5.2.4b7 shows SW decode
I ran into issues with 5.2.3 and not recording anything despite being armed and not overridden (previous version was fine) so I updated to 5.2.4b7 and am hoping that fixes the issue, but I noticed something interesting. The 6 low-res streams that I'm using for motion detection show "SW" for decoding.
I'm running OSX 10.13.3 with an nVidia GeForce GT 730 with the default (OSX-provided) drivers. Is this expected, or did I do something dumb to kill HW decode support? All the cameras spit out h.264 on two streams, a 1920x1080 stream and a lower quality 352x288 stream.
I'm running OSX 10.13.3 with an nVidia GeForce GT 730 with the default (OSX-provided) drivers. Is this expected, or did I do something dumb to kill HW decode support? All the cameras spit out h.264 on two streams, a 1920x1080 stream and a lower quality 352x288 stream.
Comments
Each Mac will have a limit to the number of streams it can decode in hardware - perhaps you are simply exceeding this limit.
The other possibility is the video codec - enable the "Format of Incoming Video" column in the Camera Info window, and verify that the format is indeed H.264 (if, for example, the format is JPEG, then this can't be decoded in hardware).
The other possibility is the video resolution. When decoding a video stream, SecuritySpy always requests hardware decode (unless the user has disabled this using the new options), and it's up to macOS to decide whether to actually do the decode in hardware or software, depending on some opaque criteria. It's possible that either this video size can't be decoded in hardware for some reason, or the system decides that it's not worth using the hardware for such a light task.
In terms of recording, this does sound like a settings issue (there is no known bug in v5.2.3 in this regard), so if you are still seeing this problem, please email us and include screenshots of your recording settings, and the Camera Info window, so that we can check everything over.
I'm using the reduced-resolution streams because continuously decoding 6 1920x1080 h.264 streams maxes out one of the cores on the i7; my CPU load went from 114%-ish to under 10% with the reduced resolution streams.
I see that the "HW" is only enabled when "Enable video motion detection" - Triggers, is selected. This puts resources on the CPU. If that option is not enabled, the CPU sits at 0%, with a description of " ... "
What does " ... " describe?
All streams are H.264
Thanks as always for the great work with the software!
Chris
I am taking it that " ... " is just in a direct stream state.
When I open SS on iOS the description immediately switches to "HW".
Nice to know this 2012 quad i7 mini is still a beast!
In the new Video Decode Status column, the indicator "..." means that decoding is not happening (yet) for that camera. This could be because the camera is in the process of connecting, or it could be because you have enabled the "Decompress incoming video frames only when required" option in the General Preferences, and no decoded video frames are required at this particular moment in time. We thought of using "N/A" here instead, but that's kinda ugly. Let me know your thoughts.
Yes, the 2012 quad-core Mac minis are still fantastic machines!
I like the current feedback of " ... " opposed to N/A also.