REOLINK Duo 3 PoE 16MP UHD Dual-Lens PoE causing strange delays

[jkaplan]

I have this terrific camera, that shows a 180 degree view of the street in front of my house by stitching together 2 x 8 MP camera images for a single 16MP image.

Blue Iris, however, seems to be having some sort of problem with the main stream. It intermittently freezes the image for 10-30 seconds, then jumps ahead to the current frame. The pattern is not regular, but it looks like it may be related to how much motion there is in the frame (not clear).

This is not a problem with the camera -- the native web interface does not show the delay when viewing the main stream.

It's not a problem with the network -- a second camera (not the same brand), pointed the other way, is also sharing the "wire" from my front gate, and it does not show any delays WHILE this is happening to the REOLINK camera. (Additional evidence is that the native web interface shows no delay.)

The problem does not occur when viewing the sub-stream, i.e. when multiple cameras are displayed on the screen. The sub stream for this camera seems to be operating in real time normally.

It's clearly not a CPU problem with my server - I've got 15 cameras running and it only shows about a 15% load. When I'm viewing the cameras "directly" on my server, this camera freezes (when viewing its main stream, i.e. viewing this camera solo), while simultaneously viewing this or other cameras remotely (through a web browser, or BI app on my phone) shows no delays on other cameras (or this one if viewing the sub stream).

In other words, BI is delivering the substream for this camera consistently, even while it's having problems with the main stream.

So clearly something to do with BI...

I'm mystified --- any ideas appreciated!

Thanks,

Jerry

PS - Some additional information:

I turned off motion detection, no change in behavior. I also turned off live overlay display, no change in behavior.

I discovered this: If I display locally on my server the main stream for this camera, while simultaneously displaying the main stream on a separate computer using the BI web interface, one of these images (for example the locally displayed one) can lock up for 10-30 seconds WHILE the other display continues to update the main stream normally with no delay.

Therefore, it's not something frozen internally in BI that affects every instance of the main stream, only one attempt to display the stream at a time.

Another detail: The audio is unaffected, it continues normally even though the visual image is frozen.

Very strange...

[PaulDaisy]

I have been running a dual stream Track mix for over a year now, and it has problems all the time. It lags, it freezes, then it catches up sometimes. In my experience Reolink cameras just don't talk well with BI. Either their encoder implementation is not standard, or the BI decoder is not standard, or they lack streaming bandwidth. You will find a huge thread on this forum with people discussing how to get Reolinks to work.

I still like the Track mix enough to keep it, but now and again I am frustrated with it to the point of thinking of replacing it with a Speeddome. Sadly those are 1080 only. But there are plenty of panoramic Panasonics out there, so if I ever want a 180 - 360 coverage, I will not buy a Reolink.

[Pogo]

How does it work in VLC?

[PaulDaisy]

Mine? It works much better in VLC than in BI.
Reolink sent me a "special" firmware to use with BI, which improved performance a lot, but it is still flaky. It means they know the cause of the issue and have tried to address it, but won't publicly explain it.

[Pogo]

That's how Reolink rolls.

It's also how the Blue Iris developer rolls. But good luck receiving any encouraging suggestions there, let alone a solution.

[PaulDaisy]

Totally agree. I experimented with Reolink simply because they were cheap, 4K and I didn't know any better. I have only two Reolinks left, I am replacing them one at a time with Advidia M-87-V and Bosch Flexidome 8000 series when I find them on eBay at a reasonable price. Those cost >$1k new, and the build quality shows in everything, from night time image quality, to streaming settings - everything.