Blue Iris UI3 optimalisation with your favorite camera brand: Reolink :) (I know there Sh*t), read first please!

[VGE]

Hi guys,

Before i start:
Yes I know you guys and your friends, dogs, cats and mother in law love Reolink (/s).
Yes I know other brands are far superior.
Yes I know the problem mostly is with the I-Frame settings that Reolink doesn't support.
Yes I know how a search button works.

So with that out of the way here's my situation:

I own a full dahua NVR/cam system at home and I want to replace the NVR in the future. I'm newish to the self hosted/self build NVR stuff so BI is new for me. Im not new to self-hosting in general, just the NVR part. Why am I here you ask me then?
Currently im in the middle of experimenting with different NVR alternatives: BI, ZoneMinder, Shinobi, to replace my home NVR and to add a NVR to a remote location. I own a couple of larger storage/garage boxes I use my self to work on my car and also rent out. I want to add camera's there to keep an eye out and have a bit more security and give customers the possibility to look at there belongings (also to scare off potential thiefs).

It doesn't have to be perfect, and don't want to spend a ton off money to get it working. So what I did is I bought 3 Reolink RLC-520 for 50 euro a piece. Thats a total of € 150,- about $ 181. Just for reference the cheapest Dahua i can buy costs € 150,- a piece. I can buy 3 Reolinks for the price of 1 Dahua. I would never buy these camera's for critical security or my home.

So I tested Shinobi, I liked it: Linux, camera's look great. But not as stable as I hoped for and some wierd choises in layout and functions. (also IOS app is in beta and will cost 5,- a month)
I tested ZM, can see the potential but a bit outdated and not that intuitive for watching back footage. Video looks very crisp tho and will do what I need it to do if nothing else works.
then I tested Blue Iris and it is by far the most intuitive out off the programs I tested. Unfortunate windows but I can live with that.

Im in the testing fase for BI. I have a hp elitedesk 800 g2 with a i7 6700, 16GB of RAM a 250GB SSD for a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro, a 4TB WD Purple for the footage. I bought a 5 port POE switch and a license for BI and everything is working like it supposed to for most part.

What is the problem: When I look back at footage on the HP elitedesk on the native Blue Iris client, footage looks crisp and great. Also when I look at the footage trough the IOS app on my Iphone Xs or Ipad air 2, it also looks good and I have no problems.

But when I use web version UI3 to look back at the footage, it looks garbage, the same clip I can perfectly watch on my ipad, phone and PC smears like hell is nearly unwatchable. Im looking for tips to trouble shoot this issue!

If I cant get BI working because of the Reolink camera's I will use other software or dont use the UI3 website and will later use the BI license to replace my home NVR. So nothing is lost. I just want to work with the tools I have and make the best out of it without trowing money at something without first researching al possibilities!

Thanks in advance, the intro is not to trigger anyone

 

[samplenhold]

Back in BI, for each cam group, you can set the webcasting parms. Here is the panel and the help file page for that.

 

[VGE]

Back in BI, for each cam group, you can set the webcasting parms. Here is the panel and the help file page for that.

Hi thank you, didnt find those settings! Will look in to it. Thanks for the tip.

 

[SouthernYankee]

Test all cameras at night with motion. Have a "bad Guy" quickly walk past the camera 6 meters out, wearing a hoodie. If you can not ID the person for the cops and court you have wasted your money.

Reolink does not use a standard frame rate and a stand Iframe interval.

In BI are you using Substreams ?
in BI are you using hardware acceleration (may not work with Reolink).

Do you you have the UI3 Web max frame rate set to the average frame rate for the cameras ?

The amount of money you saved on the reolink will cost more in your time to get the crap working.

Post a video of your problem.

See other Reolink post from today Reolink cameras poor performance

Also see Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

 

[samplenhold]

Also, in UI3 there is a UI Settings dialog. Experiment with the Video Player section.


And also experiment with the Quality settings in UI3.

 

[VGE]

Test all cameras at night with motion. Have a "bad Guy" quickly walk past the camera 6 meters out, wearing a hoodie. If you can not ID the person for the cops and court you have wasted your money.

Hi Yankee, thanks for the reply. Its not for the cops, laws are different here in Europe. Its more so I can be in my main box and look whats happening in the next one and to just look if the car is still there. Nothing serious, I have a hacked Xiaomi wifi camera currently sitting there with a web stream and its ok for the looking part, just no recording.

In BI are you using Substreams ?
in BI are you using hardware acceleration (may not work with Reolink).

Yes RTMP Sub + Main stream + Intel Qsync activated in main settings and camera settings.

Do you you have the UI3 Web max frame rate set to the average frame rate for the cameras ?

No changed that, will monitor next couple hours if I see a difference.

The amount of money you saved on the reolink will cost more in your time to get the crap working.

Post a video of your problem.

I know but still I bought the PC + 3 camera's for less than just 3 duhau's. cost vs purpose is a quick calculation. Would never buy them for home. Will post a video if the problem still persist after al tips.

See other Reolink post from today Reolink cameras poor performance

Also see Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

Will look at both, thank you!

 

[VGE]

Also, in UI3 there is a UI Settings dialog. Experiment with the Video Player section.


And also experiment with the Quality settings in UI3.

Ok changed the settings and will test 24 hours. Thanks for the tips!

 

[bp2008]

Hi @VGE. I'm the UI3 developer. Group webcasting options are for multiple-camera views only.

When you play a single camera or view a clip, its quality is determined mainly by the streaming profile you have selected in the playback controls (bottom right). The default is 1080p VBR which is relatively low quality in order to work well on crappy internet connections. If you choose something else like 2160p or 1080p then you will get a substantially cleaner image at the cost of higher bit rate. Jpeg options also exist at the bottom of the list but those are mainly for compatibility with older or less advanced web browsers, and should be ignored by most people.

 

[wittaj]

Let me give you an example as to why Blue Iris and Reolinks do not work well together.

This was a screenshot of a user's Blue Iris status where they had set the cameras to 15FPS within the cameras and they were missing motion:



Even though they have set it for 15FPS, look at what the camera is doing - dropped some down to below 1FPS but none are 15FPS. Now look at they key - that is the iframes. Blue Iris works best when the FPS and the iframes match. Now this is a ratio, so it should be a 1 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 should equal the FPS (something these cameras do not allow you to set), but at worse case be no more than double. This example shows the cameras going down to a keyrate of 0.24 means that the iframe rates are over 4 times the FPS and that is why motion 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...

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.