Poor Quality Video Arlo Pro : Suggested Solutions

[sm1975]

Hi, 

First of all, i just wanted to say that i love the Arlo PRO ease of setup, the website, phone app and features.

The biggest issue i have is that of poor video quality. The packaging and marketing all say HD, however when viewing the videos it's not even close to being HD. It’s not even close to being SD. The quality is closer to VGA with images grainy and pixelated even at a very short distance (2 meters away).

Before i start to get suggestions that it's a wireless issue, please note that i design and build wireless solutions for a living.  I have the Arlo Pro base station on a totally separate WIFI network. It's running on it's own WiFi channel with no overlap or interference from neighbours. No other devices in my home are attached to the isolated WIFI environment that the cameras are on. The signal strength from the Camera to the base station is -50 dBm. So it far exceeds the  -67 dBm recommendation for real time voice and video in an enterprise.

Secondly my uplink bandwidth is 10 Mbps for the Arlo Pro cameras. So even with a single camera I should be getting much better quality.

I really believe the root cause of the issue lies in the intentional reduction of resolution and compression to allow for smaller bandwidth and storage requirements. From a business point of view i totally understand this. A HD stream can be around 5 Mbps, so having 4 of these stream to your cloud service may be problematic for most users around the world, not to mention the increased costs of bandwidth and storage on your end.  So i offer these suggestions in the hope i can get better quality videos through your service:

1. I’m aware of the current option to improve quality. I’ve already set it to “Best Video.” So maybe you can add another level for "HD Video", with a caveat that the user will get reduced free storage, say 3 days worth instead of 7.
2. Provide an optional plan to upgrade in order to get access to HD quality. I’ll gladly upgrade and pay for this.
3. Provide a mechanism so that you can dump a HD version of files locally on the USB attached Disk and only send the lower resolution version to the cloud.

Thank you.

[JamesC]

DDarko,

Often times the symptoms you describe can be due to WiFi interference. You might consider relocating the base station and/or cameras to see if you experience different results. Also, take a look here for best positioning tips: How do I position my Arlo Wire-Free, Arlo Pro Wire-Free camera, or Arlo Pro 2 Wire-Free camera?

JamesC

[DDarko]

Hi @JamesC ,

 I moved the base already (many times), also moved the cameras from place to place and I called the arlo support team.  The support team could not help me... they created a ticket and that's about it.   See as soon as my cameras detects motion the first 2-3 seconds get distored (pixelation and grainy video) then it goes back to normal.   Also I have noticed thtat if there is fast movement, distortion happens.  I have place the cameras in different places with the same result.  I had them recording with full lighting in the room and also night vision. Both ways, I get distored video for the first 2 - 3 seconds and later on in the video.    I have seen many people complaining about this and also the tech (second level) said that it is normal for the distortion to happen because the cameras were "booting".   

Thanks for your response.  Dont get me wrong, I like the idea of the arlo pro but it is just not delivering for the price.   I do not mind to pay top dollar for a good system but come on, I am not asking for much but just to get good video quality from begining to end as netgear advertises. 

[brewtoo]

The problem is not the cameras. The problem is the extreme compression used by netgear to save bandwidth.

It is amazing how many people here are defending the way netgear has crippled these cameras, while selling them for a King's ransom.

[floodofnoise]

I was just about to chime in and say the same thing. The cameras are capable of recording in HD, but Netgear compresses the heck out of the video for cloud storage and faster bandwidth. The image quality you want would be much more attainable if we had the option to record locally first and then upload a compressed version to Netgear.

[iamRod]

I agree. Please let the local video be as uncompressed as possible, and compress the cloud for quick notification. That way we can go access the needed uncompressed later for possible ID'ing or whatever. It can't be that difficult.

[Tmann4588]

Yes, if I had known that you could not get a clear enough Vedic picture to identify an intruder I would never have punched them.

[koten]

Hello, 

I have exactly the same issue, bad quality video image with Arlo pro, especially compared to their first version camera Arlo wire free which deliver HD 720.

Cheers

[JamesC]

koten,

Camera placement can impact video quality, also check your settings to be sure you have the image quality set to "best".

For tips on achieving the best picture quality with your Arlo cameras, take a look here: How do I get better picture quality from my Arlo camera?

JamesC

[Sheb]

This system lets us down every time, absolute waste of money. Dissconnects all the time, pixilated, video stalls, unwatchable mostly. Thanks!!!!!!!