Worked fine - then went Direct-to-Disk and now image corruption when there is movement...

Clegg

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Hey there,

So I've been using BI for a few months now with 3x Hikvision cameras (2x 4Mp, 1x 3Mp). I am running this on an HP elitebook with an intel i5-4310U CPU, 8GB of ram , and a 256GB SSD. Running Windows 10. This machine is only used for the NVR software. I am using hardware acceleration for the cameras. Running the latest intel video drivers.

I had all 3 cameras running at 1080P using the normal "encode" method of recording on the machine without issue, with a CPU usage around ~38%. I went to open up the cameras to their full resolution (4.1,4.1,3.1Mp)
upload_2017-1-4_9-29-16.png

And changed Blue Iris to direct-to-disk recording. This dropped my CPU usage from 100% with the cameras at that resolution to ~30%.

I have Blue Iris writing new alert video and such to the SSD then after a day or so spinning it off to an external USB 3 disk for archival storage.

The Hikvision setup for the 4Mp cameras are:
upload_2017-1-4_9-31-26.png
The blue iris config for the cameras are:
upload_2017-1-4_9-32-48.png


The issue is: (as an example)
When fast motion happens on camera I believe this is called "ghosting?" or its just flat out corruption:
My wife pulling in our garage last night... its all good...
upload_2017-1-4_9-33-51.png
Then:
upload_2017-1-4_9-34-17.png

And it will do that every few seconds there is motion. and completely corrupt that part of the video.

I have Windows Defender listing all BVR files, all BI Directories as exclusions... and BI.exe itself...

What am I missing here? I checked the performance logs on the machine when it is recording and the SSD itself hits a max IO usage of 10% so its not the disk overloading...

I've read around here, but cant for the life of me see anything wrong here.

I am 100% good buying more support from BI if needed to get this fixed, I just wanted to be sure this isnt some silly setting thing I am missing.
 

fenderman

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try lowering the bitrate and see what happens...
 

Clegg

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Will do, thanks! (that was something I was thinking could be the issue with just too much data flow in with movement.)

Should variable or constant bitrate be used generally?
 

fenderman

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Will do, thanks! (that was something I was thinking could be the issue with just too much data flow in with movement.)

Should variable or constant bitrate be used generally?
constant is fine...another benefit to lowering the bitrate is much longer storage retention...if you lower it to say 8192, you will double your retention time..
 

Clegg

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Have people seen a dramatic impact on video quality dropping down to that level with 4MP cams? I know there is a cliff in h264 encoding where when you drop below that bit rate that the quality goes to crap. Not sure where it is with a video stream that big though.
 

fenderman

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Have people seen a dramatic impact on video quality dropping down to that level with 4MP cams? I know there is a cliff in h264 encoding where when you drop below that bit rate that the quality goes to crap. Not sure where it is with a video stream that big though.
you will not see any impact on image quality. You can go even lower if you wish.
 

bp2008

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Almost always when I see that type of corruption in direct to disk recordings, it is because I haven't set the Max Rate in Blue Iris to be a few FPS higher than the camera is set to encode. E.g. Camera encoding 15 FPS, I set it to about 17 FPS in Blue Iris. But it looks as though you already have it set to 20 FPS in BI and 15 FPS in the camera?

Is any of this streaming happening over wifi? That can cause any number of intermittent data transmission problems.
 

Clegg

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Everything is hard wired, no Wifi in the mix. The main haul between switches in my house is actually 10Gbit :) and I have QoSed the camera traffic even. (which in total is around 50Mbit over a 10Gbit link :) The NVR machine is connected via 1Gbit wired.

And yes I have BI at 20FPS and the cameras at 15 with a 20MB receive buffer.
 

Clegg

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I've discovered something interesting. When I export a clip that is corrupted in playback from BI itself. When I view the clip from the web player, mobile player, or in BI itself I see this:

upload_2017-1-4_12-8-11.png

When I export/convert the clip out of BI into a standard MP4 container I get this:

upload_2017-1-4_12-9-48.png

So either the export process is cleaning up some corruption, or the BI system cant play back the data stream from the camera correctly itself.
 

Clegg

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sorry for the big images... didnt realize they'd post so large...

This is with the bitrate at 8192 for the camera.
 

OICU2

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I have the same problem. Hikvision cams. Many people over on the now defunct cam-it have had the same issue as well. Yet I keep hearing it's not BI. For me I only see the ghosting/pixelation when watching recorded clips. It does not do it live and my live views are crystal clear. I had to switch to "re-encode" in stead of direct to disk to temporarily fix the issue. But I want the reduced CPU utilization when using direct to disk. Did you ever resolve this?
 

Clegg

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I just picked up the priority support (which... so far is kind of a joke about it being priority... no much changed in turn around time on emails... or support) But they are looking into it. I have 2 issues I am trying to get resolved. 1. is the the fact the schedule facility doesnt work right with turning LEDs on or off on time, since 4.8, and the direct to disk issue above.
 

spankdog

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Quick update. Disabled direct-to-disk and everything is working fine now.
 

spankdog

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Why is it not a solution? I have tried them all. Nothing worked.....
 

fenderman

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Why is it not a solution? I have tried them all. Nothing worked.....
because when using high resolution cameras your cpu use will be through the roof if you dont use direct to disk...doubt your tried them all.
 

spankdog

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Unless I missed a something I have tried all the suggestions from you and from support. I appreciate all the suggestions but none of them helped. I have plenty of CPU to spare so I can afford to waste some cycles for now. I only have 5 cameras and I am running an i7-6700 processor. Currently sitting at 12% usage.
 

fenderman

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Unless I missed a something I have tried all the suggestions from you and from support. I appreciate all the suggestions but none of them helped. I have plenty of CPU to spare so I can afford to waste some cycles for now. I only have 5 cameras and I am running an i7-6700 processor. Currently sitting at 12% usage.
thats because you cameras are low resolution and you have a powerful pc...not the case for the op...
have you tried setting windows to high performance?
Have you tried a clean install of windows?
Have you tried excluding BI from virus scans? Both program and stored folders?
Have you tried, matching iframe intervals to fps?
Have you increased the receive buffer to 20mb?
 

spankdog

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thats because you cameras are low resolution and you have a powerful pc...not the case for the op...
have you tried setting windows to high performance?
Have you tried a clean install of windows?
Have you tried excluding BI from virus scans? Both program and stored folders?
Have you tried, matching iframe intervals to fps?
Have you increased the receive buffer to 20mb?
  • Windows 10x64 is running in high performance
  • I did a clean install from Windows DVD not image provided by Lenovo
  • Yes we covered this in another thread. I have no AV and everything is excluded from Windows Defender
  • Yes I have tried (and still am) matching iframes and fps. Tried 30 and 15
  • Yes we covered this in another thread. All cameras are set to 20mb
My cameras are not low resolution but lower than the OP yes

4x Dahua 3MP (currently 15fps 4096k)
1x Dahua 1MP (currently 15fps 4096k)
 

fenderman

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  • Windows 10x64 is running in high performance
  • I did a clean install from Windows DVD not image provided by Lenovo
  • Yes we covered this in another thread. I have no AV and everything is excluded from Windows Defender
  • Yes I have tried (and still am) matching iframes and fps. Tried 30 and 15
  • Yes we covered this in another thread. All cameras are set to 20mb
My cameras are not low resolution but lower than the OP yes

4x Dahua 3MP (currently 15fps 4096k)
1x Dahua 1MP (currently 15fps 4096k)
You are running 13mp which is low total on a powerful processor...
You are doing something wrong but refuse to post screenshots of your camera settings...
If this was a BI issue everyone running the dahuas would have the same problem. Post your settings.
 
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