Hi,
I am hoping someone can give me some pointers with this. We have a FreePBX system installed, fully patched running 2.11.0.11 and asterisk 11.5.1. The server is connected to a dedicated Fibre broadband connection running at 40Mb down and 8 Mb up. SIP Nat is all setup with a static IP address and we have firewall rules for both SIP and RTP routing to the server on an internal IP address. Video is enabled with H264 being the only codec enabled.
We have 2 PC’s with 4 Gb RAM & i3 CPU’s running the latest version of BRIA. One on the same internal network as the server, the other in a remote office. The remote system has a dedicated ADSL broadband connection with 9Mb down and 1.4 Mb up and connects / authenticates fine with the server via the external IP address. Calls can be made internally and externally and the video connects to the other PC. Bria is also configured to only use codec H264.
The problem we have is the video is very poor. When people are sat still it is very clear and sound is fine. As soon as someone moves the video goes all blocky and you can not make anything out, the sound continues to be perfect.
Is there anything we can do to improve the video quality?
What cameras are you using? Check their specifications for the frame rate at the video size you are using. Other than that, I could suggest making sure your FreePBX system 'Advanced SIP settings -> Max Bit Rate (under the video settings section) is set high enough.
Hi, The Camera’s are Creative USB HD webcams’s using generic windows 7 drivers as Creative do not seem to have anything for them. I have changed the SIP settings to allow 512k Max bit rate. I was thinking up upping this to around 1Mb as the slowest upload link is around 1.2Mb. Any thoughts.
I would check the supported resolutions of the camera first and set them both to the lowest possible. Once at the lowest supported resolution, it should give you a baseline as to whether you can get decent video streaming over the links at all. If they are HD cameras and for whatever reason won’t go below 720p you can up the max-bit-rate. You could also check to be sure they are in a proper USB port, i.e. if they are USB 3 cameras in USB 2 ports. Try http://www.stardot.com/bandwidth-and-storage-calculator (ignore the storage component) for a bandwidth calculator to compare your resolution and bandwidth.
I’ve struggled with video quality issues with all asterisk based system’s I’ve used, regardless of tweaks used. I’ve disconnected two video endpoints and connected them to a test system running 3CX and the quality was 10 times better with less starting and stopping (no other changes made but the system they register to). From what I found, asterisk supported H264 but not H264 High Profile, probably due to licensing and free systems not wanting to pay royalties (my assumption anyway). Looking forward to broader support for AV1.