Garbled" video is causing spurious recordings

[AlKoch]

Hello,

I have discovered that two of my (WiFi) cameras briefly "garble" a portion of the video image. I have attached a photo of a garbled section of the image. The problem is that this is triggering my Rules because it looks like motion (the suddenly garbled part of the screen looks "different" than the last video frame and I think that's part of how you detect motion). The problem is that this burst of garbled video is happening a very large number of times per hour. It seems to only last for a second but Sighthound keeps interpreting this as motion and firing a rule. I have disabled the default Rule that detects "Any Object" but my Search list is still full of "Unknown - <room name>" clips.

This is a very big problem because all of the "bogus" clips are effectively "overwhelming" the system . I often have 100+ clips in a hour which 1) makes the Search list VERY SLOW to "list" down the screen, 2) makes the system itself run VERY SLOWLY. That is, it seems sluggish and takes 1/2 minute to allow me to change the "Camera" or "Look for" filters or to switch to the Cameras tab.

I think the burst of bad frames is caused by a WiFi issue but there no way I can hard-wire the cameras where this is happening.

How can I prevent Sighthound from reacting to these momentary glitches in the video stream?

At the risk of diverting from the problem I just described, this is a perfect context to ask about something that is confusing me. Given that the burst of garbled frames is triggering Sighthound to think something is moving I don't understand why this is causing these clips to appear in the Search list. I have exactly one Rule enabled (the default is disabled). My Rule Saves to the local computer and also plays the "Ping" sound. What confuses me is that 1) the clips are labeled "Unknown - <room name>" and 2) I don't hear a Ping sound. If I walk into the room I will then see a "People - <room name>" and the Ping will sound. That tells me that my Rule fired. But all of these other clips have a different name and no Ping so that tells me they are not associated with my Rule (yes I am filtering the list for just this camera). Why are these clips in the list?

Thank you.

[Devin]

Hi Alkoch,

This looks like packet loss over UDP, an unreliable transport. Assuming that your camera supports TCP you can attempt to force a tcp connection by appending "svforcetcp" to the query string of the URL. As your url already has a query string, you would simply change it from "/streampath" to "/streampath?svforcetcp" If you could provide me with your specific camera model I can provide a screenshot of how this should be entered.

If this is due to WiFi network congestion you may need to reduce the resolution that your camera is streaming or, if you haven't already, connect the computer running Sighthound directly to the router.

Regards,

-Devin

[AlKoch]

Hi Devin,

Thanks for the suggestion to swap over to TCP. This camera is the Samsung SmartCam HD Pro.

When I read your suggestion I thought I knew how to implement it. I went to Tools | Edit Camera and stepped my way through to the Camera Setup panel where I supplied the ID, credentials and the "Stream path" which is "profile5/media.smp". But now I see that I am not explicitly entering a URL that contains "/streampath" so I don't know what to do (or where to do it). Please send the screenshot explaining this.

Thank you!

[Devin]

Hi Alkoch,

For the stream path you will want to enter "profile5/media.smp?svforcetcp". I've attached a screenshot as well.

Regards,

-Devin

[AlKoch]

Excellent! I'll give that a try.

Thank you.

[AlKoch]

Hi Devin,

After more than a week with your suggestion I no longer have seen the "garbled video". One last question: would it make sense to run all the cams with this? I know that UDP is a lighter protocol than TCP but does it really have any effect with Sighthound?


Thank you.

[Devin]

Hi AlKoch,

I'm glad to hear the TCP flag worked out for you. If your other cameras are not experiencing the lost packets or "garbled video" then there is no benefit to forcing a TCP connection.

Regards,

-Devin

[AlKoch]

Thanks for the help!

[williamjames07]

i think it will be worked out.