Choppy video recording when both cameras enabled

[LloydC]

I have a 4 camera setup. Recently I got 2 Hikvision 4MP IPC3442-W-2.8 cameras to replace 2 of the cameras in my setup. When I replaced the first camera, it was fine. But after replacing the 2nd camera, the recorded videos for both are choppy and freezing missing out on the action.

The first Hikvision is 20 fps, 20 Iframe, 2688x1520, direct to disc, Intel hardware acceleration, receive buffer 20.

I've tried putting the 2nd camera at 15 fps and 720p which my old camera was 720p, but it still causes recordings in BI to be choppy. If I disable the 2nd camera, everything is smooth.

CPU is around 25-35%

Any suggestions?

 

[Mr_D]

A quick Google search suggests these cameras support wifi or POE. Are you using wifi?

 

[SouthernYankee]

What is your network setup in detail, router and switches, with model numbers. It you can provide a diagram that would be helpful.
What is the BI machine specs?

 

[LloydC]

Yes both 4MP cameras are running on WiFi. The 2 other 720p cameras are also on WiFi.
The router is a ASUS RT-N66U, a N900 router, and the computer is connected to the router by Ethernet cable.
The BI computer is running an i3-4170 3.7 Ghz processor with 8 GB of ram.
The security video is saved to a 8TB external drive over USB 3.0. I had tested saving it to the local hard drive and it didn't help.

Today, I disabled one of the older 720p cameras (the 3rd camera in my setup) and now both Hikvisons are streaming and recording smooth video in BI. So without the 4 MP cameras, I was doing 4 720p cameras. Currently I can only do 2 4MP and 1 720p cameras. However, CPU is in the 30% range so I should be able to run more than 3 cameras. You think it might be the router?

 

[Mr_D]

I think its a wifi issue. 4MP is over 4x the bandwidth of 720p. Also, older devices don't play as nicely and can hose the whole WLAN. Upgrading to an AC router may help, but there's only so much bandwidth available at 2.4 GHz which is probably all the cameras support. This is why hard wiring is highly recommended.

 

[looney2ns]

You have maxed out the Wifi bandwidth. A new router won't help. You need to run network cable. Avoid wifi if you want a chance of the video being reliable.
Study the cliff notes if you haven't yet.

 

[LloydC]

I think I will try using some old routers and connect them to the main router. Then each camera can have a dedicated router and full wifi bandwidth.

 

[Mr_D]

I think I will try using some old routers and connect them to the main router. Then each camera can have a dedicated router and full wifi bandwidth.

No matter how many routers you have, they're all still sharing the same very limited spectrum. Keeping them all on separate channels (only use 1, 6, 11 to avoid overlap) may help but 2.4GHz wifi is a fundamentally overtaxed and broken means of communication.