BI4 often freezes when zooming live video using mousewheel

[PlusPower]

I am not shure since when I have this issue. But lately I added some 5MP cameras. In order to see some details on live videos I more often zoom in with the mousewheel (this feature is very useful with 5MP cameras). Many times when I do that the respective video window freezes. When this happens I can sometimes still zoom in and out on other video windows. But most of the time all other windows are frozen as well. The situation can only be recovered with restarting BI. It also happens is SD video windows. It also happens when I remove the new 5MP cameras.

Any ideas?

 

[fenderman]

I am not shure since when I have this issue. But lately I added some 5MP cameras. In order to see some details on live videos I more often zoom in with the mousewheel (this feature is very useful with 5MP cameras). Many times when I do that the respective video window freezes. When this happens I can sometimes still zoom in and out on other video windows. But most of the time all other windows are frozen as well. The situation can only be recovered with restarting BI. It also happens is SD video windows. It also happens when I remove the new 5MP cameras.

Any ideas?

Is your cpu maxing out?

 

[PlusPower]

Hi fenderman,

thanks for your reply. I think you may be right. It might have something to do with the CPU load. I recently bought another four 5MP H.264 outdoor IR noname cameras which I am currently testing. The idea was to replace four of the good old 640x480 Panasonic MJPEG cameras (without IR) of my current surveillance system. Of course the new cameras can deliver much higher bitrates but I lowered the resolution (1920 x 1080) and the framerate (10Hz) until the bitrate of the new cams was lower than with the old cams. So the total bitrate of all the cameras is slightly lower (2300 kB/s) than before (2700 kB/s). I reckognize though that the CPU load seems to have become more nervous than before. While the basic load is somewhere around 60% it periodically spikes up to max. Do you think that this may be the reason? Why does the CPU get more load even though the bitrate is lower? Is it because of H.264? What would your recommend?

By the way I also have two USB-Webcams in my system. Unfortunately the bitrate of these is not shown in the statistics. Do you known why they are not shown?

With old cams:

With new cams


My CPU is AMD A8-5600K (not overclocked) 8GB RAM. I am running the latest version of BI4@64bit.

 

[fenderman]

@PlusPower, its not the bitrate but the camera resolution and frame rate. First thing you need to do is record all cameras direct to disk. Record tab>file format
You processor is not that powerful so you need to reduce the load...

 

[PlusPower]

All right,
Direct-toDisc reduced my CPU load
Second thing .... ?

 

[fenderman]

All right,
Direct-toDisc reduced my CPU load
Second thing .... ?

View attachment 6027

Not sure why its spiking..make sure to exclude blue iris from your antivirus scan.

 

[PlusPower]

I have no Antivirus Software running.
The spiking happens within Blue Iris.

 

[fenderman]

I have no Antivirus Software running.
The spiking happens within Blue Iris.

View attachment 6028

Windows can report that blue iris is spiking when there is in fact another operation causing the spike.....teamviewer/antivirus etc...
So it can be another application...
Do the spikes occur at exactly the same interval or is it random?

 

[PlusPower]

It's not TeamViewer. I tried closing TV but nothing happened.
Spiking stops when I close BlueIris GUI.
When BI4 GUI is opened on the desktop spiking occurs at fairly regular intervals (every 25 seconds).

BI4 GUI closed:

 

[fenderman]

It's not TeamViewer. I tried closing TV but nothing happened.
Spiking stops when I close BlueIris GUI.
When BI4 GUI is opened on the desktop spiking occurs at fairly regular intervals (every 25 seconds).

BI4 GUI closed:
View attachment 6029

Teamviewer/antivirus was just an example.
This may be related to your cameras sending iframes to your camera...what is your iframe interval set to (in the camera)..?
What is the camera model? Some 5mp cheap china cams are know to not play well with blue iris.
Send an email to support and see what he says.

 

[PlusPower]

Camera Model: AQ-IPQ2367X-L36-POE
I set the iframe Interval to 50.



With support are you referring to Ken?

 

[fenderman]

Camera Model: AQ-IPQ2367X-L36-POE
I set the iframe Interval to 50.

View attachment 6030

With support are you referring to Ken?

yes, ken...
That camera is way overpriced...remember 5mp is not always better an 4mp or 2mp...

 

[PlusPower]

Are you serious? Why do you think it's overpriced?
I think that 114 € is really cheap for the features you get.
Can you point me to a better deal?

I have one of these actively in use since about 6 months and I am quite happy with it.
The picture quality and night vision is really good.
It's an outdoor camera with a sturdy metal case and active IR-cut filter.

On the downside it needs quite a lot of power (gets very warm) when the IR LEDs are active.
And I have sporadic dropouts on the video stream (but may be due to poor network components).

What's a bit strange is that when you try increase the resolution higher than 1080p it actually increases the field of view.
But I found out that the quality is good enough for me at 1080p.
If I switch to full 5mp the resolution actually remains the same but the field of view increases and gives me a super wide angle.

What do you think about my video settings?

 

[fenderman]

Take a look at offerings from dahua and hikvision. They are known good reliable brands that work well with blue iris. Cameras listed specs are practically meaningless..

 

[PlusPower]

@fenderman

Thanks a lot so far.
Your support is very much appreciated :joyous:

Your post with "direct to disc" was really helpful for me.
I emailed Ken about the camera.

Have a nice weekend.

 

[Sweetc]

I am not shure since when I have this issue. But lately I added some 5MP cameras. In order to see some details on live videos I more often zoom in with the mousewheel (this feature is very useful with 5MP cameras). Many times when I do that the respective video window freezes. When this happens I can sometimes still zoom in and out on other video windows. But most of the time all other windows are frozen as well. The situation can only be recovered with restarting BI. It also happens is SD video windows. It also happens when I remove the new 5MP cameras.

Any ideas?

Any luck?. For me it started freezing while zooming and then program crashes since last 2 updates. It sucks because 2 days before I upgraded from dual core with no problems just high cpu usage to an e3 1231 quad workstation cpu. Now 20 percent usage and crashing while zooming. Also stuttering when motion is triggerd

 

[bp2008]

I had three similar 5MP cameras and while they did produce a really nice picture, they were unreliable as you describe. I found several things helped. First and most importantly, set the iframe interval equal to the frame rate. So with frame rate 10, set iframe interval 10 also. Second, I found them more stable with a lower bit rate in the 2000-4000 range. Of course that takes away from some of the image quality, so if the instability doesn't bother you then you can leave it high.

Try reducing the live preview rate in Blue Iris Options > Cameras tab. This can lower CPU usage a lot when you have the GUI open. If you need to improve the CPU usage further, reduce the frame rates of the cameras (you'll have to change the frame rates in the camera interfaces, not in Blue Iris) and that will reduce continuous CPU usage at all times.

 

[PlusPower]

I managed to bring the basic CPU load on my camserver down to 35% with your recommendations "direct-to-disc" and "iframes = framerate = 10".
Unfortunately I still see the CPU load spiking at regular intervals of 25...30 s but now only 80% ... 90%, not 100% as before any more.
Spiking happens all the time also while BI4-UI is closed (other than I thought I had found out before).
With this setup I can zoom all cameras with no problems so I guess fenderman was right, the freezing may occur when CPU load is maxed out.