Blue Iris

I purchased Blue Iris a week ago. Integrating with Deepstack (GPU version) and getting everything setup wasn't too difficult. The hardest thing that I've been trying to tackle is video smoothness.

After learning about how to optimize the Key value, I was able to get my cameras to report a ~1.00 key value. However, as time progresses, the key value degrades over time and can fall to 0.58. During the first 6-10 hours, it's pretty steady, minor fluctuations from .9 - 1.09. I don't know what the exact time frame is for when the key drops to the 50s/60s (which causes choppy video), but if you check 24 hours later, be in the 50s/60s. Sometimes the Key value is able to return back up to 1.00 by itself.

To fix this, it's as simple as right clicking on the camera and clicking "Restart". After a few seconds, all is back to normal with a Key value of 1.00 that will last for a few hours.

I don't know if this is related, but when I watch the live stream (even when the Key is 1.00), every 10-15 seconds the resolution of the Live View feed in the web app will pixelate for about 1-2 seconds before normalizing. During this time I see a slight FPS drop under the Server Status indicator, but the Key usually remains unchanged.

Here are the settings for the Amcrest camera:

Try dropping the frame rate down to 20 or even 15 to see if it helps, also don’t forget to also drop the iframe rate.

You don’t really need 30fps for security cams, I run most of mine at 15fps.

Also increase you receive buffer from 6 to say 12 or even 18 to see if that makes a difference.

I increased the buffer to 18 to see if that makes a difference.

I really don't want to run at 20fps, I paid extra $ for 4k@30fps.

This has to be some sort of issue with blueiris

IDK, Blue Iris doesn't control or adjust the key frame rate. That is a camera setting that BI reports on. As far as your occasional pixelation, it does sound like a possible brief overload of the system that lowers the resolution, that it can quickly recover from.

It would be interesting to see your Blue Iris Status > Cameras tab to see some summary information of what your system is handling. Configuring your substream would be a massive offload of processing power for your system while still maintaining your high res 30fps recording. Based on my Amcrest cameras, you'd want the following

Do you get the same interruption of the live stream if you actually logon to the cam itself and watch the live feed? You can also watch the BI live stream at the same time.

If you get this issue on the live stream on the cam itself then it’s not a BI issue.

This is why I asked to try lowering the fps, even though the specs state that it’s capable that doesn’t mean that it might not struggle.

So interestingly enough, I checked to see if there was a corresponding FPS drop at the same time as the resolution drop, and there is not. Perhaps 5-8 seconds before there is a drop to the low 20s, but nothing too crazy.

I checked the video stream on the camera itself as suggested, and honestly it's way worse than in BI. I can't explain it. It's constantly jittering. The jittering is almost timed. Every .8-1 second, on the dot, it freezes for a fraction of a second. I think my other Amcrest camera is doing this too, but it's harder to tell with that one because of where it's located. Could the camera itself be defective? It was a pain getting this thing setup where it's physically located.

I can configure the substream, but I almost thing that would be harder on the camera. I'm not too worried about stressing out the BI system.

I will try lowering the FPS to 25, and then 20. Hopefully one of them solves these issues.

Thoughts?

Does increasing the bit rate in the camera settings to the max, regardless of FPS, negatively impact video stability?
Here are more screenshots from BI.

Try the fps drop and then monitor the stream on the cam itself to see if it helps. Some cams just can’t cope with running the cam at the max res and max fps as the CPU just can’t cope.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that you do have sub streams enabled but that is set to h265 so change that to h264 to see if that helps.

The jitter is still present when I drop it down to 10fps. I just disabled both substreams.

Could this have anything to do with the ethernet cable?