Blue Iris - 'Slow motion' playback and cameras going offline

mrgeeza

mrgeeza

n3wb
Nov 29, 2020
7
2
UK
I've got a problem, not just my personality this time ether.

I'm a newbie when it comes to IP CCTV, I've tried Shinobi, Zoneminder but settled on Blue Iris for its stability, feature set and relative ease of use.

Setup:
I have 4 x 5MP IP cameras that are cabled directly via CAT6 to a managed POE switch. That switch then trunked to a none POE managed switch where I have a further trunk group going to my Dual Socket Unraid Server.

I'm then running Blue Iris in a VM pushing 4 cores and 8Gb of RAM nothing extreme but what I thought would handle it. The cameras direct-to-disk record continuously and then I'm using a post I found on here by Gentle Pumpkin to analyse the footage to determine weather not not I should get a notification.

Symptoms:
  • Some, not all cameras going offline, they have all gone offline at one point or another and there is no pattern
  • Live playback is glitchy and almost slow motion
  • Recorded playback is glitchy and almost slow motion
  • Exported media seems unaffected

If you need logs or further details, which I'm sure you will, let me know but any help would be greatly appreciated. I have checked my network infrastructure and I'm not seeing any bottle necks outside of the Server but if anyone knows what I might be missing I'm happy to double check.

Thank you all in advanced!

Stay safe!

MrGeeza :cool:
 
Camera makes, models, frame rate, iframe rates, bit rates, hardware acceleration (should be off unless your VM will support the pass through).
 
Hello! I bring the further details that were requested. Apologies for the delay... Life. :D

Setup is as follows...

Cameras:

Configuration (All Cameras the Same)
  • Resolution: 2592 x 1944
  • FPS: 15
  • Video Codec Type: H.265
  • Video Codec Level: Main Profile (Not entirely sure what this means but its the only option)
  • Bitrate Control: VBR > best
  • Bitrate Mode: Predefined
  • Bitrate: 4096
  • I Frame Interval: 2
With regards to hardware accelaration I can confirm it was switched on, or it was at least set to default whatever default is, I have now set this on all camera to NO.
 
Change the codec to H254. Match the iframe rate to the frame rate, IE 15/15.
 
sebastiantombs said:
Change the codec to H254. Match the iframe rate to the frame rate, IE 15/15.
Click to expand...
Well... By Jove I think they've got it. Fantastic! Adjusting these settings and also turning off hardware acceleration my CPU usage that was up at 60%+ has dropped to a mere 15% the cameras have completely stopped dropping out and video frame rates have been restored. I can't thank you enough. :D

Now, unfortunately for you, I'm not one to just accept, 'because it does' as an answer :p Can I ask, why these settings were having such an adverse effect on my setup? I thought I read that H.265 was supposed to be the new standard for better file sizes and such.

Stay safe!

MrGeeza :cool:
 
Just a guess. Based on the camera brand I suspected that the video stream was not "standards" compliant in a few areas, like consistent frame and iframe rates. That confuses the heck out of processing, probably causing loops, which would explain dropouts, tears, high CPU utilization and so on.
 
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