StarLight Sensor

Cameras
125

On a second thought and correct me if I’m wrong. IMO, viewing the content on SD card through the Web shouldn’t matter. The video is being downloaded to the Album on my device. Network speed should not affect quality, only download speed to my device. Therefore, whatever I am seeing on my device (previously attached clips) is a true representation of what is being recorded on the SD card.

Here is someone else having the same issue as me, scroll down to the bottom of the post and watch the video. I have a feeling that Wyze cams have a really poor compression algorithms when there is constant movement as trees moving in the wind and shadows constantly changing.

126

I can’t really say if downloading to an album works that way or not. You would hope it would buffer and download full quality,…but it may simply send a request to the camera and record what comes back real-time, similar to the way an SD card playback request works. I would venture inserting the SD card into your computer will give you the ultimate answer.

128

Try cleaning the lens?

129

Yeah, I’ll try that next week when I get there, but I doubt the lens are dirty. These a brand new cameras, Installed them three weeks ago.

Thanks,

130

I switched the cams to HD one at a time and downloaded 10 second clips from both. Barely any artifacts and quality is nice and crisp. So the verdict is that the SD compression sucks and makes recording in SD pointless.

Here are the HD clips.

2 Likes
131

That is why I said I don’t use SD on my V3 cams, SD works good on the WCO cams though. :grin:

132

@habib, Thank you for testing that and posting the difference.

I have all my V3 in SD only to save space on the card. I have been waiting for the FW to support 256GB cards before upgrading. Since that has been solved and will be out in the next PR, your post is the confirmation I needed to order my cards and go full HD!

133

Same here, except the three cams at the cottage. Those at the cottage are on SD as I have a slow internet and three cams on HD is almost impossible to have a smooth live streaming. However SD streams fine minus the compression.

134

WCOs have their set of issues :wink: and since my cottage is 600 Km away, it would be hard to replace batteries when they die without investing in solar panels and stuff.
Wyze sold me on the Starlight sensor in v3s, which turns out it doesn’t work anymore as it used to :frowning:

1 Like
135

Okay, I pulled the SD cards out and viewed the footage on the computer. They all have the same artifacts as the ones viewed remotely over WiFi. HD recordings are fine, so the verdict is that the SD has a terrible compression algorithms. I’ve noticed that both HD and SD resolution is 1920 x 1080 and the difference is the amount and type of compression applied. Better solution would be if the SD is 1280 x 720 or even 640 x 480. The quality will be a bit softer looking. but no artifacts as in HD.
Just my 2 cents.

3 Likes
136

I think Desmond’s explanation of the differences between HD and SD quality reveals that it is the throttled bitrate that is the culprit.

137

I know, but I still think that changing the resolution of SD stream to 1250 x 720 will improve that. Just my opinion from a graphic designer point of view dealing with digital images all my career.

1 Like
138

You are probably correct. There are several things they can do to improve the image quality. But there are probably tradeoffs there as well. Video quality vs Bandwith vs Storage File Size vs Transmit Time…

Lots of variables.

I would like to see a better SD quality, but I also don’t have to deal with remote access on a slow ISP, so that barrier is moot for me. You, however, have to deal with that.

BTW, all my 256GB cards arrive today so I will be full HD soon.

139

There are always tradeoffs. At least with lower resolution you avoid artifacts. Also low res helps with bandwidth, the quality will look a bit soft not as sharp as HD, but that IMO is better than artifacts and chopiness. At the cottage unfortunately I can’t go HD as the bandwidth won’t stream live even one camera. In SD all three cameras stream fine. As for uSD capacity I am not to concerned as I don’t record at night. Nobody can get there unless they’ve been at least few times during the day. That how remote the location is. At home I have both cameras on HD except when I’m not there for more than three consecutive days, then I drop to SD in case I have to go back and view something that events have missed.

1 Like
140

Thanks for compiling all the posts but it doesn’t appear Wyze has fixed the problem, am I correct?

141

Yes you are correct and I have a feeling that they’ll never do.

142

720 is HD. SD would be 480.

143

I’m aware of that as I’ve stated on a previous post, but even 720 p would improve quality as it won’t need as much compression as 1080 p.

144

There hasn’t been a V3 Firmware update, so there is no way to tell yet. There is a FW RC in final testing right now, but I have not used it.

It was not picked up in this months Fix it Friday for action, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t addressed by the Dev team.

I am going to upgrade all my cams to full HD and monitor the video quality to compare w\ the new PR FW when it is released.

145

This is the explanation (several posts above, so don’t assume). Both resolutions are 1080, with different compression. There is no changing to 720p. There is no fixing the problem, unless Wyze relents on the above. Forget HD/SD standards, this is how Wyze does it.

Most people never see this, because they are the highest res all the time. To think all current programming needs to change for one is perhaps a lot ATM.