Video "Graying Out" Randomly (VIDEO INSIDE)

[maximeeso]

I have used Blue Iris for about 2 years now.
I previously had 4 cheap Escam 720P/25FPS cameras that never gave me any trouble at all..
I was just ready for something with a little higher quality.. So I bought 4x Dahua IPC-HDW4431C-A 4MP...
I set up 1 about a week before all of the others and ran into absolutely no issues until the day I set up the remaining 3 cameras..

So here we are: I am running Blue Iris on a Windows 10 PC with i5-4690K, 8 GB of RAM, 250 GB SSD, 3 TB HDD and a Geforce GTX 970 (Budget gaming machine). All 4 cameras are recording 24/7 with motion alerts.

I am using Blue Iris DVR format with Direct-to-disc video compression.

2 of the cameras are set to H265/2560x1440/4096kbps/20fps:


and 2 of them are set to H.264H/2560x1440/4096kbps/20fps:


Here's how they all look in Blue Iris:


So now for the problem.. All of the cameras work fine what seems like 95% of the time, but randomly (Doesn't matter if I'm at work away from the computer or on the computer) all recorded video by Blue Iris will randomly start flashing gray.
If I am watching it live in Blue Iris or in the Dahua GUI, it's fine, it's just the Blue Iris recorded video.


I hope someone has some idea why this could be randomly happening! Thank you!

 

[fenderman]

I have used Blue Iris for about 2 years now.
I previously had 4 cheap Escam 720P/25FPS cameras that never gave me any trouble at all..
I was just ready for something with a little higher quality.. So I bought 4x Dahua IPC-HDW4431C-A 4MP...
I set up 1 about a week before all of the others and ran into absolutely no issues until the day I set up the remaining 3 cameras..

So here we are: I am running Blue Iris on a Windows 10 PC with i5-4690K, 8 GB of RAM, 250 GB SSD, 3 TB HDD and a Geforce GTX 970 (Budget gaming machine). All 4 cameras are recording 24/7 with motion alerts.

I am using Blue Iris DVR format with Direct-to-disc video compression.

2 of the cameras are set to H265/2560x1440/4096kbps/20fps:
View attachment 19520

and 2 of them are set to H.264H/2560x1440/4096kbps/20fps:
View attachment 19521

Here's how they all look in Blue Iris:
View attachment 19522

So now for the problem.. All of the cameras work fine what seems like 95% of the time, but randomly (Doesn't matter if I'm at work away from the computer or on the computer) all recorded video by Blue Iris will randomly start flashing gray.
If I am watching it live in Blue Iris or in the Dahua GUI, it's fine, it's just the Blue Iris recorded video.

Here's what I am talking about:

I hope someone has some idea why this could be randomly happening! Thank you!

match the iframe interval to the fps...
in blue iris video>config, set the receive buffer to 20

 

[maximeeso]

match the iframe interval to the fps...
in blue iris video>config, set the receive buffer to 20

All of the cameras were already set to a receive buffer of 20. I have now set them all to a 20 frame interval to match the frame rate though.

Is there any possibility whatsoever this could be a CPU or GPU or HDD bottleneck issue?



I typically average between 40-60% CPU usage, sometimes up to 80-90%. I wish I could run these cameras at their full 25 FPS, at the highest H265 bitrate -- and maybe add a few more cameras.

Thank you for your assistance so far.

 

[fenderman]

All of the cameras were already set to a receive buffer of 20. I have now set them all to a 20 frame interval to match the frame rate though.

Is there any possibility whatsoever this could be a CPU or GPU or HDD bottleneck issue?

View attachment 19523

I typically average between 40-60% CPU usage, sometimes up to 80-90%. I wish I could run these cameras at their full 25 FPS, at the highest H265 bitrate -- and maybe add a few more cameras.

Thank you for your assistance so far.

There is zero - no benefit over 10-15fps..25 is not needed...you also dont need the highest bitrate, its a waste of disk storage....the image will not be noticeably better. You may benefit from hardware acceleration on your h.264 cameras (and might want to run h.264 on all your cams)..if you motherboard supports running intel hd with nvidia simultaneously it will work..otherwise remove the nvidia card and run intel hd...you should not be dual purposing any machines...
your issue can also be related to inferior firmware/hardware on the china region cameras you purchased...it is hacked with international firmware.

 

[maximeeso]

There is zero - no benefit over 10-15fps..25 is not needed...you also dont need the highest bitrate, its a waste of disk storage....the image will not be noticeably better. You may benefit from hardware acceleration on your h.264 cameras (and might want to run h.264 on all your cams)..if you motherboard supports running intel hd with nvidia simultaneously it will work..otherwise remove the nvidia card and run intel hd...you should not be dual purposing any machines...
your issue can also be related to inferior firmware/hardware on the china region cameras you purchased...it is hacked with international firmware.

But if the issue was related to inferior firmware/hardware -- Wouldn't I see it somewhere else other than the Blue Iris recorded video? The fact that I have NEVER seen it on the live cam feeds on BI or Dahua leads me to believe it's something more software related...

What is the advantage of H264 over H265? I thought H265 was the new compression technology that requires half the bandwidth. Also, should I run H264H or H264?

 

[fenderman]

But if the issue was related to inferior firmware/hardware -- Wouldn't I see it somewhere else other than the Blue Iris recorded video? The fact that I have NEVER seen it on the live cam feeds on BI or Dahua leads me to believe it's something more software related...

What is the advantage of H264 over H265? I thought H265 was the new compression technology that requires half the bandwidth. Also, should I run H264H or H264?

are you looking at another vms pulling rtsp or onvif protocols? the web browser view works differently.
What you are seeing is likely dropped frames.
H.265 users more processing power on the camera side and on the pc side. Storage is cheap. use h.264...test all options and see what happens.

 

[maximeeso]

are you looking at another vms pulling rtsp or onvif protocols? the web browser view works differently.
What you are seeing is likely dropped frames.
H.265 users more processing power on the camera side and on the pc side. Storage is cheap. use h.264...test all options and see what happens.

Not sure how to answer the question. I am logging directly into the camera using a web browser to view it. It's frustrating because of how random it is. I'll set settings and not see it doing it for 3-4 days then randomly it'll crank up again.

 

[maximeeso]

are you looking at another vms pulling rtsp or onvif protocols? the web browser view works differently.
What you are seeing is likely dropped frames.
H.265 users more processing power on the camera side and on the pc side. Storage is cheap. use h.264...test all options and see what happens.

So viewing a camera in Blue Iris client app or Blue Iris mobile app are completely different than blue Iris recording?

 

[fenderman]

Not sure how to answer the question. I am logging directly into the camera using a web browser to view it. It's frustrating because of how random it is. I'll set settings and not see it doing it for 3-4 days then randomly it'll crank up again.

the web browser works differently than the rtsp stream.

 

[fenderman]

So viewing a camera in Blue Iris client app or Blue Iris mobile app are completely different than blue Iris recording?

yes...
to test, view via rtsp in vlc...

 

[maximeeso]

yes...
to test, view via rtsp in vlc...

Maybe I have my settings wrong inside BI too.. I have it set to just generic stream settings..

Well guess we'll see how these changes go...

 

[fenderman]

Maybe I have my settings wrong inside BI too.. I have it set to just generic stream settings..

Well guess we'll see how these changes go...

use dahua rtsp or use find inspect...try both..

 

[fenderman]

This was the other day as well.. Thoughts?

yes that is dropped frames...that is why you want your fps and iframes to match...also ensure that the hard drive is not sleeping and windows is set to high performance...exclude blue iris program and storage folders from any virus scans

 

[maximeeso]

UPDATE: I think I may have identified what was causing my sporadic graying out (hopefully!) ... I am a bit of a newb so I have not even had the log file turned on, well I turned it on yesterday and this morning at exactly 6:12 AM it started graying out, so I decided to see if anything was happening that could cause this.. It lasted until approximately 7:12 AM....

6/24/2017 6:12:40 AM Clips New: moving 1 files 6.60G [141/720, 1177719/1177600, 553946]
6/24/2017 6:37:24 AM -------- 192.168.1.8: Login
6/24/2017 6:38:57 AM -------- 192.168.1.8: Logout, 1:33
6/24/2017 6:53:41 AM -------- 192.168.1.8: Logout, 1:01
6/24/2017 7:07:42 AM Clips New: moving 2 files 4.51G [141/720, 1177637/1177600, 547255]

But yet it has not done it since 7:12 AM and this activity occurred -- No problems during this:

6/24/2017 7:47:44 AM Clips New: moving 1 files 535.6M [138/720, 1177945/1177600, 542322]
6/24/2017 7:52:44 AM Clips New: moving 1 files 22.4G [138/720, 1178025/1177600, 541709]
6/24/2017 7:52:45 AM Clips Stored: deleting 1 files 24.3G [319/720, 1142426/1126400, 541709]

Coincidence or do you think I am onto something? I haven't messed with any of these clips and archiving settings in years.. maybe it's time to re-visit? Maybe you can help:

 

[fenderman]

Is the I drive Local or external/network

 

[maximeeso]

Is the I drive Local or external/network

Local :/ which you asking that tells me that it shouldn't have any effect.

 

[maximeeso]

No idea why I had items going from the New folder after 1,150 GB and then going to the Stored folder just to be deleted after 500 GB.. But either way now I will just have it set to use the New folder and delete after 2000 GB.

Doubt this has anything to do with my issue though, pure coincidence I do believe.

 

[maximeeso]

One other theory -- Unsure if this is even possible -- My old cameras did not have POE so I have a power strip up in the attic with power adapters plug in then I'm injecting the ethernet line on both ends. When I got all of these cameras, I just went ahead and hooked them up the already existing injectors because they have both POE and power adapter capabilities... One of the cameras would not even come on hooked up the injector so I had to run a direct ethernet line to my POE switch for it.

Is it possible that the injectors are not providing enough power compared to what POE would provide, and that could cause this issue? Like I said -- I have a POE switch hooked up now with one camera on it.

 

[fenderman]

No idea why I had items going from the New folder after 1,150 GB and then going to the Stored folder just to be deleted after 500 GB.. But either way now I will just have it set to use the New folder and delete after 2000 GB.

Doubt this has anything to do with my issue though, pure coincidence I do believe.

External and network drives can have issues with writing... that's why I asked... ensure the drive is not sleeping

 

[fenderman]

If the Poe camera is not having an issue then maybe