Advantages of Port forwarding a NVR

EuroPassat

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Hello, I currently have a HIKVISION NVR, and it does load but sometimes slowly via cellphone.. no matter if im on a wifi network or 5G. My question is will setting up port forwarding improve how quickly the feed is pulled remotely to my phone or ivms-4200 from another location outside my home?

any advice is greatly appreciated, I do have QoS enabled on my netgear but do not see any improvement in this, sometimes i have to reload several times to get a feed.

thank you in advance.
 

EuroPassat

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You should not port forward for anything. It's a security risk
Setup a VPN on your router.
How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) | IP Cam Talk

VPN Primer for Noobs | IP Cam Talk

Even when im on my home network i have the issue of the camera loading, 3%, 10%,24%,45%,.74%,85% sometimes it will load or it says network unstable connecting.... and after 2/3 tires finally works. so VPN doesnt sound like the right solution.
but thank you for the reply. maybe its just HIKVISION and their shit new firmware
 

wittaj

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Port forwarding will make it slower once you hacked lol.

Sounds like you have stuff not optimally set as many people run Hikvision systems just fine and are responsive.

Are you running 30FPS?

Are your cameras all going to the NVR POE ports or are they connected to external switches?

If you disconnect the NVR from the internet does the speed improve? Perhaps with P2P you have been hacked and slowing down the system?

I have never found QoS to work as intended - every router I ever had it slowed down the entire network having it enabled.
 

EuroPassat

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i have decent internet, and yes i do stream at the highest quality level. cameras go directly into nvr poe ports. only running 2 cameras. i never view the cameras from the actualy nvr. its always with ivms or app on iphone. it seems v4.30 started this issue when i was on v3. something there was no issue but i was trying to finally get motion markers on my timeline in the app and upgraded, didnt get motion markers and now it works like doodoo...... hikvision isnt really a good company in my opinion. the fact that motion markers and 24/7 recording at the same time is so difficult to get is a joke, only way to view motion is to login directly to camera and view motion from microsd. THATS STUPID, SINCE ITS GOTTA BE DONE VIA WEB BROWSER.

QoS works perfectly for my work phone no issues, netgear sucks but that part of the router does seem to manage it correctly.
 

wittaj

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Your system so run what you want, but then don't be surprised at the problems.

Many run Hikvision with way more than 2 cameras and do not have these loading issues.

If you ran at 15FPS, which is more than enough because you are not making Hollywood movies, your system will get way more responsive...

Shutter speed is much more important than FPS.

You will find this to be the case with EVERY surveillance camera....so when you move on from Hikvision, you will experience the same thing....

Running a camera at every rated spec can cause other issues and impact image quality.

Keep in mind that these type of cameras, although are spec'd and capable of these various parameters, real world testing by many of us shows if you try to run these units at higher FPS and higher bitrates than needed that you will max out the CPU in the unit and then it bugs out just long enough that you miss something or video is choppy or pixelated or you get lost signals or a long time loading. My car is rated for 6,000RPM redline, but I am not gonna run it in 3rd gear on the highway at 6,000RPM...same with these types of units - gotta keep them under rated capacity. Some may do better than others, but trying to use the rated "spec" of an option available is usually not going to work well, either with a car or a camera or NVR.

Or growing up and my parents are driving on the highway up a steep grade, in the summer we would hit the turbo button (turn off the AC LOL) on our little 4 cylinder so that we could stay the speed limit going up the hill. Same thing running a camera at rated spec.

Look at all the threads where people came here with a jitter in the video or video dropping signal or IVS missing motion or the SD card doesn't overwrite or despite the proper shutter speed they can't get a good freeze frame picture and they were running 30FPS and when people tell them to drop the FPS and they dropped the FPS to 15FPS the camera became stable and they could actual freeze frame the image to get a clean capture. The goal of these cameras are to capture a perp, not capture smooth motion. When we see the news, are they showing the video or a freeze frame screen shot? Nobody cares if it isn't butter smooth...getting the features to make an ID is the important factor. As always, YMMV...

Further, these types of cameras are not GoPro or Hollywood type cameras that offer slow-mo capabilities and other features. They "offer" 30FPS and 60FPS to appease the general public that thinks that is what they need, but you will not find many of us here running more than 15 FPS; and movies are shot at 24 FPS, so anything above that is a waste of storage space for what these cameras are used for. If 24 FPS works for the big screen, I think 15 FPS is more than enough for phones and tablets and most monitors LOL. Many of my cameras are running at 12FPS.

In fact, many times if a CPU is maxing out, if it doesn't drop signal, then it will adhere to the FPS but then slow the shutter down to try to not max the CPU or cut bitrate or be slow to detect an object, etc, which then produces a smooth blurry image..that is the video my neighbor gets who insists on running 60FPS. He gets smooth walking people but you can't freeze frame it cause every frame is a blur, meanwhile my 12FPS gets the clean freeze frame. Shutter speed is more important the FPS. We both run the same shutter speed by the way, but his camera CPU is maxing out and something gotta give when you push it that hard.

Sure 30 or 60FPS can provide a smoother video but no police officer has said "wow that person really is running smooth". They want the ability to freeze frame and get a clean image. So be it if the video is a little choppy....and at 10-15FPS it won't be appreciable. My neighbor runs his at 60FPS, so the person or car goes by looking buttery smooth, but it is a blur when trying to freeze frame it because the camera can't keep up with his other settings.. Meanwhile my camera at 15FPS with the proper shutter speed gets the clean shots.


So a few of my cams have a system status screen, and they call it a CPU, so that is why I am calling it a CPU, but this shows this camera running at 8192 bitrate, H264, CBR, and 12 FPS is hitting the camera processor at 47% and jumps to 70% with motion. If I up the camera to 30 FPS, the usage is in the high 90% range, but then with motion, it maxes out and would get unstable. DO YOU THINK THIS IS A PROBLEM?

Or if I keep it at 12 FPS and use the camera motion detection, the CPU in the camera goes to 60% idle.

This would be nice if all cams had this so we could see how our settings impact the performance of the camera. I think running these cams close to capacity is probably harder to overcome than a computer spike at 100% CPU.

At the end of the day, if the consumer wants cameras that can do 30FPS, they will not look at any cameras that do not have that rated spec, so some companies will throw that in to appease the person looking for that. Unfortunately, that is marketing. It takes someone with experience in the industry to know for sure if it is really capable of what marketing says.

And in a few scenarios maybe you can squeak 30FPS out of these cameras - maybe without using IVS or motion detection and just watching a simple feed. But maybe when two users log in, it can't handle it for example. The more features you use, the less likely it will work as one expects.

And if the complaints get bad enough, we have seen firmware updates to popular models that do just that - cut FPS or some other feature...

1672342208081.png

We wouldn't take these cameras to an NBA game to broadcast, nor would we take the cameras they use at an NBA game to put on a house. Not all cameras are alike and the approach of "a camera is a camera" mentality will result in failure. Another example, I can watch an MLB game and they can slow it down to see the stitching on the baseball. Surveillance cams are not capable of that, so more FPS isn't needed and is simply a waste of storage space and potentially causing other issues because the CPU is maxing out.

Watch these, for most of us, it isn't annoying until below 10FPS, and certainly sufficient enough for anything these cameras are intended to capture...and certainly enough for what you want to capture.


 

wittaj

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A two camera system shouldn't be having that much trouble loading unless it is the way you configured it.

Which camera models and what NVR model do you have?

Not all NVRs are created the same and if you have a lite version, the bandwidth is limited.

Are you trying to stream mainstream or substream?
 

EuroPassat

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DS-7608NI-K2/8P Running V4.30.71 build 210517 Both cameras are original Hikvision 8MP cameras running at full frame which im guess is 4k at 20FPS.

Had the same exact setup in V3.something and didnt have these issues. But i have had problems with downgrading before and dont want to deal with it stopping working completely. i do appreciate your replies. but worked fine before newest firmware i guess i should of followed the rule if it aint broken dont fix it.
 

wittaj

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Yeah that is a budget NVR limited to 80Mbps, but one would think two cameras even maxed out would be under that.

Yeah, most of us have learned the hard way about upgrading. It is easy to be tempted that it will result in an improvement, but it rarely is. I have been there, done that. And even when I know better, I attempted it several weeks ago and was nothing but trouble.

Only other thing I can think of is to do 3 factory resets and then reflash the firmware.

Many of us have seen an update go sideways when trying to update without doing factory resets. So even though it looks like it is working, something is still wonky and the 3 factory resets get it going (unless of course it is a true issue with the firmware).
 

EuroPassat

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Yeah that is a budget NVR limited to 80Mbps, but one would think two cameras even maxed out would be under that.

Yeah, most of us have learned the hard way about upgrading. It is easy to be tempted that it will result in an improvement, but it rarely is. I have been there, done that. And even when I know better, I attempted it several weeks ago and was nothing but trouble.

Only other thing I can think of is to do 3 factory resets and then reflash the firmware.

Many of us have seen an update go sideways when trying to update without doing factory resets. So even though it looks like it is working, something is still wonky and the 3 factory resets get it going (unless of course it is a true issue with the firmware).

I miss v3 LOL, v.4 is trying to be something but its nothing everything is dumbed down and look like a real budget nvr. i think max i pull per stream is 3mbps since its doing 265+....... i have had to toss nvr before due to failed downgrades. so im not very tempted to do it..

what is the 3 factory resets? never heard of that before? also how do i find the firmware that will least likely F.U my nvr.As you can tell i got this of ebay CCRRG31397677WCVU

all your help is greatly appreciate it. just really want to go back to v3
 

wittaj

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@alastairstevenson is our Hikvision expert, so if anyone knows how to downgrade, it would be him.

See this video on how to factory reset the NVR. Repeat the procedure 3 times.

 

EuroPassat

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@alastairstevenson is our Hikvision expert, so if anyone knows how to downgrade, it would be him.

See this video on how to factory reset the NVR. Repeat the procedure 3 times.


thank you so much for all your help. what a great community. i reached out to him to see if he can help me find the most recent/stable v3 for my nvr.

are you using hikvision also? on your hik-connect app, do you have a nice blue line for playback and then motion markers? thats all i ever wanted and have yet to get it done. i need 24/7 recording with motion markers
 

wittaj

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Hopefully he can help you out.

I ran Hikvision once upon a time, but I moved on to Blue Iris after seeing how much more flexibility it has, along with being able to use other camera brands more easily.

I used the NVR to feed the cameras into BI and as a redundant storage option until it finally pooped out.
 

EuroPassat

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Hopefully he can help you out.

I ran Hikvision once upon a time, but I moved on to Blue Iris after seeing how much more flexibility it has, along with being able to use other camera brands more easily.

I used the NVR to feed the cameras into BI and as a redundant storage option until it finally pooped out.
Yeah i think if i ever leave my job and move I will move away from hikvsion. since right now. i have to manage around 15 dvr/nvr all hikvision and they all work and have no issues, but i never updated any until i did at home cause i was not getting the play back options with motion and i dont know why hikvision makes that so hard to do... all i want is to be able to scroll via iphone app to motion to review footage from the night before at my apt while im taking a crap.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HELP!!! IF THERES ANYTHING I CAN DO TO REPAY YOU PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
 
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