Alt/timelapse framerate doens't seem to work above 20000000 [2.00 sec]

[johny99]

Hello,

I'm evaluating BlueIris and it looks great by the moment. I've configured my camera to use its main stream only, since it's just a 720P camera, and it produces 0.9MP and 15.03/0.50 fps (according to BI stats).

If I modify my "Camera Settings -> Record", and then enable "Alt/timelapse framerate", I can select values up to "20000000 [2.00 sec]" (activating also re-encode as explained on the PDF manual) without any issues: it will record, trigger, and alert me perfectly fine, dropping the frames as expected.

However, if I choose anything above "20000000 [2.00 sec]" the camera view shows a yellow triangle icon, which the log says that corresponds to the error "Clip: H264 encoder missing (1280x720)", and despite having a red circle in the camera view which suggest it's recording, it isn't actually recording anything at all (no clips appear on the clips list).

Camera view icons

2023-02-03 00_38_39-Window.png (11.94 KiB) Viewed 2777 times

Log error

2023-02-03 00_24_55-Window.png (6.94 KiB) Viewed 2777 times

Everything goes back to normal if I reduce the time-lapse setting to "20000000 [2.00 sec]" or less.

Which "H264 encoder" is missing (according to the error message on the log)?

Is this an issue of my camera, or is it a bug?

Thanks.

[PaulDaisy]

The manual says:

"The Alt/time-lapse frame rate purposely “drops” frames as necessary to lower the fps that is recorded. If you select a rate that’s less than 2fps, the time scale of the recording will be adjusted to playback at 2fps regardless. This creates a “time-lapse” effect where motion and activity will be played back at greater than realtime speeds. For time-accurate output, this should not be used with direct-to-disc, as only key frames will be recorded, and these may not align with your desired alternate frame rate."

To be honest I can't make sense of it but looks like it has to do with keyframes rate, which may not align for time lapse with what you are telling it to do.

[johny99]

Curiously enough, it seems to work up to "20000000 [2.00 sec]", but it logs an error above that value.

Could someone please try to reproduce this issue?

[johny99]

I've found a mention to this problem on this topic (under the Memory section) which explains that most common causes are running out of RAM and the antivirus.

When running BI (among some other programs) I still have between 50% to 60% RAM free, so I can discard the first cause.

I've also added the proposed exclusions to my antivirus, but I still get the error on my log, and the camera doesn't record anything at all, if I select a value above "20000000 [2.00 sec]".

Could someone please try to reproduce this issue?

[PaulDaisy]

I can confirm that I am seeing the same issue, BI 5.6.8.4. i-frame rate is 1 in my system since above 2s it only grabs i-frames, I thought that OP may have not had aligned i-frames, but in my case that shouldn't be the case since they are available every second). If I set the time lapse recording rate to 2s, it works; I tried setting it to 3s and got the same message: