Separate compression rates for livestream vs local storage

You need to actually vote by clicking the VOTE button at the top of this topic for it to count.

1 Like

This would be great - especially when RTSP becomes available. I totally understand the need to keep files small for cloud storage, but if we’re storing clips in-house, the ability to increase bitrate would be wonderful.

1 Like

I would find this to be a very helpful option!!!

Upvoted. I’d like to see what kind of quality the sensor is actually capable of without compression.

1 Like

My brother, a smart guy in a lot of ways, is just not computer literate. In order to copy files like worksheets, word docs, etc., he will load the app and then Save As to a different location. While many of us might chuckle at this, it is exactly what we are trying to do so we don’t have to sneaker-net our files off a wifi enabled device. Can’t we just get a copy files function?

1 Like

I think this might be what you’re asking for:

2 Likes

You are correct and I’ve already voted! Would that not also solve your issue?

No, it wouldn’t. That’s because the video stored on the card is currently compressed at the same rate as the live stream. So even if you can download from the card, it would still be compressed video. This topic is asking for the ability to store SD card video at zero compression (higher quality) while still compressing the live stream to control the data rate.

6 Likes

Ah, got it. I’ve yet to actually pull the microSD and look at the files or format.

See my post on bitrate. Your request for uncompressed is really for a higher bitrate (higher quality). For 24/7 recording the maximum recorded history would half each time the bitrate is doubled. E.g. 6Mbps would likely provide 12 hours on a 32GB card. A Blu-ray which also uses h.264 runs as high as 30-50 Mbps for video encoding (compression). So the notion of uncompressed is called RAW and you don’t want those terabytes.

I agree that bitrate for continuous recording vs live should be separate settings. However, my guess is that this uses a real-time, hardware based encoder and supports single stream. Therefore the live view and continuous recording engines hook into this and have to be the same. Even if this is software based encoding, it would double the CPU utilization and possibly be beyond the MHz capacity of the CPU. If this is indeed a hardware limitation the only way to implement this feature would be on a camera which would support two realtime encoded streams at different resolutions. This horrible audio may even be a limitation of a hardware based encoder with 8 kHz sampling, compressed audio codec. E.g. g.729a.

2 Likes

Yeah, I’ve had some terrible experiences with my cams. Too many compression artifacts and the framrate is way too low, even during the day (somewhat cloudy). Really wish we had the option to increase the bit rate and reduce compression, if only for video saved on the SD card. Please please please consider this.

1 Like

Agreed. Just bought my first Wyzecam and am incredibly disappointed in the video quality. I’m actually embarrassed on Wyze’s behalf on this one – how did this get past QA? Absolute amateur hour. If I have an SD card popped in on continuous record, why is it still hampered by the same bitrate as the footage going to Wyze’s lazy cheap-out cloud solution?

1 Like

While we’re at it, Wyze should also save a higher quality sound file to the SD card. I’m an apartment manager, and the few times I’ve needed Wyze to identify people who have attempted to enter our building, the video and sound quality has been so bad that it’s useless.

1 Like

I’m really finding it hard to identify perpetrators of theft. Please put this higher in the priority of things. Let the user at least double or triple the bit rate for locally recorded video. I bought this to catch who is stealing from my garden. The thief came and was in a whole third of the frame but is just too blocky, low contrast, background bleeding into the face by half! It’s really really bad. Please help.

2 Likes

I’ve voted for this because if you live view or playback while you’re on mobile data or poor WiFi connection, most of the time you set the resolution to SD just to conserve data or compensate for the poor connection, but you still want the actual recording on the micro-SD to be HD.

I agree that it would be great to have better quality video, even if it’s only what’s saved to the SD card.

Yes that would be nice is Wyze could do this!!

Not any mention of Frame Rates here. They can have an even greater impact on bitrates than macroblock size. For example, reducing the frame rate can allow much sharper images at comparable bitrates. Why not have a user setting for a few different slower frame rates, with less macroblocking? Trade-off details for smooth motion?

This is a great idea and it could prove to be more useful than the timelapse feature. The images are often very blurred, especially in low light.

If any of you have done the webcam software mod Wyze released, you can see a big difference in video quality. Hopefully Wyze enables this video quality for the normal firmware because the webcam one doesn’t work with the app

1 Like