Recording Framerate

[OCB]

Hi,

I've tried finding info on this without success.

What framerate should I expect for my recordings? Is there somewhere I can change a setting to increase it?

At the moment, I'm getting about 1 frame per second, which isn't enough. The video tutorials have a much better framerate.

Camera is edimax IC-3030i set at 640x480 using h.264, 15fps on the camera (ideally I'd like SXGA - but it doesn't work).
Running on a late 2010 iMac, with plenty of RAM free and CPU running at around 15%
Network seems fine, I have realtime 130-170mbps between the camera and the Mac (wired)
On the Camera view, the video seems nice and smooth.

[ryan]

Hi OCB,

You should be seeing normal video, not 1fps capture. On the live view in VDV the video looks OK? But not in the search view? Or by camera view do you mean the software or webpage included with your camera?

[OCB]

Hi Ryan,

In fact, for some reason the setting had switched back to h264, where I already know that VDV doesn't like h264 with my Edimax IC-3030i.

I switched it back to MJPEG and I'm back to a "normal" framerate (less than the 15fps the camera supplies, but much better than the 0.5 fps with h264!)

===>
Talking of the issue where VDV (FFMPEG) doesn't cope well sometimes with h264 - does it make a difference if it was running on Windows rather than a Mac?

I don't have a Windows machine that has comparable spec to my iMac - but I would consider getting one.

In terms of performance though - I guess decoding h264 takes more CPU that MJPEG? Does VDV "prefer" lower compression codecs?
If so - overall, if I have the bandwidth + storage - should I stick to MJPEG? I'd prefer the PC to use less power, as I run cameras 24/7.

[ryan]

Hiya OCB,

There is no difference in the video processing library between Windows and OSX. If a certain stream is not working with your camera I'd need to figure out why in the underlying code.

h264 requires much more processing than MJPEG, but uses less bandwidth. With regard to saving power, I highly doubt you'll really see a difference between the two streams. With codecs like mpeg one thing you can do to save some processing is set the frame rate of the stream to 10fps if the camera supports it as this is all that VDV needs. As every frame in these codecs needs to be decoded to understand the next, an unnecessarily high framerate can causes wasted CPU cycles. This is a non-issue with MJPEG however, as it is essentially a 'frame on demand' situation.

Hope that helps,
- ryan

[JohannesL]

Hiya OCB,

There is no difference in the video processing library between Windows and OSX. If a certain stream is not working with your camera I'd need to figure out why in the underlying code.

h264 requires much more processing than MJPEG, but uses less bandwidth. With regard to saving power, I highly doubt you'll really see a difference between the two streams. With codecs like mpeg one thing you can do to save some processing is set the frame rate of the stream to 10fps if the camera supports it as this is all that VDV needs. As every frame in these codecs needs to be decoded to understand the next, an unnecessarily high framerate can causes wasted CPU cycles. This is a non-issue with MJPEG however, as it is essentially a 'frame on demand' situation.

Hope that helps,
- ryan

Hi,

It is true, what you sa Ryan. However, in home networking, bandwidth and processing capacity with 1M pixel class cameras is not a problem nowadays.

The problem in long term usage with VDV is that when H264 looses sync (and it happens in home networking on daily basis), VDV easily creates a false alarm. This could be prevented with a SW fix. While waiting for that fix, MJPEG is the only practical option for 24/7 monitoring.

Johannes