AI Base Color NVR

Mar 11, 2022
11
1
Ottawa, ON, Canada
I have an AI Base Color NVR-3432-16P-AI 32 channels with 8 PoE cam outside and the rest IP in the form of Tapo C100. Everything was working fine but now I'm experiencing drops and reconnection in the cameras, drop connection on the vpn and buffering on laptop and computer therefore not getting the speed I was getting and paying for. The router is a 9 year old Linksys EA9500 and it's going in the garbage or could be use as a bridge but I don't know how to do that. I am getting an Asus RT-BE88U with ASUS ZenWiFi ET9 Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi 6E System and a NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet PoE+ Plus Switch because I've got lots of stuff connected on my router and I think the Linksys is at its life end and very tired.
My question: Which port should I use on the Asus router to connect my nvr to obtain smooth constant fast connection? I thought of the gaming port because it gives it priority. Your opinion on this thank,s and please don't start the jumental bs about what I bought ie you should have bought this or that instead of that, I did lots of reading and research on this and I'm not an expert but an every day learner.
 
The WiFi. cameras are likely the biggest problem. They take a tremendous amount of bandwidth to stream 24/7

I would recommend not connecting the NVR to the router. Connect router to a switch and the NVR to that same switch. The router isnt made for streaming all those cameras directly through it.
 
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The WiFi. cameras are likely the biggest problem. They take a tremendous amount of bandwidth to stream 24/7

I would recommend not connecting the NVR to the router. Connect router to a switch and the NVR to that same switch. The router isnt made for streaming all those cameras directly through it.
What if I connect some of the cameras downstairs and upstairs (Ok for the other one yes I do have lots of cam in the house because I have a cat with seizures) to a different SSID the 2.4Ghz one because actually they are suppose to go on a 2.4 not a 5 thus the fact that I bought the ZEN Wifi Mesh, one for upstairs that one will be connected directly to the router and one downstairs that one will be wireless?
Could you please elaborate on your response to connect the nvr to a switch? thanks
 
Switching channels on the router doesn’t change anything.
Cameras should not stream directly through the router. It’s not made for it. They don’t buffer like your tv.

Every single installation I’ve done take the router to a switch, and the NVR plugs into that switch. That way the cameras stream direct to the NVR and don’t go through the router until you look at a stream or playback on another device like your desktop/laptop/phone, Which you typically do one at a time.
 
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I’m not a network guru. If you need more depth than that there are folks here that understand this better than I and can and recite the technical reasons in their sleep. But they’ll agree with me
 
TonyR recommends this (which is the preferred way IF you want to do wifi)

The only way I'd have wireless cams is the way I have them now: a dedicated 802.11n, 2.4GHz Access Point for 3 cams, nothing else uses that AP. Its assigned channel is at the max separation from another 2.4GHz channel in the house. There is no other house near me for about 300 yards and we're separated by dense foliage and trees.

Those 3 cams are indoor, non-critical pet cams (Amcrest IP2M-841's) streaming to Blue Iris and are adequately reliable for their jobs. They take their turns losing signal/reconnecting usually about every 12 hours or so for about 20 seconds which I would not tolerate for an outdoor surveillance cam pointed at my house and/or property.

But for me, this works in my situation: dedicated AP, non-critical application and periodic, short-term video loss.... if any one of those 3 conditions can't be achieved or tolerated, then I also do not recommend using wireless cams. :cool:



Cameras connected to Wifi routers (whether wifi cams or hard-wired) are problematic for surveillance cameras because they are always streaming and passing data. And the data demands go up with motion and then you lose signal. A lost packet and it has to resend. It can bring the whole network down if trying to send cameras through a wifi router. At the very least it can slow down your entire system.

Unlike Netflix and other streaming services that buffer a movie, these cameras do not buffer up part of the video, so drop outs are frequent, especially once you start adding distance. You would be amazed how much streaming services buffer - don't believe me, start watching something and unplug your router and watch how much longer you can watch NetFlix before it freezes - mine goes 45 seconds. Now do the same with a camera connected to a router and it is fairly instantaneous (within the latency of the stream itself)...

Consumer grade wifi routers are not designed to pass the constant video stream data of cameras, and since they do not buffer, you get these issues. The consumer routers are just not designed for this kind of traffic, even a GB speed router.

So the more cameras you add, the bigger the potential for issues.

Many people unfortunately think wifi cameras are the answer and they are not. People will say what about Ring and Nest - well that is another whole host of issues that we will not discuss here LOL, but they are not streaming 24/7, only when you pull up the app. And then we see all the people come here after that system failed them because their wifi couldn't keep up when the perp came by. For streaming 24/7 to something like an NVR or Blue Iris, forget about it if you want reliability.


This was a great test that SouthernYankee tried and posted about it here:

I did a WIFI test a while back with multiple 2MP cameras each camera was set to VBR, 15 FPS, 15 Iframe, 3072kbs, h.264. Using a WIFI analyzer I selected the least busy channel (1,6,11) on the 2.4 GHZ band and set up a separate access point. With 3 cameras in direct line of sight of the AP about 25 feet away I was able to maintain a reasonable stable network with only intermittent signal drops from the cameras. Added a 4th camera and the network became totally unstable. Also add a lot of motion to the 3 cameras caused some more network instability. More data more instability.
The cameras are nearly continuously transmitting. So any lost packet causes a retry, which cause more traffic, which causes more lost packets.
WIFI does not have a flow control, or a token to transmit. So your devices transmit any time they want, more devices more collisions.
As a side note, it is very easy to jam a WIFI network. WIFI is fine for watching the bird feed but not for home surveillance and security.
The problem is like standing in a room, with multiple people talking to you at the same time about different subjects. You need to answer each person or they repeat the question.

Test do not guess.

For a 802.11G 2.4 GHZ WIFI network the Theoretical Speed is 54Mbps (6.7MBs) real word speed is nearer to 10-29Mbps (1.25-3.6 MBs) for a single channel
 
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Excellent explanation I like that you put your cameras on a dedicated access point, I understand the fact that cameras do take lot of bandwidth but I need my cams and installing them PoE is not an option as my house walls are
full of holes and I'm trying to hide the holes with the newly installed one. Could I use my old router and dedicate it just for the nvr if feasable? The first guy who answered suggested connecting the nvr to a switch and cams.
All the cams where discovered by the nvr that's why they are all part of the nvr but independantly connect to the router on the SSID 2.4. What could be my options here? and BTW that just started recently as we had a flickering
of the electricity of my damn piece of shit of electricity we have here. I do have a standby generator but if the lights flicker the gen doesn't kick in and it fucks up my stuff in the house, I'd rather have the power goes all together
and let the gen kick in instead of that flickering bullshit. I just don't understand connecting the nvr to a switch, what kind of switch or try to isolate it on a dedicated access point. Anyway I will give this a shot with everything
new and see how it goes
Thanks
 
Excellent explanation I like that you put your cameras on a dedicated access point, I understand the fact that cameras do take lot of bandwidth but I need my cams and installing them PoE is not an option as my house walls are
full of holes and I'm trying to hide the holes with the newly installed one. Could I use my old router and dedicate it just for the nvr if feasable? The first guy who answered suggested connecting the nvr to a switch and cams.
All the cams where discovered by the nvr that's why they are all part of the nvr but independantly connect to the router on the SSID 2.4. What could be my options here? and BTW that just started recently as we had a flickering
of the electricity of my damn piece of shit of electricity we have here. I do have a standby generator but if the lights flicker the gen doesn't kick in and it fucks up my stuff in the house, I'd rather have the power goes all together
and let the gen kick in instead of that flickering bullshit. I just don't understand connecting the nvr to a switch, what kind of switch or try to isolate it on a dedicated access point. Anyway I will give this a shot with everything
new and see how it goes
Thanks
All this equipment should be plugged into a good UPS, it will save you lots of grief.