Strange behaviour video/artifacts IPC-T5442T-ZE

78suited · Mar 21, 2022

Today I finally found the time to install my second IPC-T5442T-ZE in my backyard which I bought almost a year ago from Andy (due to medical problems I wasn't able to pull UTP in the crawl space beneath our house).

Unfortunately the picture showed some strange behaviour as seen in the short clip I've uploaded on YouTube. The setting are similar to the same cam I've installed at the front of our house and was wondering what this could be?

Any thoughts?

mioutlook · Mar 21, 2022

I am seeing this on one of my IPC-T5442TM-AS I just purchased from Andy. I have another I purchased last year that does not exhibit this behavior. I upgraded both to the same firmware you have when I got the new camera.

From what I can tell it is an overly aggressive VBR algorithm. I'm using h.265 and bumping the quality up to Highest has helped. Also, setting an ROI with the high quality also fixes it but the bitrates skyrocket,

Before trying CBR, I am going to try to do a factory default on the camera.

Some folks have had minor bugs related to firmware updates fixed by doing that in this thread:

IPC-T5442T-ZE IPC-T5442TM-AS IPC-T5842T-ZE SMD 3.0 Smart IR Latest New Firmware From EmpireTech

Hey guys The Smart IR firmware with SMD 3.0 V2.8 2022 Aug Version has been released. The update is mainly for Smart IR, New Security Baseline function, highly recommend to update, esp the 4K models. This firmware is working great with the help of @Wildcat_1 , has big improvement on the 4K...

ipcamtalk.com

Flintstone61 · Mar 21, 2022

Different scenes can have challenges. all those bricks seem to make the camera try to oversharpen things at moments? or is it going from Mainstream to Sub stream?

78suited · Mar 21, 2022

mioutlook said:
I am seeing this on one of my IPC-T5442TM-AS I just purchased from Andy. I have another I purchased last year that does not exhibit this behavior. I upgraded both to the same firmware you have when I got the new camera.

From what I can tell it is an overly aggressive VBR algorithm. I'm using h.265 and bumping the quality up to Highest has helped. Also, setting an ROI with the high quality also fixes it but the bitrates skyrocket,

Before trying CBR, I am going to try to do a factory default on the camera.

Some folks have had minor bugs related to firmware updates fixed by doing that in this thread:

IPC-T5442T-ZE IPC-T5442TM-AS IPC-T5842T-ZE SMD 3.0 Smart IR Latest New Firmware From EmpireTech

Hey guys The Smart IR firmware with SMD 3.0 V2.8 2022 Aug Version has been released. The update is mainly for Smart IR, New Security Baseline function, highly recommend to update, esp the 4K models. This firmware is working great with the help of @Wildcat_1 , has big improvement on the 4K...

ipcamtalk.com

I've tried the factory default too, but it didn't solve it. My bitrate type is already CBR with 15FPS and 15 I Frame Interval. I'm also using H.265

Flintstone61 said:
Different scenes can have challenges. all those bricks seem to make the camera try to oversharpen things at moments? or is it going from Mainstream to Sub stream?

The video is only from Mainstream, I can try to change my backyard cam with the frontyard cam, and vice versa, to see if it makes a difference.

Flintstone61 · Mar 21, 2022

I have 1 5442 ZE, so I'm no expert. It has a tough job. facing the sun, and then bright parking lot lights at night. quite a wide range of lighting conditions. It's a wonder these things do what they do. pretty amazing.

bigredfish · Mar 21, 2022

What bitrate are you guys using?

I’d turn off h.265 as it isn’t very effective anyway and has been known to mess with the image. Then run at least 8192 or 10240 CBR. Turn sharpness down a smidge as they are overly sharp at default.

wittaj · Mar 21, 2022

I would go min 8192 bitrate and H264 - H265 can be problematic for some scenes and I think yours is one of them. The savings isn't that great.

78suited · Mar 21, 2022

bigredfish said:
What bitrate are you guys using?

I’d turn off h.265 as it isn’t very effective anyway and has been known to mess with the image. Then run at least 8192 or 10240 CBR. Turn sharpness down a smidge as they are overly sharp at default.

My current settings for my backyard cam:

I will try your recommended settings and will check in broad daylight if it will help solve this behaviour.

TechieTech · Mar 21, 2022

Up your bitrate to max in the main stream and change encode mode to H.264.

jrbeddow · Mar 21, 2022

You might try playing with both the 3dNR and conventional 2dNR settings as well. The "dancing dots" can sometimes be cured with adjustments to those settings. Try lowering them both from the defaults to start with (maybe somewhere in the 25-40 range for 3dNR, and about 20-30 for 2d NR). I'd up the bitrate, and run H264 too, but I'm still new at this, others may have more to say here.

78suited · Mar 21, 2022

My new settings:

Because it's 01.00 am here right now, I can't check the daylight results. I will report back later today. Thanks all for helping me out and try to solve this issue, I appreciate it a lot!

wittaj · Mar 21, 2022

That bitrate is way too low. This is a 4MP cam - it needs minimum 8192.

78suited · Mar 21, 2022

wittaj said:
That bitrate is way too low. This is a 4MP cam - it needs minimum 8192.

I've changed it to 8192 already, our posts were added the same time

bigredfish · Mar 21, 2022

Yeah that should help and give you a baseline. My substream runs at 1024, your main at 1536 is wayyyyyyyy to low for a good image on 4MP

Flintstone61 · Mar 21, 2022

Whats the benefit of Substream when its at 1080P?

wittaj · Mar 21, 2022

Flintstone61 said:
Whats the benefit of Substream when its at 1080P?

It is less than 4MP, but yes, to get the best bang for the buck in BI, subs should be ran lower.

Most of mine are D1 at 256 bitrate and that is good enough for OpenALPR to read plates, so it is good enough for me LOL.

78suited · Mar 22, 2022

I've played around with some settings and also noticed the remark about the substream (1080P). My new settings:

Should I also enable Sub Stream 2 or do I leave it disabled?

The new settings resulted in a much better picture, and I think I got rid of those artifacts as far as I can see.

sebastiantombs · Mar 22, 2022

If you're not using sub stream 2 there's no reason to enable it at all. Less load on the CPU of the camera that way.

78suited · Mar 22, 2022

Someone pointed me also to the Wiki of this forum where the problem also was defined as "pulsing" or "shifting" video: Wiki IPcamtalk

bigredfish · Mar 22, 2022

Flintstone61 said:
Whats the benefit of Substream when its at 1080P?

I run Dahua NVRs not BI. But I suppose the answer to that is the same as why I run 30fps. “because I can”

As long as I can stream 20-25 cameras on my laptop with SmartPSS viewer, and storage is cheap, I run as high as I can get away with.

Strange behaviour video/artifacts IPC-T5442T-ZE

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