Pixelated video Arlo Pro

[jjs4653]

Has anyone experienced pixelating video in the first 2-3 seconds of the recorded video.  It happens every time for me.  It has great reception  full Wifi bars... and does not happen with my original Arlo camera.. just with the new Pro.

[starfall]

I have the 1st gen base station. I'm thinking the issue only happens when you pair Arlo Pro with 1st gen base station. Can someone with the 2nd gen base station confirm that they are also seeing this issue?

[mykalikai]

Others in this thread have reported issues with the 2nd gen / Pro base station and the Pro cameras. I think it is a Pro camera specific issue.

[starfall]

Has anyone talk to Netgear support and receive a new Arlo Pro? Maybe we all got defective hardware which can't be fix on firmware update. 

Netgear support, can you tell us if you are working to resolve this issue or not?

If Netgear does not acknowledge this issue, we may never see a fix.

[jguerdat]

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starfall wrote:

If Netgear does not acknowledge this issue, we may never see a fix.

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Have you opened a case with support?

[Dustin278]

Mine has gone from BAD to BETTER/GOOD following the last update and now back to BAD again.. I have started a ticket weeks ago which has been slow going and I feel like I have tried many of the suggestions that they tell me over and over and over with no luck - Some days my Arlo is spot on and other days it is total crap.. Has anyone had any luck or have any other sugestions? I am starting to think it could be there server?.. I have donated at least 50+ videos to the Arlo Team

Starting to think that I should return and try a different product because this is getting old.. 

[pcuser12345]

do u hace h7 or H8

[pcuser12345]

camera i went back to best buy replace almost all from h7 to h8 i got only 1 h7 lucky i had geeksquad insurance

[Dustin278]

All 4 of mine are H8..

[JamesC]

Pixelated/distorted video is often caused by poor camera connection with the base station. This could be due to wireless interference or range. If you are still experiencing this issue after relocating the camera/eliminating nearby sources of WiFi interference as troubleshooting steps, please contact the Arlo Support Team to further investigate this issue. You will find several options for contacting support in the provided link.

JamesC

[MrWTF]

JamesC please stop posting this ridiculous generic answer when thousands if not more of your users are having the exact same pixelation problem with pages and pages of posts discussing tests where the bandwidth variable has been removed from the equation. It is condescending and pointless. We get it, netgear doesn't care until they get more products returned, but posting this 'please try these generic steps' when users have posted AGAIN AND AGAIN that's not the cause of the problem is idiotic, and not helping. 

Please fix your horrible product, which you released after releasing a great product...but look mine are going back. You'll lose market share and eventually lose the business...but you guys asked for it.

[SteveWhite]

I have to agree with MrWTF. I have been silent on this thread since my early posts as I have resigned myself to live with this defect. I have tried everything including moving the base station, even adding a second base station. I have a camera consistently pixelating that is less than 20 feet passing through only an exterior wall yet skips and pixelated horrendously. All of my cameras are doing it. It doesn't matter which base they connect to.

My internet is FiOS 50x50mbps business class, not residential. My internet isn't the issue. My router isn't the issue. My D-Link DCS-2330L cameras are rock solid. It's the crappy Arlo WiFi system and/or cloud. Period.

I have stopped building out the Arlo system and will likely be replacing the Arlos this fall if no improvements are made on this issue.

[robsss]

I concur with the posts above and I also stopped posting in this thread. I have tried everything and the problem comes and goes. I have replaced the cameras, changed network configurations, ..... The original Arlos (which I still have 2) work perfectly. This problem is related to the Pro cameras/cloud. I have ruled everything else out.

-Steve

[brewingbrad]

+1

[JamesC]

I apologize if my post came across as condescending, that wasn't my intention. This is not normal behavior in most environments. Through testing, the symptoms described in this thread are reproduced in conditions where the camera has poor connection with the base station or there is large amounts of WiFi interference.

If internet speed, interference and range issues have all been ruled out and you are still experiencing this behavior, this could indicate a hardware problem or an issue that requires more in-depth troubleshooting. In which case, I encourage you to open a support ticket to further investigate the issue.

JamesC

[MrWTF]

James, 

When you call Microsoft for tech support and they tell you to reboot the computer, is it helpful? No, it's annoying and obviously the person doesn't know or care about the actual problem.

That's Netgear on this. You just said you can only re-create the problem with interference or bad connection. There are literally posts a page back with people posting side by side videos from an Arlo first gen and an Arlo Pro in the SAME location with the SAME connectivity showing massive artifacting on one and absolutely none on the other. This ignores the other what 100 posts in this thread ALONE that address the bandwidth/connectivity/intereference problems. My cameras are hooked up hard ethernet wires, PoE. A Q-See camera in the same spot last year with the same connection had zero problems. You or your engineers are either in denial, stupid or lying.

The product has a problem. A trouble ticket isn't going to help it. There are another 40 posts here about people getting new Arlo Q Pros and the problem coming back within a week.

My guess is there is a problem with the compression embedded in the camera that the developers haven't been able to fix but have been trying with parts of the system they can flash/update.  I'm done posting here, but if I were you, I'd transfer out of the Arlo group, or out of netgear. Nest and your other competitors are going to eat you guys alive with this kind of lackadaisical product development/support in such a giant market.

[Dustin278]

^^ Amen.

[brewingbrad]

MrWTF is right and James knows it. 

I've had a ticket open since 1/31/17 and NOTHING has come of it. I've done everything asked of me and more, moving my base station all over the house, switching cameras, you name it --just to try to get some real results. Of course, I knew it wasn't going to work --if the camera has artifacting IN THE SAME ROOM with the base station, it's NOT interference. Further, I have a 1gig residential fiber connection. I'm not the problem.

But NETGEAR just keeps dragging it out. They even respond with things like: 

Notes added by 8320
Hello Bradford,

The team is currently looking into this and we will try to provide feedback by Friday, March 3rd 2017.


Kind regards,

Pete
Expert ID: 8320
NETGEAR L2 Support Expert

Then, the system tries to close the ticket on me. So I have to respond to them not responding. The above note was left on my ticket on 3/3/2017 and they didn't actually respond to me until 3/22... and it was with the same nonsense.

Either NETGEAR themselves are completely baffled on what the cause is, it's too expensive for them to fix, or they just flat out don't care.

Here's another gem from my most recent response:

Hi Bradford,

Thanks for the responses. The 2nd generation base station has the same wireless technology as the first gen base station.

Also, we are not seeing a spike in customers reporting this issue. This type of issue is usually due to some type of environmental interference - WiFi, obstacles, distance, etc. as has been mentioned before.

I will provide my findings to you.

Thanks again,

Sal

They're not seeing a spike in customers reporting this issue, guys. It's just your imagination. Nothing to see here. Move along.

[starfall]

I created a case and I also feel like Netgear support is dragging it. I keep pointing out that Arlo does not have the issue at the same location and they have not abled to explain that. I tried everything they asked me to do and they still seem reluction to create an RMA for me. 

[Dustin278]

Same.. they keep asking me the same questions and telling me to do the same things over and over without resolution.. what a joke

[pcuser12345]

how many bar signal your camea has

[fuzzypixel]

I have full bars on my camera and I see this issue regularly. I've donated a bunch of videos with half the screen gree-pixelated, hopefully they store some metadata with videos to see what was the receiption/throughput at the time of the problem.

[Deanomite]

I also have this pixelated, grainy problem. Image quality set to high.

I opened a ticket and a lot of my problems were resolved by some steps they recommended but not fully resolved - still ongoing. It could also be the battery. I changed my mine out and a lot of the problems went away but not perfect yet. 

I recall the image quality being better before the last firmware update. My base and cameras are in the same location as before. Night vision is especially pixelated and grainy. 

Does anyone else feel that after the last FW update that the video quality has gone down or maybe just not good to begin with?

This may help someone:

Note : The 2 LED from the left of the base station should turn solid green indicating that if has finish booting up.

a) Making sure that the batteries are good :
1. Remove the batteries of the camera for 10 seconds.
2. Just put the batteries back in after 10 seconds.

Note : The camera LED should light up solid green indicating that it has good battery level.

b). Re-syncing the cameras back to your base station :
1. Press sync on the base station for 1 second.
2. Press sync on the camera for 1 second.
3. If connection is successful the camera LED should turn to fast blinking blue.

If the steps don't work then do the following :

c). Remove the camera from the account.
1. Go to the Arlo web portal(https://arlo.netgear.com/#/login) or open the Arlo app.
2. Go to settings >> My devices.
3. Select the faulty camera >> remove device.
4. Once removed kindly follow step letter "B" to re-sync the camera.

For isolation, swap the battery of the working camera into the affected camera. Please let us know if the camera goes offline using the battery, if not, might be the camera's hardware itself is not working correctly.

When swapping the battery and the camera please observe which causing the problem, the camera or the battery?

[fuzzypixel]

My cameras are wired for power, with batteries out, so I doubt that charging or battery level could be an issue.

[steve_t]

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jguerdat wrote:

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starfall wrote:

If Netgear does not acknowledge this issue, we may never see a fix.

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Have you opened a case with support?

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I've just had a chat with support. They got me to upload a video and run through all the components in my system. Very thorough but not cigar. The agent said they'd explore it further and get back to me. Quite happy with how they ran things knowing that they have to deal with a lot of people who aren't very tech savy. I look forward to a fix. Hopefully firmware can fix it

[manofice]

I've been MIA for awhile on this. I've just come to accept it for the time being. I still stand by my analysis that it's a datacenter issue. We all experienced a brief maybe 4 day window where about 99% of our pixelation was gone on all future videos AFTER the Amazon Datacenter outage. Its the only explaination... after about 4 days, pixelation for everyone came back. That is not wifi interferance. We probably got load balanced to a closer/faster/better datacenter for Disaster REcovery purposes when that outage hit, and then when it got back to normal the load balancer shifted us back to the slower/cheaper datacenter.