IPC-T5442T-ZE substream not working blue iris

C

CJ133

Getting the hang of it
Jul 18, 2019
94
55
NJ USA
I had a very long day yesterday and put up another IPC-T5442T-ZE and was half asleep by the time I finished. So, there's a chance I did something really stupid and was just too tired.

However,
I have a few older IPC-T5442T-ZE from when they just started becoming popular and I've never updated the firmware just because I never really had any complaints with it. I also have four 2MP Dahua cameras running with no problem. The new one seemed a little different, but no matter what I did I couldn't get the substream to work in blue iris using the same settings as my other Dahua cameras.

After detecting the cameras info, it has nothing more than a single / for the main stream and if I replace that with the typical /cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0 or whatever it is, I get nothing at all, just a no signal error until I redetect and it goes back to /

When I get home from work tonight I'd like to get everything dialed in for the new camera, especially substreams because I guess 8 (4 4MP and 4 2MP) cameras is pushing the envelope for the machine I'm using. It runs around 50% when you're not messing with it, but pulling up the URL on a phone has it jump into the 70's. I might need to pull some things back a little, I don't know. I think it's a Lenovo I5-4570 3.2Ghz with a 4TB Purple drive and 16GB ram, but I guess it may be time to get a better computer for the cameras. I definitely need a lot bigger hard drive or a way to dump footage onto a slower drive.

Anyway yeah, what am I doing wrong with the substreams? Though I highly doubt it matters all of my cameras are from Andy just in case there was a recent custom firmware or something.
 
Trying VLC, what do you get with the following URL's?
NOTE: Be sure to put 2 slashes after the "rtsp:", forum software won't allow it:

SUB STREAM:
Code: 
rtsp:/camera-user:camera-password@camera-IP:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=1

MAIN STREAM:
Code: 
rtsp:/camera-user:camera-password@camera-IP:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0
 
Last edited:
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Have you tried "find/inspect" using just the IP and password for the camera? That'll let BI do all the hard work for you. Just select the sub stream you want and you should be good to go after that.
 
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sebastiantombs said:
Have you tried "find/inspect" using just the IP and password for the camera? That'll let BI do all the hard work for you. Just select the sub stream you want and you should be good to go after that.
Click to expand...


That's actually what I've always done but it's never automatically filled in the substream stuff for any of my cameras but it usually does give me the full path for the main stream which I then copy paste and modify for the substream. However, in this case is just a single character "/" so I don't even know what to do with that.

I really should know what version of Blue Iris I'm running too, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture last night so I can't say until I get home other than I think my support ran out summer of 2021.


For what it's worth......
Part of this problem is because of how stable and reliable Blue Iris and cameras from Andy have been. I set the system up in 2020 and now can't remember anything because I haven't had to touch or fix anything. It just works.
 
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Yeah by default it will not use the substream, so you have to use the dropdown menu on the substream line to get it.

It sounds like you might be on a version before they added the dropdown menu.

With very few exceptions, if all the cameras are from Andy, you can simply copy the main and substream strings that are more than the "/" character and put it in and it will probably work.
 
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I've tried a few things and still no dice.

I did just change all of my cameras over to H265 today so I'm sure that's not it. But here's the settings on the new camera which are identical to all other cameras.

PXL_20220917_211044761~2.jpg



And my version of BI is 5.4.3.8

There's drop down menus but the default substream is blank and when I add the same strings as I'm using on all 7 other cameras it comes up no signal.


I dunno.
 
Can you paste the settings you are using in BI? Perhaps you have BI to use sub-stream 2 but have not enabled it on the camera.
 
Alternately, copy and paste the main stream information, paste it into the sub stream box and edit it to "stream1" instead of "stream0".
 
And fix your bit rate while you're in there. It drops to 2048 when change things sometimes.
 
I guess fine is a relative term and depends on what your priorities are.

That string should work as you have it in BI.

Maybe try a reset if you haven't.

Which firmware in that cam? I think I have/had the 5442T cams running most every version to date but haven't seen that or heard any reports of substreams being an issue. Generally don't like to do it unless necessary but maybe try an update if it's not already on the latest.
 
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Mike A. said:
I guess fine is a relative term and depends on what your priorities are.

That string should work as you have it in BI.

Maybe try a reset if you haven't.

Which firmware in that cam? I think I have/had the 5442T cams running most every version to date but haven't seen that or heard any reports of substreams being an issue. Generally don't like to do it unless necessary but maybe try an update if it's not already on the latest.
Click to expand...

I'll have a look at the firmware.
Curious what bitrate you use with 4MP?
 
Sometimes a simple deleting the camera in BI and re-adding it (without importing settings) will take care of whatever the issue is.
 
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For the 5442 series, most of us run H264 and 8192 bitrate.

There was a thread here recently that someone was having all sorts of issues with his camera and BI and when he switched to H264, the problems went away.

Obviously every field of view is different and some use H265 without issue, but most of us have found H264 to be better.

This will explain H264 versus H265 a little better.

H265 in theory provides more storage as it compresses differently, but part of that compression means it macro blocks big areas of the image that it thinks isn't moving. However, it also takes more processing power of the already small CPU in the camera and that can be problematic if someone is maxing out the camera and then it stutters.

In theory it is supposed to need 30% less storage than H264, but most of us have found it isn't that much. Mine was less than few minutes per day. And to my eye and others that I showed clips to and just said do you like video 1 or video 2 better, everyone thought the H264 provided a better image.

The left image is H264, so all the blocks are the same size corresponding to the resolution of the camera. H265 takes areas that it doesn't think has motion and makes them into bigger blocks and in doing so lessens the resolution yet increases the CPU demand to develop these larger blocks.

In theory H265 is supposed to need half the bitrate because of the macroblocking. But if there is a lot of motion in the image, then it becomes a pixelated mess. The only way to get around that is a higher bitrate. But if you need to run the same bitrate for H265 as you do H264, then the storage savings is zero. Storage is computed based on multiplying bitrate, FPS, and resolution.

1663514207893.png

In my testing I have one camera that sees a parked car in front of my house. H265 sees that the car isn't moving, so it macroblocks the whole car and surrounding area. Then the car owner walked up to the car and got in and the motion is missed because of the macroblock being so large. Or if it catches it, because the bitrate is low, it is a pixelated mess during the critical capture point and by the time H265 adjusts to there is now motion, the ideal capture is missed.

In my case, the car is clear and defined in H264, but is blurry and soft edges in H265.

Digital zooming is never really good, but you stand a better chance with H264 rather than a large macroblocked H265. I can digital zoom on my overview camera and kinda make out the address number of the house across the street with H264, but not a chance with H265 as it macroblocked his whole house.

H265 is one of those theory things that sounds good, but reality use is much different.

As always, YMMV.
 
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wittaj said:
For the 5442 series, most of us run H264 and 8192 bitrate.

There was a thread here recently that someone was having all sorts of issues with his camera and BI and when he switched to H264, the problems went away.

Obviously every field of view is different and some use H265 without issue, but most of us have found H264 to be better.

This will explain H264 versus H265 a little better.

H265 in theory provides more storage as it compresses differently, but part of that compression means it macro blocks big areas of the image that it thinks isn't moving. However, it also takes more processing power of the already small CPU in the camera and that can be problematic if someone is maxing out the camera and then it stutters.

In theory it is supposed to need 30% less storage than H264, but most of us have found it isn't that much. Mine was less than few minutes per day. And to my eye and others that I showed clips to and just said do you like video 1 or video 2 better, everyone thought the H264 provided a better image.

The left image is H264, so all the blocks are the same size corresponding to the resolution of the camera. H265 takes areas that it doesn't think has motion and makes them into bigger blocks and in doing so lessens the resolution yet increases the CPU demand to develop these larger blocks.

In theory H265 is supposed to need half the bitrate because of the macroblocking. But if there is a lot of motion in the image, then it becomes a pixelated mess. The only way to get around that is a higher bitrate. But if you need to run the same bitrate for H265 as you do H264, then the storage savings is zero. Storage is computed based on multiplying bitrate, FPS, and resolution.

View attachment 140289

In my testing I have one camera that sees a parked car in front of my house. H265 sees that the car isn't moving, so it macroblocks the whole car and surrounding area. Then the car owner walked up to the car and got in and the motion is missed because of the macroblock being so large. Or if it catches it, because the bitrate is low, it is a pixelated mess during the critical capture point and by the time H265 adjusts to there is now motion, the ideal capture is missed.

In my case, the car is clear and defined in H264, but is blurry and soft edges in H265.

Digital zooming is never really good, but you stand a better chance with H264 rather than a large macroblocked H265. I can digital zoom on my overview camera and kinda make out the address number of the house across the street with H264, but not a chance with H265 as it macroblocked his whole house.

H265 is one of those theory things that sounds good, but reality use is much different.

As always, YMMV.
Click to expand...


I literally just switched everything over yesterday due to space issues. 4tb isn't going very far understandably. I was running 264 and 8192 but needed to cut corners.

I did notice issues with trees blowing in the wind though and didn't remember seeing it before.

I do appreciate your very detailed explanation though and now I know why most are running 264. I may have to stay where I'm at until I get a much larger drive though. I'm thinking 10gb but it also seems like dropping everything took some burden off the PC as well.
 
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CJ133 said:
I'll have a look at the firmware.
Curious what bitrate you use with 4MP?
Click to expand...

Generally 8192 as the minimum for mine (CBR, H.264). Some higher where I want better quality for wildlife. Very noticeable deterioration in quality as it gets lower (e.g., grass starts sparkling and moving) . But if your priority is lowest resource requirements, then 2048 and H.265 will do that.

Your CPU % seems very high for 8 4MP and 2 MP especially if you're running at such low rates and using substreams. I ran the same I5-4570 for a long time. Might have hit that 50/70% at higher rates before substreams were available but should be much lower now. Are you sure that the other cams actually are using the substream?

What happens to let you know that the substream on this one isn't working vs the others? No display in multi-cam views or it just shows the main stream?
 
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How are you saving recording - 24/7 mainstream?

With substreams working, recording continuous + triggers that will record substream until triggered and then go to mainstream for the event and then back to substream? If you up the D1 bitrate, the quality is actually quite good

How much resolution is really needed for LPR

We have folks come here all the time thinking that more MP is better, whether it be for general purposes or for LPR. Those of us that have been around long enough know that sensor size is more important than MP. Those that have been here awhile know that I share a representative sample of...
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