Foscam R2 camera suffers pixelation when HA (HW decode) is turned on.

[wepee]

Hi,

Attention to those Foscam camera owners, how to solve this problem?

Currently, I cannot turn on HW in Bl, once it is turned on.
Any object movement, the live view will display pixelation of the moving object.

I am planning to buy the Foscam R4M:

https://www.amazon.com/Foscam-Security-Detection-Available-R4/dp/B01F4RJV3K

but since it is not able to use HW, I am afraid I need to find an alternative camera.

 

[SouthernYankee]

screen shot of the camera setting in the camera, frame rate iframe, bit rate, compression....
Screen shot of the BI
Video settings for this camera.
video network configuration.
recording settings

What is your BI PC hardware configuration.

 

[aesterling]

I had the same problem with my R2 and had to leave HA off as well. I’d be curious if you find a solution.

 

[sebastiantombs]

The problem with Foscam, Reolink, SC3V and others is that they don't actually adhere to settings that you enter for frame rate, bit rate and iframe rate. I managed to get a Reolink to use HA once I raised the frame and bit rates to maximum. The camera still didn't actually use those settings, but it got the iframe up to almost 1 in relation to the frame rate. Maybe try that with the Foscam and see what happens.

 

[wittaj]

^What he said. But you do not need HA to run Blue Iris and it can run just fine without it - plus recent updates have kinda forced some to not use it as BI became unstable...

 

[wepee]

screen shot of the camera setting in the camera, frame rate iframe, bit rate, compression....
Screen shot of the BI
Video settings for this camera.
video network configuration.
recording settings

What is your BI PC hardware configuration.

@SouthernYankee


This picture was taken when I panned the camera (with HA Hardware decode = Default)

 

[wittaj]

You need to match frame rate and i-frame and they need to be the same in the main and sub. And run CBR on both and see if that fixes it.

Was that what the find/inspect found in BI or did you force it to that camera in BI?

 

[wepee]

You need to match frame rate and i-frame and they need to be the same in the main and sub. And run CBR on both and see if that fixes it.

Was that what the find/inspect found in BI or did you force it to that camera in BI?

@wittaj By making the changes as you have described did not solve the pixelation problem.

 

[wittaj]

BI usually does a good job at finding the correct settings. But as others have mentioned, Foscam can be problematic with Blue Iris due to it not following industry standards.

Did you change the Max rate in BI - if so, do not do that, let BI select it.

Is this camera over wifi or plugged into ethernet?

For kicks up the bitrate to the highest setting. Make the FPS and iframe rate 15 for both main and sub.

And make HW = none and not default

 

[wepee]

BI usually does a good job at finding the correct settings. But as others have mentioned, Foscam can be problematic with Blue Iris due to it not following industry standards.

Ok then at this point, I think I should leave it as it is.

Did you change the Max rate in BI - if so, do not do that, let BI select it

Yes, I did, ok I will let BI change the Max rate automatically.

Is this camera over wifi or plugged into ethernet?

The camera is running on Wifi N connected to a Wif AX access point.

For kicks up the bitrate to the highest setting. Make the FPS and iframe rate 15 for both main and sub.

Roger that.

And make HW = none and not default

Noted.

@wittaj Thank you for your kind assistance.

 

[wittaj]

The wifi is probably contributing to your problem. Wifi and security cameras do not go to together. They are trying to pass a lot of data and unlike a Netflix movie that will buffer up the movie so you do not get pixelation, there is no buffering with a wifi camera so it is dropping packets and other bits. For anything mission critical, do not go with wifi cameras.

I believe that camera has an ethernet port - if so try plugging in directly and seeing if that makes an improvement.

 

[SouthernYankee]

The foscam appears to use none standard stream types. So i do not think it will every work with the Intel Quicksync processing. Set the BI Hardware Decode to NO.

 

[wepee]

I believe that camera has an ethernet port - if so try plugging in directly and seeing if that makes an improvement.

@wittaj Good try, but still no go. I tested the Foscam R2 camera using the network port,
unfortunately pixelation would appear on any moving object, as soon as I turned on HW decode = Intel.

So let this be my lesson - Foscam camera does not supports BI HW decoding
Except, older generation Foscam like the FI9831W & FI9826W can support BI HW decoding.