Video Pixelation

[Ordinary1]

Hi All.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and well.

Since the early hours of yesterday morning (25th April) UK time all of my Arlo Pro cameras have been suffering from extreme pixelation in both live view and motion detection recordings. The location of the cameras and base station have not changed for months.

The base station is VMB4000r3 on firmware 1.16.1.1_3348_facf74c

The four cameras are version H8 1.092.0.25_24_986

The pixelated video is also present on local USB storage suggesting a local issue.

I have checked WiFi strength using an analyser and all is good. All cameras have three bars in the Arlo app.

One of the cameras is within ten feet of the base station with no obstructions and is suffering the same.

I have noticed that a camera firmware update was issued in the last few days. Are there any known problems that could have caused such a drastic change in system performance?

[Macarioc]

"By the way, has anyone noticed that their 7 day web recordings get trimmed down to 4-5 days max? I wanted to check something 6 days ago and the online recordings only reflect 5."

mine shows 7 days.....

[tibert]

Weird.  Perhaps they cap the # of recordings or data space?  I have two cameras that are pretty active in the alley.  Today is 19/May.  The recordings for me are available across all cameras back to 14/May (so shy of 6 full days).

[alchemist50]

I'm seeing six days total archived cloud recordings right now - May 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.

Looking at my saved local files, mine degraded beginning on April 25.  The bitrate on all the cameras dropped on that day, with bad pixelation.  I didn't pay attention exactly when my camera and base firmware updated, other than it was right around then.  It asked to update the cameras, and I remember thinking oh no, what will be broken now.

[CCNE37]

I am in Australia so 7pm on 20 May, and my logs show May 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 & 20 - 7 days.

That is one problem I have not had. The cameras are near useless but I can still see 7 days worth of rubbish video.

[jam436]

For anyone who may be interested, there are a couple of Twitter accounts in case you want to make your displeasure known there about the sabotaging of these legacy systems.:
Arlo account - @ArloSmartHome
and one for CEO Matthew McRae - @mbmcrae

[OurHattonHome]

Anyone notice besides pix-elation how the distance to pick up motion has been degraded as well. For instance I have one camera pointed toward the concrete apron in front of the garage and used to pick up all vehicles that entered the garage. Now it's been 9 days since any movement has been picked up on that camera. What a waste of money. These have been working good for the last 4 years. Now that they have split from Netgear they have decided to stop being user friendly. I wonder since Netgear wanted to get rid of the product line this is the approach they have taken to eliminate it all together. What a farce. I can assure you neither Netgear nor Arlo will be seeing anymore of my business. Doing research now to see what is the best wireless replacement out there. Has anyone tried the Lorex camera systems?

[OurHattonHome]

I appreciate the suggestion of the ezviz system only problem is the cameras require power. That would be fine but one of my camera's is located where there is no available power source and I must have a battery operated one. Any suggestions for a truly wire free camera system like Arlo?

[Retired_Member]

Eufy

Looks like arlo, works like arlo but focuses on local storage in base unit using sd cards made by anker

[MJNL]

Yes! I have noticed a drastic decrease in motion detection as well! Many times the cameras do not detect cars or people at all; other times there is a huge delay.

[MJNL]

We have the same challenge: No nearby power source.
I would greatly appreciate a recommendation of a true wireless camera system with decent resolution if anyone knows of such a system. Thank you!!

[silverado44]

---

@jam436 wrote:

For anyone who may be interested, there are a couple of Twitter accounts in case you want to make your displeasure known there about the sabotaging of these legacy systems.:
Arlo account - @ArloSmartHome
and one for CEO Matthew McRae - @mbmcrae

---

Thank you, I contacted Matt McRae and forward the link to him I was very professional in the email and hope things get started. I also touched on issues about no one responding to this thread to address the issue so maybe things will start rolling. Iam tired and done will this problem as I have a lot of money tired up in my system. If he reply's I will let people know.  

[jam436]

.

[kstrike155]

I am also having SEVERE pixelation recently. I used to be a proponent of the Arlo system, constantly defending them on Reddit, etc., but it's getting very difficult to do so.

The video feed is practically unusable now. No changes to my setup.

[silverado44]

I Pm'ed some more employees today JamesC, ShayneS and JessicaP and ask them to stop in and let use all know what's going on. You know they see thread this but I don't expect much.

[JessicaP]

Our videos are compressed with a variable bit rate. We have made some changes that result in a lower average bit rate. This could impact video quality in complex scenes.

- Arlo Team

[silverado44]

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@JessicaP wrote:

Our videos are compressed with a variable bit rate. We have made some changes that result in a lower average bit rate. This could impact video quality in complex scenes.

---

Ok I get it but what is going to be done about it? Our cameras are virtually un-usable. Faces are blurry from about 5 feet away and my grass looks like waves in the water and I have an Arlo pro 2 and suppose to be 1080.  And Thank you for coming in.

[Ozphoenix]

Hi Jessica,

Thanks for replying to us, we appreciate it.

The lower bit rate has made our cameras useless. It IS impacting video quality, and I'm not sure what you mean by complex scenes as anything that appears in front of the camera that moves (or has moved) creates a pixelated mess so the videos are useless.

We need our cameras to read the plates of cars and identify people, they could do that before the bit rate was changed but now they can't and this is not our fault. We've spent $600.00 to buy the cameras and most people here have spent more than that, so that money is now wasted.

The question now is, will Arlo fix this (roll back the update or supply a new update which improves the bit rate) or will nothing be done?

And please don't direct us to tech support, as suggestions to turn it off and on again, do speed tests and move the cameras closer to the base station (along with anything else) don't work. We know it is the update with the messed up bit rate.

Thanks.

[ralfyguy1]

What kind of lame excuse is this if this "Variable Bit Rate" renders the whole system useless. If you can't afford the servers to maintain a decent and usable bandwidth for running your customers systems they paid a lot of money for, then quit and stop the false advertising you lure people into buying your stuff with promising video quality you don't even get near to provide. This is actually borderline fraud.

[MJNL]

I appreciate the information but unfortunately my video resolution as well as the motion detection have both been detrimentally impacted by Arlo’s update, hence rendering my system practically useless. Will Arlo be resolving these issues? I need to know so that I can exchange my cameras, and I’m certain many other customers need answers as well. Thank you.

[Retired_Member]

Your variable bit rate made my $2000 investment

[Kktracy3]

Complex scenes?? Code for any movement which is the whole purpose of the motion detection camera system. At least we know now that is was done on purpose. I’m so disappointed and embarrassed. I have recommended these cameras to friends and family in the past. I guess she would have said they are working to correct it if they really were.

[CCNE37]

Jessica

While I do appreciate an appearance from an Arlo mod, your comment makes no sense.

One of my cameras points down at my front door, which is hardly a complex scene ( door and a bit of concrete paving) and the video is now so bad that I can barely recognise a person coming to the door - it could be a burglar wearing a hoodie or my wife - hard to tell the difference.

Surely 1080P should be 1080P ? I should not be able to count the pixels on 1080P. On my desktop screen I am getting pixels that are about 3mm x 3mm (almost 1/8" x 1/8") - that is certainly not 1080P - more like maybe 200P.  A 10 year old phone takes better video than my Pro 2.

But my 10 year old phone video probably also uses more data storage, which is probably the crux of the matter with Arlo. Arlo has reduced the size of the video files (through a ridiculously high data compression) to a point where they are no longer useful.

This is not what I paid good money for and I expect it to be returned to the quality I got when I bought my Pro 2 cameras originally. I "upgraded" my original Arlo 720P cameras (I have owned Arlo since early 2016 and recommended it to several friends) to Pro 2 cameras at considerable cost specifically to get better quality video, and the Pro 2 cameras are now worse than the original Arlo ever were.

These ongoing "forced" firmware upgrades to the detriment of people who paid good money for quality video has to stop. Please roll it back to a firmware version that actually works (March 2019 sounds good to me), and give us the option to apply future upgrades in the same way that most other manufacturers (like Apple, Canon, Netgear routers etc etc) give us the choice.

[Manolo86]

Complex scenes.... So anything that passes in front of my Arlo Video Doorbell (full signal) is a complex scene?

[Ozphoenix]

Well said, CCNE37!

If Arlo is at risk of losing the company or going into administration due to the storage space our old cameras are taking up, then I can understand mucking around with the bit rate. Fact is, we don't know what the real reason is, it could just be that they make zero profit from our old cameras as we don't have subscriptions and forcing this change on us is pretty bad company behaviour.

I'd say just about all of us can no longer continue using the cameras unless this is fixed, and we've had no sign from Arlo that they will be. I will stand up and sing Arlo's praises and promote them to everyone if they can return the cameras to normal viewing. I'd probably even buy the new models.

But at the moment there is no way I will spend money with Arlo again, as who is to say the new models will have the same thing done to them when Arlo thinks they are too old? There is no trust there anymore. 

I do wonder what some of the government consumer watchdog organisations will say about this when we make complaints (I know I already have). 

[TerryHoss]

Well this is the great quality I'm seeing many times per day.