Amcrest ASH43 configuration issues, substream, etc..

Michael James

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Would love someone to send me a link to something they recommend. $400-500 price range is fine.
 

jack7

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How do you change the iFrame on the Amcrest ASH43? It doesnt have a web interface
Try using Amcrest Surveillance Pro(ASP) to change iFrame. I've used it to change to H.265 on an ASH21 not connected to BI.

Go to Device Cfg on ASP home page.
Then to Camera>Encode>Video.
Go to Device Cfg on ASP home page.
Then to Camera>Encode>Video.

I suppose you are using mainstream to record and substream for BI motion. If so, I think you actually have eight wifi cameras or streams.
If BI supports H.265, it might be good to use it for the eight streams. It could significantly reduce the wifi bandwidth and possibly help your wifi camera problem. Reducing fps as much as possible may also help.

If you have AC receptacles somewhere near the ASH43 cams, you could try Power Line adapters to use ethernet instead of wifi.

Edit: Above URL changed to the correct link.
 
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Michael James

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Try using Amcrest Surveillance Pro(ASP) to change iFrame. I've used it to change to H.265 on an ASH21 not connected to BI.

Go to Device Cfg on ASP home page.
Then to Camera>Encode>Video.
Go to Device Cfg on ASP home page.
Then to Camera>Encode>Video.

I suppose you are using mainstream to record and substream for BI motion. If so, I think you actually have eight wifi cameras or streams.
If BI supports H.265, it might be good to use it for the eight streams. It could significantly reduce the wifi bandwidth and possibly help your wifi camera problem. Reducing fps as much as possible may also help.

If you have AC receptacles somewhere near the ASH43 cams, you could try Power Line adapters to use ethernet instead of wifi.

Edit: Above URL changed to the correct link.
That worked to change iFrame (called I-Interval in ASP)!

For General Stream type (which I assume is the Main Stream), it offers H.264 or H.265 for the main stream and H.264 or H264B for sub. Which are best to use with BI?

Here is another issue: If you look the 2 screenshots I am attaching, both are for the ASH43. Look at the selection options for the main stream and substream. Why are they offering different versions of options for the same model camera?

What are the correct options I should be using for main and sub streams?
 

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sebastiantombs

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BI seems to work best with H264. Other H264 encodings are usually proprietary and create problems. H265, IMHO, doesn't offer enough gain when the losses are considered. H265 uses large blocks to compress the video data which results in "fuzzier" images in an attempt to reduce disk space utilization. To me the reduction in resolution, a fuzzier view, isn't worth the few megabytes that might be saved.

I'd say try the first set of settings and see how it works/looks, then try the next one and compare them. Which ever looks best is the one to choose.
 

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looney2ns

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That worked to change iFrame (called I-Interval in ASP)!

For General Stream type (which I assume is the Main Stream), it offers H.264 or H.265 for the main stream and H.264 or H264B for sub. Which are best to use with BI?

Here is another issue: If you look the 2 screenshots I am attaching, both are for the ASH43. Look at the selection options for the main stream and substream. Why are they offering different versions of options for the same model camera?

What are the correct options I should be using for main and sub streams?
Try using BI find/inspect button to configure those cameras, generally going with what that finds works well.
 

Flintstone61

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The Dell's you linked will accept 1- 3.5" standard hard drive and 1 NVME-m.2 drive or a 2.5" SSD.
( I'm pretty Sure) the newer they get the less likely it is that they'll even have a full size drive bay.
The wifi distance between the amcrest cams and an access point could be a factor. Asus Mesh: we set that up at my Brothers house, and it was tricky to get one AP to let go of it's weak signal and auto connect to the stronger signal.
We were having to do it manually. Are all the mesh units named something different so you can tell which AP the cams are connecting to?
If the cam data is hopping across the Air 2 or 3 times, that could explain choppy video
and like the guys said, a mobile processor with that many cams could a bottle neck. Is the mobile device a laptop? is it using ethernet or Wifi to connect to the network?
 

Flintstone61

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Dude. buy the HP over the Dell. I have every size dell sitting here ( almost)
But I like this HP Elitedesk.
it's better box for Surveillance then the SFF Optiplex
because it has more drive bay space. and 1 more SATA port.
I'm running Windows on a onboard m.2 SSD, and 2 WD 3.5" drives (1 is a 8TB Surveillance drive, other is a WD white label ebay refurb) with this machine with 18 cameras. most FPS's are down around 8-12 on all these. might be couple at 15.

 
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Michael James

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The Dell's you linked will accept 1- 3.5" standard hard drive and 1 NVME-m.2 drive or a 2.5" SSD.
( I'm pretty Sure) the newer they get the less likely it is that they'll even have a full size drive bay.
The wifi distance between the amcrest cams and an access point could be a factor. Asus Mesh: we set that up at my Brothers house, and it was tricky to get one AP to let go of it's weak signal and auto connect to the stronger signal.
We were having to do it manually. Are all the mesh units named something different so you can tell which AP the cams are connecting to?
If the cam data is hopping across the Air 2 or 3 times, that could explain choppy video
and like the guys said, a mobile processor with that many cams could a bottle neck. Is the mobile device a laptop? is it using ethernet or Wifi to connect to the network?
The laptop running BI5 is hardwired to the primary router.
The CPU is never getting above 50%. So how can that be a bottleneck?
Is 8 GIG RAM enough in a desktop? I thought 16 GB was sort of a minimum?
That HP 800, which drive would you store BI5 on and which drive to use for Clips? Does it support the WD 8 TB Purple drive?
 

wittaj

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The laptop running BI5 is hardwired to the primary router.
The CPU is never getting above 50%. So how can that be a bottleneck?
Is 8 GIG RAM enough in a desktop? I thought 16 GB was sort of a minimum?
That HP 800, which drive would you store BI5 on and which drive to use for Clips? Does it support the WD 8 TB Purple drive?
Because most laptop CPUs are designed to favor saving power or temp control over performance, so even though the CPU never goes above 50% doesn't mean that the CPU isn't throttling the performance to keep temp or power consumption down. In other words, it may be needing more CPU but the CPU is saying no and throttling it.

Pull up the actual CPU number in the laptop - guarantee you it has a letter at the end of.

Between it being a laptop and so man wifi cameras, it is a recipe for problems.
 

jack7

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If your wifi cams still have choppy video, take one ASH43 and move it to where you can wire it to router and configure it for wired. That may help tell you if wifi is the problem which it probably is.
 

Flintstone61

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SSD windows and BI
Clips WD 8TB yes 8TB is supported.
Can probably go 1o Tb I'm sure too. Or dual 8TB's if you have hundreds of motion events a day like my system does. I'm writing 18 cams to 13 TB of drive space. I'm getting a thousand motions a day. My storage time varies from Cam to cam, but usually about 6-8 weeks per cam.
 

Michael James

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General question here. If I buy a computer of Ebay, can I take it to Best Buy and have them install a WD Purple in it? I ahve no idea what I am doing installing drives.
 

sebastiantombs

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The most important thing about mounting a new drive is to use the right hardware. Those screws don't need to be very long, 1/8 to 3/16" is plenty long enough. There are two cables needed. One for the power connection and one for the SATA (data) connection. They are significantly different so they can't be mixed up and they are also "keyed" so that they can only be plugged in properly on both ends. Power own the system, remove the power cord and remove the case. Mount the drive, locate the power connections, plug in the cable. Locate the SATA connections and plug in that cable. Put the case back on, power up and Win10 will find the drive. The drive will need to be formatted. In this case, video storage, it pays to set the block size to 1024K rather than the default of 4K to save head moves in the drive.

First time around it shouldn't take more than an hour, complete.
 
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