Terrible Video Quality

[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?

[Manolo86]

I'm not sure it's just the Pro2 cameras. My Pro2 cameras look better than my video doorbell that is closer to the hub. Also, how come the video that steamed from the "Dragon" capsule in space looks better than my Arlo cameras?

[Bborzin]

Hi,

I’m having the same issue with my new, arlo 2 cameras. Did you ever figure out how to fix the poor quality image? I’m debating about returning them if the issue cannot be fixed.

[stejames2000]

I was told that that’s the quality and I won’t get any better from the Arlo2.

If I was you I would return them if you still can

[Dadd1o]

If it is fixed why the pixelation. Not fixed on my end.

[JacekN]

This system is not even close to 1080p resolution. This is false advertisement! The resolution is somewhat close do old DVD resolution. Pixelation all over the picture and don't even think about zooming. When zoomed in, faces are nothing but pixels and there is no way can be recognized. Expensive "security system" that the face of the intruded can not be recognized from distance of 5 feet???. Nothing but expensive garbage toy. Am I missing something? Anybody from Arlo care to explain? 

[silverado44]

---

@JacekN wrote:

This system is not even close to 1080p resolution. This is false advertisement! The resolution is somewhat close do old DVD resolution. Pixelation all over the picture and don't even think about zooming. When zoomed in, faces are nothing but pixels and there is no way can be recognized. Expensive "security system" that the face of the intruded can not be recognized from distance of 5 feet???. Nothing but expensive garbage toy. Am I missing something? Anybody from Arlo care to explain? 

---

No Arlo does not care about the Arlo and Arlo Pro2 video quality and its not even close to 720 and is flat out false advertising it will take legal action which they will draw it out in court and cost more money for us to fight it and they know it. We all got screwed by Arlo and they are laughing about it.

The grass that shows up on my cameras was that I could see the detail and now its a green blur like carpet and faces are blurry at 10 feet away. 

Only 1 employee came in and that was JessciaP and gave us roughly no info but she did come in the others like Shanye JamesC will not come in and give us info because they don't want to face it. I so pissed off right now as I have almost 2 grand in my system and they dropped us like a pile of crap.

I dont see this company being around too much longer as they are having issues with there Ultra and Pro3 ( payed subscription)  and all the attention is going to them. The new CEO Matt McRae really trashed this product and doesn't give a crap about his product.

I was in BestBuy over the weekend and walked by the camera section and a guy was looking at the pro2 I started talking to him, long story short I showed him my camera video quality on my pro2s and he laughed then put them down and thanked me for saving him money. True story. 

[Mike1357]

So just wanted to check back in with an update. It seems like the video quality has been improved since my initial post about it. Both recordings and live views have improved. I can once again see the logo on the front of the wives car when she pulls out of the carport. Also the gravel driveway doesn’t seem to be moving and having the artifacts blinking nearly every second. I’m not sure what happened or changed recently but I can live with the way it is now. I know nothing changed with my network setup. I really hope Arlo wasn’t just trying things to see what they can get by with (How low quality can get before people complain). I would be happy right now with the way the system is running, but only because I didn’t have any events where I needed camera footage while the quality was horrible. It stayed like that consistently for a while. I know I didn’t run a hard wired, top of the line system but for a month or so this system was nowhere close as advertised. Especially frustrating when you know it can do better.
Cracked me up when I saw a comment about how feed from the Dragon space capsule and international space station has less delay and better quality than these cameras
Edit: my original post was #221

[TerryHoss]

Well my system got an update overnight dated 05/31/2020, it does look like an improvement was made as at least at this first look the video looks much better right now. It is still a much more compressed file size then what I have recorded in the past and saved in archived storage. I still think the audio isn’t as good as it was before and the still image resolution is also smaller.

[Scott27]

Hi TerryHoss
What firmware version do you have for the base and cameras?
Scott

[TerryHoss]

Here’s what I’m showing today, yesterday it was dated 5/05/2020. I’ve been live recording several times this morning and it does look better than what I’ve been seeing the past month.

About

Version

2.17.0_4

Released

5/31/2020

Firmware 1.16.1.3_3394_1a608c1 on the Base

Firmware 1.092.0.25_24_986  on the Camera’s

[alchemist50]

I would say that my video images are only marginally improved.  The lawn grass still is mostly just a sea of green with very little detail, even on the Pro 2 cameras.  The images still "wave" slightly, and are just blurrier than they used to be.  File sizes are smaller with bitrates still in the 500-650 range.  It used to be much better.

I notice there are some minor changes to the web portal this morning.

Again, if Arlo would offer a guaranteed SUBSTANTIALLY improved image for the Pro and Pro 2 cameras with a paid subscription plan, I would strongly consider it.

[LP79]

My videos are also looking a little better, but I am still not satisfied. It's Just proof of what I put in an earlier post that this is arlo compressing our video down to crap on the cloud side. What is streaming to Arlo from your camera is good quality, but then they destroy it and keep a garbage copy. They are using like 20:1 compression and a garbage algorithm. The only thing 720 or 1080 or 4k about the videos they send back to us is the file encoding header.

Now I also have another problem though. One of my cameras keeps recording everything in basically black and white (tiny flecks of color no contrast) never had a problem before. Then I realized that changing the brightness setting affects the preview, but not what the camera records. Just like the quality setting. Seems that all the settings in the app now are fake and arlo just sends us whatever the hek they want back from our camera feeds which is just a bunch of super compressed trash.

[LP79]

Forgot to mention, the first maybe half a second and the video preview in library looks fine, but then there is a bright over exposure flash and then black and white. This is during daytime.

[conma]

I do not see any improvements. Not able to see a squirrel walking directly past the cam. The grass is like airbrushed waves of uselessness. Pixelating constantly and there’s no use trying to zoom.

[simpsonhomer]

I'm also disturbed by the number of customers who say they're willing to pay for the subscription if it would give them back the quality that they already pre-paid for when they bought their cameras. Basically, folks are accepting the fact that it's okay for a company to charge them a flat fee and then tack on a monthly subscription just for the privilege of keeping what they originally paid for.

If that was the case then surely Arlo will degrade that video quality, too. And then they'll charge even more money. Ask yourself if you'd continue getting dragged along with higher payments for zero improvement—on a system where you already paid for a lifetime subscription.

People need to stop being suckers for corporations. Bullies only get worse when they get what they want.

[Scott27]

Mine are no better even with the update.  I too cant see any details in either of my cameras.  

I signed up for the paid subscription just to test the video quality and it made no difference so i cancelled.  I think they must want everyone to upgrade to the pro3 or ultras  which i will not be doing.

Time to change to Eufy i think

[CCNE37]

Terry

Is your stated firmware for the Arlo Pro 2 cameras ?

My firmware (Pro 2) is still the same (1.125.14.0_34_1189) as it was after Arlo stuffed it in April 2020.

I went to record videos manually (using my desktop which is connected directly to the same router as my Pro 2 base station via ethernet cables) from each of my 5 cameras (3x Pro 2 & 2x original Arlo) this morning and had the following observations;

• It took 10-15 seconds to connect to each camera when I pressed the Live play button. This seems a lot longer than usual.
• The "buttons" at the bottom of the Live screen for play/pause, record, zoom etc are not displayed. The "outline" of the rectangular box that contains the buttons along the bottom of the screen is there, but the buttons don't show, so I had to guess where to click to start a recording etc.
• And most interestingly, I recorded exactly 22 seconds from each camera and the two largest files came from the two 720P original Arlo cameras. The Pro 2 files varied between 574kbps and 697kbps, and the two original Arlos (which should be less than half the size given the megapixels of the cameras) were 721kbps and 750kbps.

Reviewing the videos, the amount of pixelation on the Pro 2 videos is probably slightly less than before (although my firmware version hasn't changed), but the quality is still awful - lacks any detail at all.

I would suggest that the detail in my original Arlo 720P videos is slightly better than the Pro 2 1080P videos. If I showed someone the videos they would definitely not pick a 1080P video from them - they would both be pretty average 720P videos (at best).

I found the bitrate interesting though - that the 720P original Arlos (and both have at least as complex a scene as any of the Pro 2 cameras) have a higher bitrate than any of the Pro 2 cameras is certainly proof to me that Arlo has dramatically reduced the bitrate of the 1080P cameras to a point where they are worse than the originals - based on pixels the 1080P cameras should have files that are slightly more than double the size of the 720P cameras, but they are actually smaller.

As I said in an earlier post, Arlo needs to jack up the bitrate of the 1080P Pro 2 cameras to at least 2,000kbps to get back to something that even resembles proper HD (1080P) video.

[Dadd1o]

Are you listening to what needs to be done ARLO!

[LP79]

"They would both be pretty average 720P videos (at best)."

I would challenge you to go watch a random 720p video on youtube on a large monitor. Just change the quality (gear) to 720p and view full screen. Then, download a video from your camera on the same large monitor and view. Youtube already compresses videos when they are uploaded. None of the arlo videos are anywhere near 720p. Maybe they look okay on a tiny phone screen, but honestly even when the camera system was new ( my oldest USB backups), the down-sampled quality was never anywhere near 720p. There is no detail, they are grainy and terrible. I didn't realize this until the quality began to degrade so much that even on my 6" phone screen they are unacceptable. Arlo is sending us badly encoded 320X240 at best. I can tell because it looks almost identical to some webcam videos I have stored away from circa 2005. That webcam had a max resolution of 320X240.

[LP79]

Check this link:

https://help.encoding.com/knowledge-base/article/understanding-bitrates-in-video-files/

[LP79]

Here is the mediainfo for the video I put on you tube in an earlier post. The video was downloaded directly from the arlo site and no phone used:

334kbps mpeg4. Where does that fall in this scale?

LD 240p 3G Mobile @ H.264 baseline profile 350 kbps (3 MB/minute)
LD 360p 4G Mobile @ H.264 main profile 700 kbps (6 MB/minute)
SD 480p WiFi @ H.264 main profile 1200 kbps (10 MB/minute)
HD 720p @ H.264 high profile 2500 kbps (20 MB/minute)
HD 1080p @ H.264 high profile 5000 kbps (35 MB/minute)

Also, 15fps (frames per second) I thought these were 30 fps? If they are supposed to be 15fps, you can double that bitrate for 30 fps (668kbps) and it still falls into 360p territory.

[simpsonhomer]

If you're mad about how Arlo massively degraded your pre-paid (not "free"!) plan and then marked the forum "resolved" without actually resolving the issue—then make your voice heard!

Below are email addresses, web submission forms, etc. for some of the major tech sites. Many of these sites have given Arlo systems top ratings without knowing what they did to their customers after publication. Make sure they know the issue is not actually "resolved" as Arlo has marked the forum.

Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/news-tips/#email
Engadget: https://www.engadget.com/about/tips/
Gizmodo: https://specialprojectsdesk.com/secure-drop
Lifehacker: tips@lifehacker.com
Mashable: https://mashable.com/submit/
TechCrunch: tips@techcrunch.com
TechRadar: news@techradar.com
The Verge: tips@theverge.com
Wired: https://www.wired.com/2009/08/submit-a-tip/
ZDNet: https://www.zdnet.com/tip-us-off/

[LP79]

"Arlo massively degraded your pre-paid (not "free"!) "

Please do not forget this part. The cost of the cameras includes a cloud service. There is no such thing as a free Arlo plan.

Would you have paid $400-500 for a 2 camera system that did not include the cloud services and app? Unlikely.

[TerryHoss]

CCNE37 my cameras are all 720p Pro.

I'm seeing a small improvement but the video quality is still much lower that what I have previously recorded and have in archived storage. But I want to make it clear I'm still not happy with the video quality as it is not near a good as I had when I bought the system. A 2 minute video used to be a 22mb size video file; in May 2019 the same length video was only 12mb. Now a 2 minute video is about 8mb. Still images were taken at a resolution of 1980 x 1080 in early 2019 and before, now they are taken at 1280 x 720 with my Arlo Pro cameras

[farmstead17]

This have been an issue for some time now, but the live view of each of my cameras is literally useless at this point. The cameras used to be crystal clear as well as the sound. Currently, I can barely make out what’s on the screen it’s so pixelated, it lags and glitches and the sound, I hear 1 word then it cuts out for several seconds, then 1 word again, couldn’t even tell you the topic of a conversation happening because I miss the entire thing while it cuts in and out repeatedly.

I’ve read through multiple threads and haven’t found a fix for the issue. I’ve tried adjusting the video setting to best battery life, nada.

Is there a fix or do I need to go and invest another 1k on a totally different brand/unit?
We only purchased the pro2 last year as an upgrade from the original base and cameras we had. Wish we hadn’t bothered.