What is BI 5.9.9.20 doing every 2 minutes?

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xebra

n3wb
Dec 28, 2024
6
0
SW Idaho
First post here, so I'd like to thank all of the contributors for helping with the initial set up. The wiki page was very helpful, as were the videos!
It would be very helpful to have a BI tab by tab recommended settings. The information is available in various posts if you search long enough.
I've been able to find most of my answers through the search tool but I have an observation I can't find an explanation for.
I used BI 5 in a previous job a couple of years ago, so I'm not really a beginner, just lacking experience.

I have 3 dahua cameras from EmpireTech, all Vari-focal. 2 turret and 1 bullet all are B22IR variant. All cameras are set to:

H264H
Main res 1920x1080 sub res 740*480
Frame rate 25 sub frame 25
CBR sub CBR
bit rate 2048 sub bit 1024
I frame 50 Sub Iframe 50
Hardware decode is default.

CPU is nearly consistent at 20% to 27%. GPU varies a little, but mostly 13%
When I observe the main and substreams at the camera web page, the video is steady, no issues.

The issue is 2 to 3 seconds of slight blurryness and OSD shift every 2 minutes (+/- 2 seconds) when observed full screen in BI when I watch each camera.
All cameras on full screen display have the same issue.

triggered (or continuous) video doesn't show the same anomaly. Layout view doesn't show the anomaly.

The same slight blurryness and shift of OSD occurs when I first go from normal 3 camera layout view in BI to single camera full screen view, every time.
It appears as if BI is adjusting a resolution or some other setting when full screen is first selected and then the same thing again every 2 minutes.

I deselected "Anamorphic (forced size) and selected ok, the camera (each one) rebooted fine. When I revisited Anamorphic, it was checked again but the resolution was lower than what I had forced previously.
No change in the anomaly.


I'm thinking it's a setting somewhere but haven't found it yet.

What am I missing?
 
Sounds like the "pulsing" we see in some field of views when BI is getting the iframes and when the frames don't match.

But you have way too low bitrates.

For 2MP you should be starting with 4096.

The change you see going from multi-camera to solo is the feed going from sub to main. And with iframes double the FPS, it can take a few seconds for it to switch.

Best practice for BI is matching FPS with iframes and most here find that 15 for each is the optimal settings for BI.
 
Wow, that was quick! Thanks for the tips, I'll give changing the bitrates and matching the Iframes a shot.
The explanation of FPS changes makes sense.
 
I made a few changes, and I think I followed your guidance...
here are the settings in BI for cameras. I only changed the FPS here to match cameras.
BI Cam settings.jpg

Should I set 15 FPS here in Camera settings?
BTW AI is not enabled.

I changed the settings in the cameras to boost bitrate and match FPS to Iframe.

cam video setting.jpg

The pulse still occurs every 2 minutes.
Thanks for your time and help!!
 
Post a video of what you see so we can see if it is the typical pulsing or something else.

Do you remote desktop in? If so change the 5 seconds as that could cause it as well.

It is the in the camera GUI that you set the FPS and frame rates. Do not touch FPS stuff in BI. It will cause problems. Let the cameras feed to BI and let BI decide.
 
xebra said:
The same slight blurryness and shift of OSD occurs when I first go from normal 3 camera layout view in BI to single camera full screen view, every time.
It appears as if BI is adjusting a resolution or some other setting when full screen is first selected and then the same thing again every 2 minutes.
Click to expand...

This (also shown in your small video above) is Blue Iris displaying the sub stream briefly while it gets a new video decoder started up to show you the main stream. It is normal behavior when maximizing a camera (solo viewing a single camera).

It is worrying that your system would switch back to displaying the sub stream for a moment every 2 minutes. That is not supposed to happen.

Some thoughts:
1. Look at Blue Iris's log file for any anomalous activity (signal loss messages, error messages, etc).
2. In the "Network IP camera configuration" panel in Blue Iris (where you entered the camera's IP address) try toggling the "Use RTSP/stream timecode" box to whichever mode it is not currently set to. This is a long shot admittedly. Possibly Blue Iris is losing sync between the streams, and my thought is maybe if you change this checkbox Blue Iris may use different timing logic that does not yield the same anomalous behavior.
3. Try running the camera for a while without its sub stream configured (blank out the sub stream path in the "Network IP camera configuration" panel in Blue Iris) and see if the main stream is smooth for more than 2 minutes straight, or if it gets interrupted every 2 minutes.
 
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What camera? I have had a situation where the sub stream would drop out

All of these small switches like that between views if why I don't run sub-streams, I just gets on my nerves
 
In the camera configuration, I had previously selected an ONVIF camera that "worked" under the Dahua model name although it was not my specific camera.
That was probably part of the issue.
I still need to learn how to add my camera to the list....

There were no signal loss or error messages in the logs, so I went back to the NEWORK IP camera config section for that camera and selected "*RTSP"
The camera rebooted and I no longer see the anomalous pulsing every 2 minutes. However, I no longer have the ability to zoom using BI controls :(

SO I guess I have a choice, Use a similar camera listed under the Dahua model name and use zoom in BI and seem substeam anomalies or leave the model as *RTSP and get rid of the anomalies and lose zoom from BI.



With all that I've learned, I realize there is more to learn....

Thanks for the help and tips!
Cheers

cam config setting.jpg
 
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