response times will take longer as well.

Since I am sort of ridiculously overpowered on the CPU side for basic DVR purposes, let me ask - what's the better value, a camera with great night vision hardware / generic outfeed and (very) fast CPU to let BI do deepstack / manage the triggers, or a quality brand camera with great AI/sensor combo and disable Deepstack in BI for motion triggers and let camera firmware do the work? Knowing that would allow me to make my consumer choice to "step it up" beyond just dabbling with these cameras and getting serious about fit for purpose decisions. Favor the better camera. A fast CPU with a sucky camera that is a complete motion blur does you zero good. Many here have found for the moment that the camera AI is better, but Deepstack is improving all the time. See the thread below with some of my posts. I have an old 4th gen CPU and am running over 30 cameras and the CPU hums under 15%. Mid teens in the daytime, single digits at night, 45-55% during day with a lot of motion.

Lets say for simplicity we're talking just a basic bullet / stationary cam designed for Driveway use (person / vehicle and perhaps license plate detection etc.) where the quality of detection and night image quality / motion capture accuracy was the main objective. I saw from other postings you were a fan of Dahua's AI, and I'm guessing brands like Lorex or others more pointed toward pro grade security systems would be better choices, but admittedly that's without digging to far into the forums. Once you talk about plate recognition, that is another animal. That needs to be a separate dedicated camera just for reading plates. It cannot be an overview camera and LPR. Keep in mind brands like Lorex are Dahua OEM except usually with less quality sensors and internals.

I guess my objective is to see what this spectrum of choice is within "sane" levels of cost in concert with BI, and a presumption that if you get too far down the price vs performance curve, you get to that point of whether you should just buy the compute hardware with the camera system as an all-in-one and sort of obviate the use case for BI and a PC, etc. Minus the fun of tinkering of course.... For most applications, the Dahua and Hik OEMs ranging from $120ish to $250ish is the price vs performance sweet spot. When I was looking at replacing an existing NVR, once I realized that not all NVRs are created equal (the bandwidth is can process is a huge limiting factor), and once I priced out a good one, it was cheaper to buy a refurbished computer than an NVR.

Many of us buy refurbished computers that are business class computers that have come off lease. The one I bought I kid you not I could not tell that it was a refurbished unit - not a speck of dust or dents or scratches on it. It appeared to me like everything was replaced and I would assume just the motherboard with the intel processor is what was from the original unit. I went with the lowest end processor on the WIKI list as it was the cheapest and it runs my system fine. Could probably get going for $200 or so. A real NVR will cost more than that.

A member here a couple months ago found a refurbished 4th generation for less than $150USD that came with Win10 PRO, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB drive. You won't find a capable NVR cheaper than that...

Blue Iris has a demo, so try it out on an existing computer and see if you like it.

There is a big Blue Iris or NVR debate here LOL. Some people love Blue Iris and think NVRs are clunky and hard to use and others think Blue Iris is clunky and hard to use. I have done both and prefer Blue Iris. As with everything YMMV...

And you can disable Windows updates and set up the computer to automatically restart in a power failure, and then you have a more powerful NVR with a nice mobile viewing interface.

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. But we would recommend staying away from those brands even if you go the NVR route with one of those brands...


 
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The Automation Guy

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So I am now curious why BI doesn't allow the use of the higher def signal for signal processing - seems like for example GPU's could handle that load if the "average" CPU good enough to run Windows could not and help overcome some of this, but of course I'm still coming at this with minimal understanding of Deepstack or night vision AI etc. I presume custom AI hardware or system on chip (Apple's M1 chip as perfect example) would be the solve there for the high end brands, IE much like custom video capture cards are little ARM / SOC devices, not x86 cpus, etc. And/or was thinking leaning more on the PC could be a good way to potentially get a way different value out of lower quality/cost cameras as one of the intended benefits of BI as a product. I suppose the compute requirement goes thru the roof exponentially or something of that nature with higher resolution ? -- esp. given already higher demand compression codecs for high res like H.265 ? Guess that's more a Geek question than a pragmatic one, but still interesting to understand where BI is attempting to position itself.
AI generally doesn't need high definition images to work. Most detections system only needs to "see" an object to detect it. It doesn't need all the detail to "Identify" the object. So all that extra detail that we as humans want to "identify" an object is just wasting resources for AI - and yes those higher definition images require a lot more resources to process in a fast time frame. So systems like DeepStack use a lower resolution image because it has all the information it needs to "detect" an object without wasting resources on details it doesn't need to work. This helps speed up the detection process while using fewer resources too.
 

jsdoc

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@jsdoc - let me clear up some confusion you still have:

For most applications, the Dahua and Hik OEMs ranging from $120ish to $250ish is the price vs performance sweet spot. When I was looking at replacing an existing NVR, once I realized that not all NVRs are created equal (the bandwidth is can process is a huge limiting factor), and once I priced out a good one, it was cheaper to buy a refurbished computer than an NVR.

Many of us buy refurbished computers that are business class computers that have come off lease. The one I bought I kid you not I could not tell that it was a refurbished unit - not a speck of dust or dents or scratches on it. It appeared to me like everything was replaced and I would assume just the motherboard with the intel processor is what was from the original unit. I went with the lowest end processor on the WIKI list as it was the cheapest and it runs my system fine. Could probably get going for $200 or so. A real NVR will cost more than that.

A member here a couple months ago found a refurbished 4th generation for less than $150USD that came with Win10 PRO, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB drive. You won't find a capable NVR cheaper than that...

There is a big Blue Iris or NVR debate here LOL. Some people love Blue Iris and think NVRs are clunky and hard to use and others think Blue Iris is clunky and hard to use. I have done both and prefer Blue Iris. As with everything YMMV...

And you can disable Windows updates and set up the computer to automatically restart in a power failure, and then you have a more powerful NVR with a nice mobile viewing interface.

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. But we would recommend staying away from those brands even if you go the NVR route with one of those brands...


Yeah the API comment was just meaning that they seem to be trying to at least cater a little to the home tinkerer (and actually respond to issues). Obviously doesn't solve for underspec'd hardware.... I'd heard knocks against HIkivision in regards to the support aspect.

Thanks so much for that response, I now feel really well oriented/informed to this, sounds like a couple of stationary Dahua's in my future for the front / back security duty (and can repurpose the Reolink bullet cam for pointing toward the (lit) porch. The new Reolink PTZ is quite handy for auto-on with follow-me motion with it's spotlight (IE detecting me) and preventing ankle fractures on the way to the garbage can or my outbuilding, and of course fun for spying on daytime squirrel antics or watching over the grandkids playing, using the intercom-like feature, so probably still gonna get my money's worth lol.

As for the repurposed PCs and PC builds in general, you're MUCH more up my alley there - I have a sort of shamefully large pile of 2010-2015 era HP8300 Ultraslim form factor mini PCs under my desk lol. I'm basically in love with them. Ivylake, but can pick between i5 and i7s with the HD4000 iGPU and still get QuickSync decoding, so great little plex or DVR machines. And since enterprise, they all come with Windows Pro product key stickers on them so you have that covered as well. I deployed that for my friends rural BI + 7 camera setup connecting thru a little Ubiquity bullet radio, and as you said can set windows to autorestart and "police" the updates and it absolutely is a great maintenance free DVR "appliance".

These units are great as they are really sturdy little 10x10" perfect little flat/square boxes (with VESA mount holes on either side) that can mount behind a monitor , stand on edge (or work flat as a monitor stand), and they were literally built to be abused/forgotten under cash registers, behind exam tables in docs offices etc., and what I really like is that now, no part on them (including CPU) is >$20, there's only about half dozen "parts" to them in the first place, and I can with just a couple screws removed have it disassembled to its component parts in like 2 minutes basically with bare hands.


1647480229603.png
Incidentally they also make wonderful Hackintoshes, tho you'd have to use older OSX versions of course (Mojave I think). For Wifi you need to add a little (internal) antenna that didn't come stock with most of them, but is an OEM (internal) part easily sourced for like $5-10 with miniPCI wifi cards that are penny a pound basically (go rob an old laptop), has a miniSATA SSD slot and what's really nifty is for DVR purposes is it has a drive caddy that happens to fit a (double-thick) shucked 2.5" hard drive (IE 4-5 TB) and still mount right in. And has a little DVD burner in case you ever wanted to export video that way (or load that random DVD since we don't have that on our PCs anymore). Kind of Goldilocks zone for DVR use. CPU's aging, but very gracefully..... And these idle at <20 watts. I also actually recently discovered "appliance grade" windows - the LTSC version which comes de-crappified (sans blaotware) and it's standard configuration is to take a once monthly routine update (unattended) and sit there and behave itself. Takes a little doing to get that type of license / product key, but man has it been worth it. Have two PCs config'd that way - a high end PC that just sleeps til ready for gaming or high end use case, and another 9900K machine that is my DVR, Plex server, Channels DVR server, and kind of intermediate speed storage depot and is nice to have a WIndows in the newtork to play nice for Samba instead of battling with Linux for it to play nice in a Mac/Win/Linux environment. That said, once I got the M1 Mac Mini and watched it keep pace with my Rzyen 5950x while basically refusing to make a peep of sound, it's hard not to be tempted to go there for an all in one solution, tho the cost of leveraging the Thunderbolt peripherals is of course still very cost restrictive.

Honestly I need to get mine sold and out in the hands of others needing little appliance devices instead of sitting under my benchdesk, I've kind of moved on to somewhat higher end home server builds of late, trying to serve up high end ZFS storage and the like. If anyone on the forum wants one, I'm happy to config and send them on to a happy home for little more than shipping cost, you supply the hard drive and off you go.

Thanks again for schooling me up, I feel ready to join the fray now !
 

Michael James

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That is just bad English translation LOL. That is how long you want it to record after motion occurs.
I just purchased from Andy the SD49225XA-HNR and also had purchased the SD49425XB-HNR on Feb 9.
I did not update the firmware.
Here is the issue: On the SD49425XB-HNR If I stand still for 8-10 seconds, the camera moves back to the Preset position. Is there a way to stay on me longer? Is there a different firmware version?
Also, if it is tracking a person and they get into a car, it goes back to the preset position.

On settings, I have:
Motion detection ON,
Smart Motion Detection ON (Effective Object- Human and Motor Vehicle: both ON), Sensitivity HIGH

Deep IVS: see attached
 

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wittaj

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Yeah, these PTZs are great, but they are not "perfect" and not every situation is going to happen as we would like.

There is no way to set a longer duration time if it is tracking. But I think it learns because mine does hold longer now then when it first started. But there is no firmware that addresses that.

Once someone goes into a car, it then loses the person. Every once in awhile mine will stay on them, but usually it will go back.

You should be using only one of the methods - either IVS, SMD or MD.

Using all three can also cause problems.

So try each one by itself and see which one gives you the response you are looking for the best.

It is why we say a PTZ is not a replacement for a fixed cam.

With a properly set up system and using fixed cams as spotter cams to point the PTZ where it should be looking, we can mitigate the limitations of the PTZ.
 

Michael James

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Yeah, these PTZs are great, but they are not "perfect" and not every situation is going to happen as we would like.

There is no way to set a longer duration time if it is tracking. But I think it learns because mine does hold longer now then when it first started. But there is no firmware that addresses that.

Once someone goes into a car, it then loses the person. Every once in awhile mine will stay on them, but usually it will go back.

You should be using only one of the methods - either IVS, SMD or MD.

Using all three can also cause problems.

So try each one by itself and see which one gives you the response you are looking for the best.

It is why we say a PTZ is not a replacement for a fixed cam.

With a properly set up system and using fixed cams as spotter cams to point the PTZ where it should be looking, we can mitigate the limitations of the PTZ.
Thx, how do my IVS setting look?
 

wittaj

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Your view is so tight, I would drop the tracking down from 47 to 35 and see if it responds better to what you want to happen.
 

EMPIRETECANDY

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Currently the PTZ still not such smart, maybe the thermal function into the PTZ may work, but that will cost a huge money. This mainly use for the border using, thermal PTZ can do the job.
I watched wildcat_1 has some good video before for lock it, i will ask him some further advice.

NEW Firmware will remove the Autotracking function.
 

jsdoc

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1656271156099.png

Another firmware update for the newer Reolink series (top is the newer 8Megapixel A series (RLC-823A) - bottom is older 5MP series, no updates there yet / no change).
Seems to have finally improved the i-frames ratio, matching on both the main and sub streams. Some Youtube reviewers saying it's also improved the nighttime blurring issue, and of course motion detection for BI (hopefully) should function better. Will config to use BI motion triggers for the 8MP cam and see how it goes. Not ideal as it's a follow me cam etc. with lots of moving tree limbs fairly close (use it also as a "chase me" night light), but can at least see if the night blur is improved / event detection better, etc. I can set night guard modes that will pan down to get the trees out of the shot, focus in on the right places in those key hours, etc.
 
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