jerky video in BI recordings

[sprucecams]

This post is about finally understanding and addressing a problem I have (and may be common to many others as well) with BI recordings triggered by motion in which a subject (such a person entering the monitored zone) is initially captured, is then "frozen" in place, and then either disappears entirely or appears in a different part of the video frame. Either way, some/much of the actual activity never appears in the video file. I have been reading about the Western Digital "Purple" HDDs that are supposedly tailored for NVRs, etc., and wondering whether that may be what I need, but then I thought first I should consult the IPCamTalk Think Tank with some background on my system:

Cameras
Cam 1: Hikvision DS-2CD2132-I (set up in BI to trigger on motion and record)
Cam 2: Hikvision DS-2CD2132-I (set up in BI to trigger on motion and record)
Cam 3: Hikvision DS-2CD2132-I (set up in BI to trigger on motion and record)
Cam 4: Foscam FI8904W (set up in BI to trigger on motion and record)
Cam 5: Foscam FI8918W (set up in BI to trigger on motion and record)
Cam 6: Hikvision DS-2CD2132F-IS (not yet but planned to be set up in BI to trigger on motion and record)
Cam 7: TOP-201 Super Mini 720P HD IP-camera (not yet but planned to be set up in BI to trigger on motion and record)
Cam 8: TOP-201 Super Mini 720P HD IP-camera (not yet but planned to be set up in BI to trigger on motion and record)

PC/NVR system (a repurposed PC on which BI and BIT run):
MSI H67MA-E35 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500
CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory
SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC Internal SSD
Western Digital Caviar Green 1.5TB 64MB SATA 3G 3.5-in. HDD, model WD15EARS-00J2GB0

I realize this may be too much or not enough (or the right) data, but any thoughts, comments, suggestions, critiques, etc., are welcome. I would REALLY like to have the nice, smooth videos that I see others post here! Many thanks in advance.

 

[ServiceXp]

I'm having what appears to be the same problems. It's driving me crazy.

 

[ServiceXp]

I should add that I'm using BI 4 x64 with D2D and 25 frames of buffering.

 

[bp2008]

I really doubt the hard drive is the problem, but maybe you should try having clips save to the SSD for a while and see if that makes any difference. If that solves the problem, you could try to make the Green run better by digging into the windows power options and set the drives to never to go sleep. Also defragmenting the green drive could help improve its read and write speeds. But in general, memory buffers prevent poor disk performance from actually causing data loss or video corruption. Maybe Blue Iris is really bad at buffering video and that could explain some of the trouble so many people have with corrupted recordings (myself included).

If saving clips to the SSD does not help, then the problem is somewhere else besides the storage system.

Do the camera live views ever show the same problems as the recordings?

How is your CPU usage looking normally?

Are you using direct to disk? If so, try setting the frame rate in Blue Iris to be a few FPS higher than the frame rate is set in the camera. Like if your camera is streaming at 10 FPS, set it to something like 12 FPS in Blue Iris and uncheck the adjust automatically box of course. According to the BI developer, if a camera ever sends more frames than Bl was expecting, BI may drop the extra frames, causing corruption in direct to disk recording mode.

You can also try increasing the receive buffer size in the network panel for each camera. It is an insignificant increase in memory usage, and it doesn't hurt to have a larger buffer in this case.

 

[sprucecams]

Many thanks ServiceXP, good point. I am using BI4x64 with D-to-D for the Hikvision cams and "re-encode" for the Foscam cams, with all recorded in MP4 format.

 

[code2]

Many thanks ServiceXP, good point. I am using BI4x64 with D-to-D for the Hikvision cams and "re-encode" for the Foscam cams, with all recorded in MP4 format.

You are encoding that is what is causing you to see jerky video turn off the encoding and use the Blue iris version that took car of my video jerkiness on the two 1080p cameras I'm testing the software with. Im running them at 20FPS being conservative

 

[sprucecams]

You are encoding that is what is causing you to see jerky video turn off the encoding and use the Blue iris version that took car of my video jerkiness on the two 1080p cameras I'm testing the software with. Im running them at 20FPS being conservative

My reason is this. I am trying to be consistent by having all camera feeds end up in the standard mp4 format. With the Hiks I can do that D-to-D, but the Foscams will not provide mp4. Hence, I re-encode the Foscam feeds. I generally try to avoid proprietary formats, which is why I am avoiding use of the BI format. I can be convinced otherwise, though, especially if the BI format can be converted later if necessary (perhaps using Handbrake?).

 

[fenderman]

You are encoding that is what is causing you to see jerky video turn off the encoding and use the Blue iris version that took car of my video jerkiness on the two 1080p cameras I'm testing the software with. Im running them at 20FPS being conservative

My reason is this. I am trying to be consistent by having all camera feeds end up in the standard mp4 format. With the Hiks I can do that D-to-D, but the Foscams will not provide mp4. Hence, I re-encode the Foscam feeds. I generally try to avoid proprietary formats, which is why I am avoiding use of the BI format. I can be convinced otherwise, though, especially if the BI format can be converted later if necessary (perhaps using Handbrake?).

If you are having problems with both your foscam and hikvision cams then its not related to re-encoding the foscams..have you tried bp2008's suggestions?
BVR format can always be converted to mp4/avi later using blue iris...bvr is more efficient than using mp4 and allows for playback while still recording to the file..

 

[code2]

You are encoding that is what is causing you to see jerky video turn off the encoding and use the Blue iris version that took car of my video jerkiness on the two 1080p cameras I'm testing the software with. Im running them at 20FPS being conservative

My reason is this. I am trying to be consistent by having all camera feeds end up in the standard mp4 format. With the Hiks I can do that D-to-D, but the Foscams will not provide mp4. Hence, I re-encode the Foscam feeds. I generally try to avoid proprietary formats, which is why I am avoiding use of the BI format. I can be convinced otherwise, though, especially if the BI format can be converted later if necessary (perhaps using Handbrake?).

Why do you need mp4 tho? Unless something happens which may be once or twice a year depending on your location i see no need to stress a computer more by working all the time. convert the video when you need it for something.

 

[code2]

The next question is this are you seeing the jerkiness while remotely viewing from another computer on your lan? Or is it being viewed directly from the source. It almost sounds like your watching it by clips. Watch the realtime video and see what happens then.

I know on mine i will watch the clips from the side showing motion and it only shows the action at the last part of the frame but if it go and watch the whole record video then i see everything

 

[sprucecams]

I have switched from converting my recordings to mp4 to recording D2D as .bvr files to see if this resolves my jerky video issue (still evaluating). I recall now why I had used mp4 instead of bvr - I could open and view the files on my Windows 7 PC. I cannot open the bvr files, and when I try to open the clips in the BI clips viewer, I get messages that the files cannot be opened. ?! Any pointers on where I am going wrong would be appreciated. Many thanks!

 

[code2]

I have a standalone windows 7 machine nothing installed on it and my clips play just fine in the viewer

 

[fenderman]

I have switched from converting my recordings to mp4 to recording D2D as .bvr files to see if this resolves my jerky video issue (still evaluating). I recall now why I had used mp4 instead of bvr - I could open and view the files on my Windows 7 PC. I cannot open the bvr files, and when I try to open the clips in the BI clips viewer, I get messages that the files cannot be opened. ?! Any pointers on where I am going wrong would be appreciated. Many thanks!

The files should play just fine in blue iris..there is an issue with the newest 2.1 update that is causing problems with playback and recording...