Questions on choppiness in video (camera issue or BI issue?)

P

pm-performance

Young grasshopper
Aug 20, 2022
42
5
Reading, PA
So still trying to get things setup and working decently and learning as I go.
I have been noticing video playback seems a bit choppy at times. I do not think I have noticed this or Atleast as much on live view from the camera app. I did set to smooth on the camera web page though for good measure

I have the cameras set to max fps of 15-25 depending on the camera. Bitrate is maxed on all and 8192+
What other items can I check?
I am sending video to my OS ssd and then offloading to a spindle drive for now
 
Not a BI user so wait for better input but I can say 99% of the time its NOT the camera.

Not sure what models you are talking about but I run 10240 30FPS on all of my 4MP cameras with many IVS /AI rules and 16384 and 30FPS on my 4K cameras and they do just fine.
Its likely a network device , your BI machine, or other network resource issue.
 
I’ll check my cables, as my first time making cables. Even if I screwed up the cables, these won’t chew enough bandwidth to be a bandwidth/network thing. So even if they are 100m vs 1gb, I can never see a camera using more than a couple mb/s at any given time of their life.
As I say often throughout the day, I feel very confident it is not a network issue.

My BI machine, I just added 32gb extra ram. Resource wise, it’s humming along.

I agree it’s probably not the cameras and probably a setting somewhere is maybe my GPU just isn’t beefy enough? I am running a half decent gpu though
 
So just playback, Live video is fine?
 
bigredfish said:
So just playback, Live video is fine?
Click to expand...
I gotta double check.
I feel like live was a smidge choppy in the web url for the cameras until I switched to smooth.
I deff notice it in playback on BI. It may be live on BI as well

I just setup the app on my
Phone as well. I’ll test live in that later
 
It is likely a setting.

Increase the Buffer MP in BI for each camera. Default is like 6MB and a 4K camera at 25FPS at max bitrate will be above that. I have all of mine at 40MB.

Have you done the optimizations in the wiki? Substreams and Direct to Disc is a must.

Regarding the GPU and thus hardware acceleration, around the time AI was introduced in BI, many here had their system become unstable with hardware acceleration (Quick Sync) on (even if not using DeepStack or CodeProject). Some have also been fine. I started to see errors when I was using hardware acceleration several updates into when AI was added.

This hits everyone at a different point. Some had their system go wonky immediately, some it was after a specific update, and some still don't have a problem, but the trend is showing running hardware acceleration will result in a problem at some point.

However, with substreams being introduced, the CPU% needed to offload video to a GPU (internal or external) is more than the CPU% savings seen by offloading to a GPU. Especially after about 12 cameras, the CPU goes up by using hardware acceleration. The wiki points this out as well.

My CPU % went down by not using hardware acceleration.

Here is a recent thread where someone turned off hardware acceleration based on my post and their CPU dropped 10-15% and BI became stable.

But if you use HA, use plain intel and not the variants.

Some still don't have a problem, but eventually it may result in a problem.

Here is a sampling of recent threads that turning off HA fixed the issues they were having....

No hardware acceleration with subs?


Hardware decoding just increases GPU usage?


Can't enable HA on one camera + high Bitrate
 
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But you mentioned you have a GPU - are you offloading video to the GPU and thus using HA?

HA is in two places - globally in the main BI settings page and on each individual camera.
 
wittaj said:
But you mentioned you have a GPU - are you offloading video to the GPU and thus using HA?

HA is in two places - globally in the main BI settings page and on each individual camera.
Click to expand...
I just mentioned that I have a half decent gpu.
I am not offloading anything to the GPU, as I have only seen options for Intel to do this.
I am literally doing nothing special in BI at this point other than basic locating of cameras and basic motion detection.
I have the AI tool loaded and apparently not doing anything I would consider AI at this point.
So pretty much like the most vanilla out of the box setup right now trying to get basics working
 
Some hard drives perform poorly on ( reading)playing a recorded file, and writing simultaneously all the other streams.
 
pm-performance said:
I am sending video to my OS ssd and then offloading to a spindle drive for now
Click to expand...
That very well could be the issue. ^^

Video should be going DIRECTLY to a surveillance-rated HDD like a WD Purple.
Windows, BI and BI's "db" folder should be on the SSD.
Allocate drive storage as recommended by @SouthernYankee here.
 
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TonyR said:
That very well could be the issue. ^^

Video should be going DIRECTLY to a surveillance-rated HDD like a WD Purple.
Windows, BI and BI's "db" folder should be on the SSD.
Allocate drive storage as recommended by @SouthernYankee here.
Click to expand...
I have an old 1tb purple I can try from my old dvr.
At this rate I should have just bought a new dvr instead of using BI on a computer. It’s gonna end up costing the same money, just with more headaches it seems.
 
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What did you buy for a computer?

A good NVR starts at $400 and doesn't include a HDD.

Most here will buy an 8th gen PC off ebay that came off a lease (and is usually spotless and many cases not even used) for under $150 and works great.
 
pm-performance said:
I have an old 1tb purple I can try from my old dvr.
At this rate I should have just bought a new dvr instead of using BI on a computer. It’s gonna end up costing the same money, just with more headaches it seems.
Click to expand...
No, just be patient and youll be rewarded, Ill bet.
NVR's have their own learning curves.

When you set up BI did you follow the optimizations recommended in the Wiki?
 
wittaj said:
What did you buy for a computer?

A good NVR starts at $400 and doesn't include a HDD.

Most here will buy an 8th gen PC off ebay that came off a lease (and is usually spotless and many cases not even used) for under $150 and works great.
Click to expand...
It’s amazing because I have like a $1500 build and I am stuck upgrading it to mediocrely run BI.
Insert vent:
I only went this way because people swear by it. Thus far, this seems to be nothing but convoluted options that require a doctorates in Security to get working.
I was hoping for a plug and play and set zones and “ai” do it’s thing.
I am venting at this point because I have probably 2 full weeks, if not 3 screwing with this setup and still have yet to see any intelligent motion sensing or any of the blocks around people and cars and all the fancy things people show on their YouTube videos
 
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Nothing in this arena is true plug-n-play if quality and able to IDENTIFY is important.

All cameras need to be dialed in to the field of view. Even the best cameras left on default will result in motion blur and ghosting at night. It is the same process for the dialing in the camera regardless of the VMS (NVR) system used.

If you want true plug-n-play simplicity and do not care about nighttime motion quality, then go with one of the consumer brands - Ring, Arlo, Reolink, Nest, Blink, etc. They are true plug-n-play because those cameras all run on default/auto settings with very little, to no ability to change camera parameters. You will instantly get the blocks around objects and all that jazz.

Simply download their app and scan the camera QR code and you are up and running, with a better app experience also.

But their plug-n-play simplicity comes at a cost of nighttime performance and ability to customize stuff, but obviously many do not seem to care about that as those systems are popular and those consumer grade systems are a perfect fit for those that want simplicity and not having to learn how to use an NVR.

If you are not using CodeProject you will not see the blocks around people and all that fancy stuff and that is only on the pictures, not live view.

But many, if not most here, use the AI in the camera and feed that to BI and doesn't use CodeProject.

BI does not show the IVS rules and blocks around the objects like an NVR does. If that is something that is important to you, then you need an NVR.

It is why I commonly say BI has a free 15-day trial and download it on a laptop and see if you like it before investing in it. Personally when I downloaded it on an old laptop to give the demo a try and only put one camera on it, I knew it was better than any NVR experience I have had.

But others will say BI is too complicated and they love an NVR.

I know I am dealing with an issue with my neighbors NVR that would never happen with BI.
 
pm-performance said:
At this rate I should have just bought a new dvr instead of using BI on a computer. It’s gonna end up costing the same money, just with more headaches it seems.
Click to expand...
Maybe you should have....and have someone set it up for you.

Consider trying ==>> Better Business Bureau
Category: security cameras

At the above link I suggest typing in the category "security cameras" and "BBB Accredited Only"; put in the name of your city and state then click on "Search."
 
TonyR said:
Maybe you should have....and have someone set it up for you.

Consider trying ==>> Better Business Bureau
Category: security cameras

At the above link I suggest typing in the category "security cameras" and "BBB Accredited Only"; put in the name of your city and state then click on "Search."
Click to expand...
It’s not quite that serious. I dont live in the ghetto where I fear for my life without cameras.
I was just venting on the amount of time is takes to get this running and the resources needed on a pc vs just an nvr.
I will run through the wiki a little more this weekend. I feel the sections I read through really did not give me information of value telling what the settings specifics did, causing a lot of guess work and testing things constantly and walking around the yard every change to see if it did anything.
 
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