New Arlo App

[billkex]

I have had my Arlo Pro2 for a little over a year.

I'm not sure why things have changed, but the viewing my cameras on my desktop computer, the video quality is CRAP. It is not as clear and sharp as before. ....I am not happy about this.

I was actually thinking about buying more cameras, but not unless this is corrected.

Is Arlo doing something to fix this?

[billkex]

I have noticed more lag time and the quality of the video is not as sharp.

[billkex]

I have had my Arlo Pro2 system for a little over a year. I have noticed that the image quality has really decreased compared to a few months ago. ....Why?

I have also noticed that when playing back captured video, the video sometimes freezes, or skips, jumps ahead real fast.....WHY?  It never did this before.

Does Netgear still own Arlo?  What changed?

[NewfieDrool]

Ah you too have noticed the drop in video quality. I noticed this when the new app appeared. Very poor picture on live view but recording are ok. 

The video compression is poor I’m afraid to say, will be nice to see this improved but I’m getting a feeling now I’ve had time to read through the forum we might be in trouble. 

[billkex]

The big question is WHY DID THEY CHANGE IT?

The quality was very good before. It was the reason why I bought the system.

Is Arlo no longer part of Netgear?

[darthvader2002]

Arlo is now a seperate company to Netgear.  See this 

I had noticed the reduction in vid quality also but had put this down to needing to upgrade my reading specs but maybe thats not the case (phew!).   

In my experience, once companies list publicly and then have poor financial performance, they take a whole bunch of measures to cut costs and that could have included storage costs (using different codecs).  They may  also have reduced quality to help the Ultra Arlo product look better.  Or it might just be our eyes.

It certainly explains the poor quality support people are getting at the moment, thats for sure!

[NewfieDrool]

If you check the  Financial markets you will find all the info you are after and can see how the company in the eyes of the investors are doing. 

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/u/usd0.001/share-charts

Their stocks have taken some big falls over a set period and their are reports from the executives explaning their positions.

[StephenB]

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@darthvader2002 wrote:

(using different codecs). 

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They haven't switched codecs for sure.  The older cameras use H.264 (also called AVC) video, and aac audio.  The Ultra uses H.265 (also called HEVC) for 4K, but still uses H.264 for 1080p.  The compression is built into the camera hardware, so that won't change.

They might be using a somewhat lower bandwidth for live streaming (and maybe even recordings).  They might also be lowering quality some on the initial i-frame in order to keep it's size down.  That would make the image blurrier at the beginning, but it ought to clear if up there isn't too much motion. 

I'm saying might because I don't have old clips for comparison, so this is hypothetical.   I have a mix of ultras and pro-2s myself, and of course the pro-2 always looks blurrier now that I'm used to the Uutras.

While adjusting bitrates would reduce storage costs a bit, reducing the bitrate also increases range from the base station and makes it easier to stream to a phone with a marginal data connection.  It does of course hurt quality. Overall from a user perspective it's a balance (just like battery life tradeoffs).

Are you using the "best" quality setting in video quality?  If not, perhaps try switching to it.