video freezing during playback

[kylen]

so i have done a few tweaks on some settings and some debugging with the dpc tool. Preliminary tests are basically indicating that one of the sound drivers was causing the latency spikes. I don't want to jump to conclusions but since that sound driver has been disabled I have no longer had any latency spikes. (about 3 hours consistently - obviously i need to give it a little more time and run a few more tests to be sure I identified the right driver) In my camera's settings, it had a network QoS setting. Default was set at normal service, then I initially changed it to high-throughput (options are: normal service, high throughput, high reliability, low-time delay), I have since changed it to high reliability. With all of these changes, and leaving that sound driver disabled, I have not had any pauses in the clips nor any latency spikes. I hope it continues this way - more time will tell if I truly resolved the issue.

Is this the proper solution?

 

[Zxel]

With all of these changes, and leaving that sound driver disabled, I have not had any pauses in the clips nor any latency spikes. I hope it continues this way - more time will tell if I truly resolved the issue.

Is this the proper solution?

Absolutely - good job!

If the stability sticks you can try replacing the sound driver with a newer version or a third party driver (ya, they do have them - but be careful they can also mess you up worse). If the sound driver is unused on your system (you'd be suprised how many things you don't need on the driver side that is installed by windows and other programs/hardware) just leave it off or unistall it (which reminds me - you should try removing/re-installing the driver first).

Once again excellent troubleshooting.

 

[kylen]

well unfortunately time did tell me that I haven't gotten it right just yet After running the dpc tool overnight, at some point during the night a small spike occurred, the spikes occur very infrequently now (maybe once every 6-8 hours) so I'm not sure if those are the cause of the issue - can't hurt to get rid of either way though. The lagging is still occurring - roughly once every 4 or 5 motion recordings. They are still about 4-5 seconds long and there usually is NOT a latency spike accompanied with the lag in the clip.

The whole thing is rather inconsistent and very tricky to pinpoint - I thought it was resolved because I had no bad clips for many hours and then the problem slowly came back - may have to email Ken and see if he has any suggestions...

 

[Zxel]

well unfortunately time did tell me that I haven't gotten it right just yet After running the dpc tool overnight, at some point during the night a small spike occurred, the spikes occur very infrequently now (maybe once every 6-8 hours) so I'm not sure if those are the cause of the issue - can't hurt to get rid of either way though. The lagging is still occurring - roughly once every 4 or 5 motion recordings. They are still about 4-5 seconds long and there usually is NOT a latency spike accompanied with the lag in the clip.

The whole thing is rather inconsistent and very tricky to pinpoint - I thought it was resolved because I had no bad clips for many hours and then the problem slowly came back - may have to email Ken and see if he has any suggestions...

If you have the dpc spikes only happening every 6-8 hours and they don't correspond to the lagging I would say that the dpc issue is not causing your BI problem. It is a good idea to have a clean dpc check, however, it is normal to have a dpc spike at certain times, like your computer is doing a backup, disk defrag, update checks... The windows event viewer may help you peg it, try creating a custom view for time period(s) that the spikes occur, it may give you a direction to go. You are right, dpc problems are difficult to peg and tricky.

Since the problem of lagging is occuring on all your camers and it only occurs using BI (you stated it is fine thru the web interface) I would concentrate on the disk activity and BI settings. For the disk activity check you will need to create a custom view (set for the time the lagging occured) in the windows event viewer, and run windows resource monitor or performance monitor. Resource Monitor is real time, you would need to be viewing it at the time it occured, Performance Monitor will let you create a custom data set that you can review at a specific time. There is a great deal of help on the internet on how to create a custom data set for PM, it is a complicated program but is excellent in pegging system issues. It may be you have a sector on your hard drive that is starting to fail - this can causes lagging in realtime recording because the computer/hd uses error correction to "fix" the issue - but it takes time and can briefly freeze the OS and/or programs, this was actually a problem for me at one time (and it was VERY hard to peg). It may also be something as simple as a BI setting, you may want to install the software that came with your cameras and see if it can record without pausing, if it can I'd be looking at BI, if not I'd be looking into the system.

Keep us apprised of your progress, sorry for the pain in the arse this is. On the good side when this is done you will be FAR more knowledgeable on computers and cameras.

 

[kylen]

I knew that cup of coffee that the dog spilled all across and into the cpu would eventually come back to haunt me... lol true story - it may be the underlying cause (hope not). But the cameras record using their own software just fine. The problem stems from somewhere in BI. When I get home from work. I have another computer I can move to which is more powerful, newer, but runs on windows 8... Does anyone know how BI does with windows 8? Any issues? I assume BI installs can be moved from one machine to another?

 

[Zxel]

I knew that cup of coffee that the dog spilled all across and into the cpu would eventually come back to haunt me... lol true story - it may be the underlying cause (hope not). But the cameras record using their own software just fine. The problem stems from somewhere in BI. When I get home from work. I have another computer I can move to which is more powerful, newer, but runs on windows 8... Does anyone know how BI does with windows 8? Any issues? I assume BI installs can be moved from one machine to another?

BI 4.x runs fine on windows 8, you can use the export settings button to transfer over the settings - should be easy pleasy.

 

[kylen]

will that export the registration code as well?

 

[Zxel]

will that export the registration code as well?

That's a good question - i duno, however, since BI is activated over the internet all you should have to do is make sure you DEACTIVATE the old installation before you activate the new install (you will need your activation code if BI does not save that).

 

[kylen]

Well here I am having moved my BI install onto my brand new windows 8 machine with a faster processor, more memory, more ram, better graphics, better everything... the whole swap only took less than 30 minutes - definitely like that about BI. So everything looked good and then suddenly, the video lags again on recording a clip. Immediately I started looking into BI settings because the problem is in there somewhere since it's happening on both machines (only other place could be the network and I am pretty confident that's not it - I have looked into that heavily). So I walked through the process of reproducing the lag while looking at every BI setting I went through along the way, I came to where I had checked, "Always create a hi-res jpeg image", (with a 2MP camera at 1920X1080-that's a lot) so I unchecked that. So far now I'm not having any more lag. Makes sense to me. Any cpu processing a high-res image like that on-the-fly while streaming multiple sources is likely to hiccup every now and then.... So far so good, hopefully it holds up...

Thoughts??

 

[Zxel]

Well here I am having moved my BI install onto my brand new windows 8 machine with a faster processor, more memory, more ram, better graphics, better everything... the whole swap only took less than 30 minutes - definitely like that about BI. So everything looked good and then suddenly, the video lags again on recording a clip. Immediately I started looking into BI settings because the problem is in there somewhere since it's happening on both machines (only other place could be the network and I am pretty confident that's not it - I have looked into that heavily). So I walked through the process of reproducing the lag while looking at every BI setting I went through along the way, I came to where I had checked, "Always create a hi-res jpeg image", (with a 2MP camera at 1920X1080-that's a lot) so I unchecked that. So far now I'm not having any more lag. Makes sense to me. Any cpu processing a high-res image like that on-the-fly while streaming multiple sources is likely to hiccup every now and then.... So far so good, hopefully it holds up...

Thoughts??

I like it, if I remember correctly another user had the exact same problem and what you just did is what fixed it for them. Let us know if this ends up being it (and then you can move it back to the other machine if you want).

 

[kylen]

So after a few days now I think I have figured out what was going on... In my camera settings page I had an option for the I/P frame rate. The default for this was set to be around 80-100 (can't remember). I then lowered the number down to 20, making the ratio much higher. That in combination with turning off the high-res jpeg alert image for the 1920x1080 cameras have seemed to eliminate all my problems. I hope it holds up.

 

[fenderman]

So after a few days now I think I have figured out what was going on... In my camera settings page I had an option for the I/P frame rate. The default for this was set to be around 80-100 (can't remember). I then lowered the number down to 20, making the ratio much higher. That in combination with turning off the high-res jpeg alert image for the 1920x1080 cameras have seemed to eliminate all my problems. I hope it holds up.

That makes sense...nice detective work...I would match the I-frame rate to the FPS.

 

[kylen]

so matched would produce the highest quality? my fps is set to 25. That's why I set it at 20 - but if 25 will produce a smoother image I am all for that. This camera has to have a high enough frame rate to capture moving cars hence the 25fps

 

[fenderman]

so matched would produce the highest quality? my fps is set to 25. That's why I set it at 20 - but if 25 will produce a smoother image I am all for that. This camera has to have a high enough frame rate to capture moving cars hence the 25fps

I think if you lower it to 20 its stays at your frame rate anyway...im unsure...i would leave it as is..if it works it works

 

[kylen]

I'm happy with that, that took a lot of time to troubleshoot. For my next project though, I'm thinking about making a small handheld remote, with about 10-20 buttons on it, and then adding a small module that can receive the signals from the remote attached to the computer. Add a few macros in BI and then while sitting on the couch, I can pick up my cam remote, and move to any preset I want Have you seen any project like this? If I have to start from scratch, I was thinking about using Arduino parts....

 

[fenderman]

Are you just trying to change presets (like in the schedule) or how the cams display on your tv/monitor?

 

[kylen]

just change presets, nothing big, could use my phone app, but I have a similar remote I made for the lights in the house, figured why not the camera presets too

 

[fenderman]

just change presets, nothing big, could use my phone app, but I have a similar remote I made for the lights in the house, figured why not the camera presets too

Yeah, seems like too much work when you can use the app..

 

[wboy]

So after a few days now I think I have figured out what was going on... In my camera settings page I had an option for the I/P frame rate. The default for this was set to be around 80-100 (can't remember). I then lowered the number down to 20, making the ratio much higher. That in combination with turning off the high-res jpeg alert image for the 1920x1080 cameras have seemed to eliminate all my problems. I hope it holds up.

I just came back here to say THANK YOU for spending all the time to figure this out. I had the exact same issue and turning off high-res jpeg alert images worked for me!!

 

[Bodyflyer]

First, I want to thank you for your thorough troubleshooting! I had to create an account just to reply and say thanks. Also, I tried out your suggestions one by one and was unsuccessful but I have to mention that my problem of video pausing correlated with a video card driver update. I have been running BI with zero issues since the first of the year. I run 6 Hikvision 1920x1080 on a 100mb switch at 30fps and Recording 120 seconds of video to the internal HD and capturing Hires JPG's and immediately emailing them to my phone upon trigger event. I have an SSD for BI x86 install files and they write clips and video directly to a WD Black 1tb internal drive. The threshold for the "overwrite" of clips is set to 700mb. That was what I thought was the issue. Like it was pausing in order to delete the clips before it could write. So I started deleting mass amounts of video and tried it again. Still pausing. So then I did a disk cleanup and had a lot of fragmentation and decided to run defrag. My disk I/O was hovering around 97% during this defrag on the Black 1tb. Just for the heck of it (while the drive was still maxed out) I went into my Antivirus and disabled the BI directories or excluded them rather, saved my settings and went outside an tested it. NO PAUSE!! AT 99% I/O!! I know that was a recommendation in the initial setup but like I said, this problem just started happening. You might try this and see if you have any luck. My prebuffer is 30.
tl;dr - Exclude the BI folders within your antivirus like it says in the directions. LOL!