Video Pixelation after firmware update Pro/VMB4000r3 (1.16.1.1_3348_facf74c)

[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?

[dcfox1]

Arlo does sell world wide. 

[silverado44]

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@JessicaP wrote:

Thank you for reaching out about your recent issue with the video quality of your video recordings.

Our team has been actively investigating and is working on an update to help address this issue.  We will be deploying a new software update over the next couple days which will automatically download to your Arlo system, so no action is required on your end.

 Thank you for your patience and if you need further assistance, please reach out to us at 1-408-638-3750.

- Arlo Team

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Thank you JessicaP, You are the ONLY one to come in here and give us an update so I hope the issue will be fixed and I hope this will fix live video also.

On a side note maybe you need to take this thread to your boss and he or she can fire the team members that don't know what the hell there doing with updates because people like that will and have hurt the product. Do they even test the update before its released? Maybe you need to bring up the testing part to who ever is ahead of this team you might get a pay raise.

[jam436]

@silverado44
"On a side note maybe you need to take this thread to your boss and he or she can fire the team members that don't know what the hell there doing"

Oh, don't kid yourself, they knew EXACTLY what they were doing.

[ralfyguy1]

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@jam436 wrote:

@silverado44
"On a side note maybe you need to take this thread to your boss and he or she can fire the team members that don't know what the hell there doing"

Oh, don't kid yourself, they knew EXACTLY what they were doing.

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LOL, yes and they thought they'd get away with it too. But lets see what's gonna get screwed up in the update in a few days from now.

[silverado44]

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@jam436 wrote:

@silverado44
"On a side note maybe you need to take this thread to your boss and he or she can fire the team members that don't know what the hell there doing"

Oh, don't kid yourself, they knew EXACTLY what they were doing.

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I really don't think they do know what there doing as new app updates come out with bugs when they try to fix a bug in the app, software updates come out and they create another issue on the new update.

[Ozphoenix]

Thank you Jessica! Very much appreciated. Looking forward to the fix.

I've worked for the government in situations like this before, and been (or seen) directions with products or services where we knew the public was going to be screwed over and disadvantaged, but its what management wanted. Probably the worst thing was when we had to answer questions from the public where we knew what was happening was wrong but we absolutely could NOT reveal that. We were given phrases and false answers to tell people which were lies or skirted the truth, when all of us (the service officers) were angry and heartbroken ourselves at what was happening. I suspect something like this is what is happening here.

That the firmware update was going to wreck our cameras would have been known by the engineers and techs. I'm guessing they were told to do it anyway, but we can't really know.

[alchemist50]

Yes, Thank You very much Jessica!  You have always been very helpful, glad to see you were finally allowed to engage with us here.  As with others, looking forward to a fix.

And please emphasize with the programming team that the firmware needs to be thoroughly tested before pushing it out.  Even if we have to wait a bit longer.  I'm sure none of us want to be fighting a new, different bug.

Now, if Arlo's new business model would just include getting input from their customers before implementing changes...

[tibert]

@JessicaP 

Standard practice for software development is to publish what is being fixed in the upcoming release. It needs to be more than "we fixed some more stuff."  We hope that the release is more descriptive than the last one.

Example questions that need to be answered in these upcoming release notes:
- Will the fix not only undo the bug introduced that causes significant video corruption to our streams but also address the video quality setting we used to have? This broken quality setting is also a bug unless there is clear communication that this feature is being deprecated. There appears to be no difference in what we can measure in terms of bandwidth, file size, or quality of the files created based on this camera setting.
- Is the next update going to fix any other bugs? Which ones?
- Any new features like the ability for your deployment team to better manage partial deployments and rollbacks?  If not, can future features planned be publicized earlier than after we noticed our cameras have been updated?

[Retired_Member]

If they want our trust back after this point they need to unlock the ability to use local storage only and live view over lan, otherwise we wont know when they need to save bandwidth again. I dont want to have to worry if a forced update ruined my footage again. Honestly even when this is “fixed” i will still not like this platform anymore. Only reason im watching this is for friends and family i made get this setup, mine is sold. At a HUGE LOSS. But im enjoying my ezviz ezguards.

[CCNE37]

Jessica

Thank you again for the post and update. Please note that the (presumably) US support number you posted is pretty much useless to the customers who don't live there.

I would request that once Arlo has fixed this mess and given us back the genuine 1080P (as we paid good money for), that you add a setting into the interface allowing us to choose whether to download future updates. This is at least the second time in a year that Arlo has completely stuffed up their customer base's assets without permission (and taken a significant amount of time to "fix" it, and I would request that this stop - please give us the option to review the value of the update and choose whether or not to apply it.

As you can see from several posts (including mine), the data bitrate has reduced significantly over the last 15 months to the detriment of the video quality that we paid for. If I had wanted second rate video quality, almost non-existant support and ongoing issues with my cameras I would NOT have gone out and paid premium money for (at the time a Netgear supported) premium cameras - I would have gone to eBay and bought some 480P IP cameras for a few dollars etc. Right now those $40 480P no-name brand cameras are working better than my $900 Arlo kit.

Arlo needs to fix this once and for all and leave it fixed.

[Leeboy]

Forgot to mention , can’t even Make out a face from 15 feet away they are so pixelated 

[Retired_Member]

Just sold my last arlo setup. Lost lots of money disclosed why im selling. Lesson learned. Good luck to the ones that feel stuck. Over and out.

[liquidsteam]

About 30% of my recordings are pixelated and vertically stretched/striped. Completely useless. It is happening on all 4 of my cameras. 1 is even plugged in. All are set to best video. Any thoughts?

[silverado44]

Still waiting for the update.

[MJNL]

My video quality has gotten even worse over the past couple of days. It is not from a “congested WiFi channel” as Arlo suggested. We have no other problems with our WiFi. Please fix the problem on Arlo’s end as these cameras are essentially useless to us now.

[Retired_Member]

The money u can resell this junk for on kijiji right now is enough to buy brand new solutions from ezviz reolink or eufy. All have great quality.... do it sooner than later. Arlo is dead trust me

[Macarioc]

My video resolution has improved somewhat over the last day or so and is no longer showing horrendous pixilation from 3-8 seconds into the video.

Base Device Info: 1.16.1.3_3394_1a608c1

Camera Device Info:1.092.0.25_24_986

[shoustonnz]

Agreed. Mines better too.

[conma]

Not sure if this response just now on Arlo’s Facebook page means they’ve updated again or had previously and caused this problem. Which we already know screwed it up. So hoping for something to change for the better. I surely won’t hold my breath that’ll be HD as I paid for. 🙄

[silverado44]

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@Macarioc wrote:

My video resolution has improved somewhat over the last day or so and is no longer showing horrendous pixilation from 3-8 seconds into the video.

Base Device Info: 1.16.1.3_3394_1a608c1

Camera Device Info:1.092.0.25_24_986

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My base firmware is the same as yours but my camera firmware for pro2 is 1.125.14.0_34_1189 and its still crap. 

[TechJohn]

My Pro 2 cameras are also still horrendous, nothing has improved.

[CCNE37]

I have seen a small improvement due to the bitrate being increased a little.

Bitrates (from Arlo Pro 2);

March 2019 - 156kB/s = 1,247kbps

March 2020 - 130kB/s = 1040kbps

April 2020 (late) - 59kB/s = 474kbps (after firmware update)

25 May 2020 - 66kB/s = 528kbps (on one Pro 2 camera)

25 May 2020 - 84kB/s = 672kbps (on a different Pro 2 camera)

It is worth noting that in March 2016 I was getting 95kB/s = 760kbps from my original 720P Arlo cameras, which are less than half the pixel count of a 1080P Pro 2 - on this basis we should have bitrate of around 1,600-1,800kbps on a Pro 2, and instead we are getting around 500kbps.

I think Arlo is playing games right now.

Today's videos look reasonable (but not good) on a small screen (maybe even up to a tablet), but when I view them on a desktop screen they still look pretty bad. I would guess that they have reduced compression and increased the bitrate by 10-15% which makes it look somewhat "clean" (not badly pixelated) on a small screen so that those viewing on a phone think that they look better.

But even the best video I have seen today is still only half the bitrate I was getting in March 2019, so Arlo has a LONG way to go to get it back to what it was before. And bear in mind that what it was in March 2019 for full HD 1080P is still a country mile away from what a real full HD 1080P camera generates.

The best I have seen from a Arlo Pro 2 1080P = 156kB/s = 1,247kbps

A random video from my wife's little Canon G9X (1" sensor) 1080P = 2,950kB/s = 23,599kbps

So the Canon still produces 1080P video with a bitrate that is 19 times the best I have seen from a 1080P Arlo Pro 2 - and it shows because the Canon video is crystal clear on a 60" UHD TV, which is a lot more than I can say about an Arlo video.

Now some might say that a security camera is never going to match the quality of a proper photographic camera, and this is probably correct - up to a point. Bear in mind that the Canon G9X was around twice the price of an Arlo, but it has an photographic grade optical zoom lens, optical image stabilization, a 3" LCD screen, WiFi, bluetooth and a LOT more buttons, switches, dials and complexities as well as MUCH more functionality than an Arlo, so the additional cost is more than justified - BUT it also beats the pants off Arlo in the ONLY thing that Arlo does - capture video. And then Arlo set out to reduce the quality even further !

I am not saying that I want video with the Arlo Pro 2 video to match our Canon (although that would be nice) but hey, it could get an awful lot closer simply by increasing the bitrate back up to the 2000-3000kbps mark. Arlo have steadily eroded the video quality in small steps over time (largely without people noticing), until they have pushed it too far and there was an outcry last year, but they still didn't take it all the back to March 2019, just far enough to stop the complaints, and then they started eroding again.

[Quidge]

Still rubbish here. Can't believe they expect people to pay a subscription for this!

[silverado44]

Like I said on my above post my cameras still look like crap I don't think they did a thing to it and yes your right there playing games right now.

Its like buying a car, sticker says its got a V8 you get it home only to find out it has a 4 cylinder car company says sorry you have to live with it hahahaha that is what's happing to us.

[Retired_Member]

Even if they fixed it i wouldnt trust it. Broken over a month, a device intended for security. Once they fix their mistake nothing prevents a repeat. This is why i moved to a system that at least gives me piece of mind that i control the quality. Not endorsing anyone here your options are endless ppl. Sell this hot garbage while there are still ppl willing to over pay and get something you have control on. If you listen you will find you are happy you did.