Version 5 and H.265
Because I can't help but upgrade when given the chance, I've already upgraded my home system using Axis m2026 mark II cameras. They do have H.265 video compression. But when I set them as such in SecuritySpy, I get some gnarly video artifacts (blinking grey/snow video) that makes it impossible to view the cameras. Anyone having similar issues or happen to have these particular cameras?
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However the Amcrest H.265 problem is a known issue whereby the camera seems to be producing data that cannot be decoded on macOS. At this point it looks like an Apple bug, and we have submitted a bug report to Apple - hopefully we'll hear back soon. For now you'll have to switch the camera to H.264 mode.
I factory reset the Axis cameras and installed the latest firmware, configured them back from scratch, then I removed the SecuritySpy preference files and connected both cameras back from scratch. Same thing, 20 FPS and 27 FPS. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to get it back to 30 FPS (I know it's not necessary, but I have lots of storage available and I prefer 30 FPS).
Hope its the same bug as with Amcrest.
@startak11 - at this point it looks like either an Apple or a Dahua bug. As it's not something that can be fixed in SecuritySpy, this won't appear in SecuritySpy's release notes when it has been resolved by either Apple or Dahua. But when there is any news on this issue I will post back to this thread.
@paulgrimsley - according to Intel's datasheets, it's their 6th generation "Core" CPUs and later that can decode multiple H.265 streams in hardware. This includes most Macs from Late 2015 and later, with the exception of Mac Pros, which use Xeon CPUs. Xeon processors don't have the special "Quick Sync Video" module that does hardware-accelerated H.264/H.265 video encode/decode.
In Settings / General / Device, if Format is set to RTSP H.264 (video and audio) I will get 30 fps. If Format is set to H.265 (video and audio) it drops to 20 or 27, depending on how the Axis capture mode is setup (in short, it drops to 20 FPS if Axis is set to 16:9 max resolution, or 2688x1520, and 27 if set to 4:3 max resolution, or 2016x1512).
To summarize, H.264 is 30 FPS, and H.265 is 20 FPS on this camera.
Certainly, if your Mac is not overloaded (check the "Idle" CPU value in Activity Monitor), SecuritySpy will be able to cope with incoming 30fps H.265 streams, and it won't be SecuritySpy that is limiting the frame rate.
H.264 Baseline
CPU usage: 19%
Data rate: 670 KB/s
H.264 Main
CPU usage: 25%
Data rate: 650 KB/s
H.264 High
CPU usage: 25%
Data rate: 630 KB/s
H.265
CPU usage: 16%
Data rate: 350 KB/s
So, surprisingly, the H.265 stream uses the least CPU resources to decode. I'm not sure if this is representative of other cameras' streams as this is just one datapoint, but it is interesting and counterintuitive.
As expected, the data rate for the H.265 stream is much lower - almost half that of the H.264 baseline stream.
The other thing to note is that the H.264 Baseline stream takes less CPU to decode compared to the other H.264 profiles, for not much penalty in terms of data rate. The takeaway from this is that the Baseline profile is probably the best one to use in most cases.
What Dahua camera did you test with?
Did you need to change anything in the camera settings to get it to work?
I have attempted to get H.265 to work with Dahua a few different models from 2MP to 6MP. They all show the same grey screen for ¾'s of the picture. Tried from 1 fps up to 20 fps.
Any insight is greatly appreciate
Hope they update soon