Question: Pro 2 users: Which Base station are you using?

[billkex]

I am trying to get to the source of my video problems. I'm wondering if it's my base station?

Note: I am using (2) VMB4000 Arlo Pro 2 base stations. I never had an issue before the update.

I understand that there are Pro2 users that are NOT having any of the following issues:

Live Image:

Blurry/fuzzy image quality (not 1080 quality)

Recorded video:

Image occasionally freezes

Quality is not 1080 (blurry/not sharp and crisp)

Image occasionally pixelates

Image skips frames, fast forwards, etc.

Images suddenly disappear, etc.

Etc. Etc.

If you are NOT having these issues, which base station(s) are you using?

[TomMac]

4000 base with 12 cameras; Arlos, Pros, Pro2

Ultra Smarthub ( 5000 ) with an Ultra and Pro2 cam

[billkex]

Your 4000 base station is running 12 cameras, and you aren't experiencing any image problems? And the images are sharp 1080 images live and recorded?
If so, I'm not sure what my next step is. Grrrrr

[TomMac]

YES, no major issues.... but then I've been doing this for 4 years.

Running smart but not cvr... always had issues with cvr ,,... btw , on Elite plan

The 4000 base has 12 cams...not to include the wifi direct Baby and Q cams.

[billkex]

Well, so far over 50 people have viewed this thread, .....and only 1 person responded that their system works fine. I'm confused and frustrated.

I was hoping that it was something simple like the base station was defective. (But it worked perfectly fine BEFORE this new app was released)  so what's next? Not sure.

BTW, I'm still waiting to hear back from Arlo concerning my case number that involves all these issues that I'm experiencing.

[Dannybear]

I run 2xVMB4000 bases and 4 pro2 cameras, two on ac power.

Had same issues your experiencing on the ac powered cameras, more so the furthest one.

I performed a wifi check and found that the neighbors Telstra wifi system had jumped to same channel 6 as the main arlo Base channel.

What I observed was that as I walked around in front of the camera that the video would pixelate briefly on triggered recordings. If I operate a light switch the video recording would stall or subjects disappear while sound continued.

In the end I did two things, first was to install a smart switch on the power feed to the camera that removes power for a minute twice daily. Doing this forces a heartbeat check between base and camera that resets the camera settings, hence the basic activity zones to work correctly all the time and the camera firmware does not cause the heavy pixelated video smearing.

Next I picked a silent wifi channel 3 and forced it my local wifi modem so the main arlo Base would match it after a power cycle. The slave arlo base also used channel 3. It is only used as a siren.

After doing the above the recordings are now very reliable but not sure if the above made a difference or some magic fix of the arlo server.

[billkex]

Thanks for the info.
The issues I am having occur on both my ac wired and the battery operated cameras.

Trying to figure out what is causing it, as everything was fine before the Arlo update.

[mamarcac]

It's not you or your system, there are multiple threads spread out over various forums here with the same issue.

Before May 2019 we had good image quality. They released a crippled firmware and _still_ have not fixed it. Many suspect it's intentional to save their server space.

I don't believe the people (person) who claims to have good image quality. Let's see a sample. 

[TomMac]

I don't believe the people (person) who claims to have good image quality. Let's see a sample.

Here's a PRO2...   the yellow thing in center is a pepper ( thrown out for deer ) at about 17ft...the small 2 ft stump in center is

25ft   There iris adjusts for the first couple secs... then stabilizes.... there is some key frame pulsing from the compression... but really you not going to get much better out of these cameras

https://my.arlo.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/98111AB6632BB634_201910

Here's one at night same location ;

https://my.arlo.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/512868CDCC5063CD_201910

[TomMac]

????

[mamarcac]

I love the nature scene, but that video is pixelated/grainy/jumpy/skipping frames just like we are all experiencing. Go to 18 seconds and you can barely see the squirrel's features. Imagine that's a person at your front door - no chance of identifying them.

I do agree unfortunately, from what I've seen since May of this year, that's as good as the picture gets. Thank you for sharing.

[TomMac]

The issue is the pulsing of the key frame due to compression.... not really pixelated.

Many of the true pixelated vids look like the movie that was out a number of yrs ago called Pixels.

Look and search for a term call ghosting.

exp;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/drdxsu8oyvafq9i/1486589739255.mp4?dl=0%C2%A0

[mamarcac]

I don't know why you're debating the details with me - and I don't need to Google search, but thanks for your snarky attitude. Your videos are not HD that you paid for, why does this not bother you exactly?

[TomMac]

Not debating, just disagreeing...

the issue is compression more than any thing else

[mamarcac]

You can disagree, you are also wrong. You know some of us on this forum actually know our stuff, believe it or not.

"Pixelation results from high levels of data compression in video files. "

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-clean-pixelated-video

[billkex]

Thanks for sharing the video clips.

They aren't as bad as mine, that's for sure. Mine skips, freezes, etc.

But as far as the sharpness/quality, those don't look like 1080.

Also: I'm still waiting for Arlo to contact me.

[StephenB]

---

@billkex wrote:

But as far as the sharpness/quality, those don't look like 1080.

---

FWIW, I have professional experience with video compression.

Older algorithms for instance mpeg 2 or mpeg 4) did show pixelation and other artifacts when the compression ratio was too high.  Newer algorithms (like H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC) don't do that if you have a reasonable encoder.  Instead the picture just gets blurrier - which does reduce the effective resolution (that is, the higher spatial frequencies are dropped, which blurs out the details).

Pixelation with the newer algorithms is usually related to packet loss (when part of the bitstream never reaches the decoder) - not the compression ratio.  Skips and freezes are also linked to packet loss, and not the compression ratio.

As far as the specs go, the Pro 2 cameras have 1080p sensors, and are recording at 1080p.

Overall, I would like to be able to set a higher bitrate for these cameras, since 1 Mbps does limit the effective resolution/quality of the video.  That would reduce the range of the base station, and of course requires more upload bandwidth to the cloud.  

I'd also like to be able to specify H.265 for all video for the Pro 3 and Ultra (not just 2K and 4K) as it outperforms H.264 at 1080p (giving higher quality at the same bandwidth).

[billkex]

All I know is that for the first10 months that I owned the Pro2 system, the live and recorded images were sharp and clear, (1080) and the recorded versions did not freeze, speed up, pixelate, etc.
...and the past few months, it has been constantly having these issues, and I want to know WHY.

[mamarcac]

I mostly agree, also having quite a bit of experience in A/V. My point, and others here, is that pre-May 21 2019 we had good quality. I just watched a video from May 13 I had saved. Smooth, pretty close to HD, and _worlds_ better than what we have now.

They released firmware to reduce video quality, to save server space. If you got ahold of their compression options I would bet a large sum of money that it changed in May in their codebase.

[billkex]

I finally heard back from Arlo Tech support.

She asked for the number on my AC adapter for one of the cameras.  (see photo)

This seemed odd to me, considering the image problems are on all 5 cameras (2 of them are AC powered,  3 are battery powered) ....and I never had these problems prior to May 2019.

Why/how would the adapter cause these issues?

Needless to say, I provided her the info, and she said my case will now be escalated, and I will hear back from someone soon.

I'm bewildered, ....but if it helps solves the image problems, I'm all for it.

[StephenB]

---

@mamarcac wrote:

They released firmware to reduce video quality, to save server space. If you got ahold of their compression options I would bet a large sum of money that it changed in May in their codebase.

---

It'd be pretty easy to confirm this if you have an older file to compare it with.  There are several tools that can give you more details on the compression.  MediaInfoXP is a good one (and has no ads or offers built in).

FWIW, it does appear that something changed in May.  It might not have been the compression settings though, it could also have been something that damaged the wifi transport to the base.  Lots of people seemed to be reporting video freezes, loss of range and battery drain - which wouldn't be the case if they just increased the compression.  

[billkex]

Tech support is working with me on the issues. Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of it.
I'll keep everyone posted.

[mamarcac]

A user in another thread posted details comparing videos. Post-May 2019 the video was something like 1/7th the size. It's not even hard to tell with VLC etc. - so compression for sure was tweaked. Not arguing that other things weren't as well.

I'd love to have the option to record to USB as primary instead of sending to the cloud first. Give me HD on the attached storage, and compress to the cloud if you like. But we don't get full HD anywhere.

[StephenB]

---

@mamarcac wrote:

A user in another thread posted details comparing videos. Post-May 2019 the video was something like 1/7th the size. It's not even hard to tell with VLC etc. - so compression for sure was tweaked. Not arguing that other things weren't as well.

---

I didn't see that thread.  You do need to make sure that the smaller video isn't corrupted (no freezing or stuttering).  On it's face, 1/7th the size has to be wrong.  Arlo said the camera needed a 1 Mbps uplink before May 2019 (and that still is what they say).  Assuming they were at 1 Mbps in April, 1/7th of that would put them at 140 kbps now.

They certainly aren't anywhere close to that.  The actual bitrate of one of my recent pro-2 clips is 866 kbps (details below).  I don't have an old file to compare it with, but I don't think it's dropped much (if at all).  That said, I'd like to see an option to record at higher bitrates (and use HEVC always with Ultra and Pro 3).

Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size                                : 2.97 MiB
Duration                                 : 28 s 777 ms
Overall bit rate                         : 866 kb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-10-17 17:16:41
Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-10-17 17:16:41

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4
Format settings                          : CABAC / 1 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP                     : M=1, N=48
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 28 s 586 ms
Bit rate                                 : 812 kb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 072 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 23.473 FPS
Minimum frame rate                       : 2.513 FPS
Maximum frame rate                       : 24.390 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.017
Stream size                              : 2.77 MiB (93%)
Title                                    : WowzaStreamingEngine
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-10-17 17:16:41
Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-10-17 17:16:41
Color range                              : Full
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Codec configuration box                  : avcC

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC LC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID                                 : mp4a-40-2
Duration                                 : 28 s 777 ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 54.8 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 1 channel
Channel layout                           : C
Sampling rate                            : 16.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 15.625 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 193 KiB (6%)
Title                                    : WowzaStreamingEngine
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Alternate group                          : 1
Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-10-17 17:16:41
Tagged date                              : UTC 2019-10-17 17:16:41

[Jintek]

I tried to view your video samples but the link for sharing has expired