Foscam FI9821W Horrible Picture Quality

[macdahdee]

Just connected my FI9821W to Vitamin D Video. Everything works as far as connectivity but the video quality is awful. The aspect ratio is "smashed" horizontally and the picture is worse than my older VGA resolution Foscam camera. I'm using the free version which might be the issue but I ran across this post and this person is having the exact same issue. Unfortunately they didn't post a resolve to it:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9031

[ryan]

Hi macdahdee,

My fault for taking that post to email and not following up. There are two issues you are seeing here -

1) The free version of VDV is limited to 320x240 resolution. This is why your camera is highly pixelated and looks poor compared to VGA resolutions. The purchased versions all have a 'scale to' setting on the camera configuration page that will allow you to stream and save at higher resolutions.

2) There can be a bug in the OSX version of the app with regard to scaling non-4:3 ratios to fill the playback/stream view rather than maintaining aspect ratio and "letterboxing" (black bars above and below). This does not occur in the windows version. This is why your video looks "smashed". As noted in the post you linked though, video is saved at the correct resolution, and when accessed on disk or via the export function clips are created as expected.

Hope that helps,
- ryan

[kippie28]

I have the same problem with really bad video quality. I have a purchased copy of VitaminD and it is a pity that I cannot get good quality video from an HD camera.
Has anyone found a way of getting better video??

[ryan]

Hi kippie28,

Can you describe what you mean by bad quality? If it looks pixelated, can you edit the camera and let me know what you chose for 'Save video at' in the configuration? If you upgraded from the free version to a paid version and didn't go back to change this it will be saving at a width of 320 only, which would explain your low resolution assuming that is the problem.

[kippie28]

Hi Ryan
With the latest version of the F19821W software, the quality seems better, the picture is about the same as the F18904W although. I would expect the F19821 to be better. BUT I still get a squashed aspect ratio, see attached..

F19821W.jpg (43.93 KiB) Viewed 5096 times

F18904W.jpg (42.07 KiB) Viewed 5096 times

Any ideas?

Kip

[ryan]

2) There can be a bug in the OSX version of the app with regard to scaling non-4:3 ratios to fill the playback/stream view rather than maintaining aspect ratio and "letterboxing" (black bars above and below). This does not occur in the windows version. This is why your video looks "smashed". As noted in the post you linked though, video is saved at the correct resolution, and when accessed on disk or via the export function clips are created as expected.

Hiya Kip,

I think the above may be your problem. If you pick a clip created by the FI9821W, choose "export", and then open that video in quicktime/vlc/etc... does it display at the appropriate sizing? If so, this is the problem, there is a bug just causing the playback in VDV to stretch vertically to fill the 4:3 window. This is definitely on my list to investigate.

If you use that stream path to connect to the camera from a different media player such as quicktime or vlc and see a similarly stretched image then the problem lies with the camera and there isn't anything VDV can do. In that case we would need to try tweaking settings on the camera to resolve the issue.

Hope that helps,
- ryan