Super long lag with Dahua 4K turret

[brianinca]

I've got a demo of BI5 running a single N84CG54 and I'm really frustrated with the results. I figured to be evaluating this camera, not fighting BI.

Within a minute, a delay between what the camera UI sees and what BI sees builds up to a dozen seconds, and goes to minutes soon enough. The UI3 interface reports 3-4 second player delays, dropped frames etc.

My previous experience with BI3 and BI4 has been that the host getting overloaded is the source of troubles; I have a couple of older 1U servers running BI4, for a quad core Xeon E3-1270 v3 30 FHD cameras at 10 fps is really more than it can handle. However, all the cores run 100% all the time, so I figured to repurpose a retired Hyper-V host with a bunch of local storage to be a consolidation host.

The CPU and RAM load are negligible, but the video performance is just terrible. I've switched between H264 and H265 coming from the camera, set it at 15 fps (that's the max for 4K), and the results are atrocious. VBR 10Mbit 6 quality blah blah blah, I figured to have 20 4K cameras on this host based on storage limits, not on CPU/RAM limits. Instead I'm failing to get anything with ONE camera.

Is this just not the right recipe? What am I missing here? I've got a couple of Hikvision units coming too, but it's not looking good at this point.

[TimG]

Could this be network issues ? How is the camera connected to the BI server ? BI can certainly handle more than one 4k camera !

[brianinca]

Not network issues, I can connect VLC no problem. I'm consolidating 60 cameras from 3 old BI4 servers that have accumulated over the last five years, I intend to replace a dozen and add a dozen (or so) with 4K cameras. That's why I am trialing six different flavors of Dahua and Hikvision 4K's. Currently exporting/importing from the old servers, quite a tedious process. None of the FHD cameras have an issue, so I'm still stuck.

Thank you for the suggestions!

[David]

You mention that you're using a retired Hyper-V host with lots of local storage; is it possible there's a problem with the storage subsystem BI is trying to write the incoming data to?

I recall a situation we had several years ago with an HP server where the cache battery on the RAID controller quit. The attached disk array being utilized by local VMs, which was previously quite performant, saw throughput performance drop all the way down to a few hundred KBps. We never did explore why it was so insanely slow under that failure condition but the physical host looked similar from a low CPU and Memory utilization standpoint.

As TimG notes, 4K cameras aren't a problem; I've had a few Dahua and Hikvision 8MP cameras alongside several 2-4MP cameras on an old desktop CPU recording continuously to a single disk (granted that system was taking advantage of Quick Sync). As another data point, I know someone who just installed the demo on an old server with an L5640 connecting one 8MP and a couple of 2MP cameras and their experience has been acceptable so far with no Quick Sync and no direct-to-disc functionality in the demo. (Obviously, I've advised that they utilize something else hardware wise if they move forward with BI but the point is that even that old machine worked with a 4K camera.)

What's the model of server and operating system? How are you accessing the Blue Iris console/GUI running on it? Do you run BI as a service? What specific version of BI are you trying to use? (Version 5.0.5.7 is the most current as of today.) Maybe if you can share some more details about your new setup, it might help someone here spot what's causing your troubles.

[wbonnette]

I was experiencing similar issues, eventually I figured out that BI only plays well with 264 encoding. 265 or + variations didn't work well, and then after a couple minutes the amount of lag from the image was more than 30 seconds. Might check to make sure they're using 264.

[Jakesty]

You mention that you're using a retired Hyper-V host with lots of local storage; is it possible there's a problem with the storage subsystem BI is trying to write the incoming data to?

I recall a situation we had several years ago with an HP server where the cache battery on the RAID controller quit. The attached disk array being utilized by local VMs, which was previously quite performant, saw throughput performance drop all the way down to a few hundred KBps. We never did explore why it was so insanely slow under that failure condition but the physical host looked similar from a low CPU and Memory utilization standpoint.

The performance of a controller card missing or having a dead battery defaults of Write-thru, instead of Cache Back. And that performance can be significantly impacted. One way to know is to download a free copy of Crystal Disk Mark and run it against your drive or array.

[terk]

I had something like 8 seconds of lag on one of my Dahua cameras a year or so ago, it ended up being fixed by choosing another method of getting the video from the camera I can't remember now which camera it was or the setting that was causing the issue most likely the generic RTSP setting and I likely changed it to one of the Dahua settings. Worth trying a few anyway to see if it helps as long as there is no lag from the cameras web site, on Dahua cameras I wouldn't expect there to be.

Nevermind, after re-reading your post it sounds like it gets worse over time and mine didn't.