Dahua camera streams freezing

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User321

n3wb
Jul 21, 2023
13
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Some
Hi everyone. I have three Dahua IP cameras (one DH-IPC-HFW1431S1-S4 and two IPC-HFW3841E-SA). I don’t use an NVR. Instead, I watch the camera streams through SmartPSS software on my PC (Ryzen 5600, 32GB RAM, Radeon RX6800 16GB VRAM). The cameras are set to record video to an FTP server on my 1 Gbps LAN whenever motion is detected.

When I only had two cameras (one DH-IPC-HFW1431S1-S4 and one IPC-HFW3841E-SA), everything worked fine. But as soon as I added the third camera, I started having issues. The video streams from both IPC-HFW3841E-SA cameras periodically freeze. Audio continues, alarms still come through, and recording is unaffected, but SmartPSS shows a static image. To restore the stream, I either switch between the main and secondary streams or close and reopen the stream (both methods work every time). Interestingly, if I view the same frozen stream on my mobile phone, it displays correctly.

The DH-IPC-HFW1431S1-S4 camera never freezes, and there are also no freezes at night when IR is active. Some days there are no issues, but on other days, the freezes happen frequently. One camera seems to freeze more often than the other.

I’ve tried changing codecs, bitrates, and resolutions, and even disabling secondary streams, but nothing has resolved the issue. Updating SmartPSS also didn’t help. I’ve searched online but haven’t found any solutions so far.
 
SmartPSS and your pc can only handle so much live, main stream data at once.

Most use the substream to view multiple cameras live, and by double clicking a single camera you can enable the full main stream if you need to see greater detail in a larger frame.

Your phone is streaming the substream, with a much smaller compressed image.
 
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bigredfish said:
SmartPSS and your pc can only handle so much live, main stream data at once.

Most use the substream to view multiple cameras live, and by double clicking a single camera you can enable the full main stream if you need to see greater detail in a larger frame.

Your phone is streaming the substream, with a much smaller compressed image.
Click to expand...
Switching to substreams makes no difference; it still freezes. Also, SmartPSS uses a maximum of 15% of the CPU and 5% of the GPU, so there are plenty of resources left.
 
So these cameras are on your LAN and stream through your router? You have a bottle neck somewhere, all systems do at some point in streaming video. Maybe your router

I just tested in a 9 camera layout, on SmartPSS Lite, running 6 of them in Main Stream mode simultaneously. (Five 4MP and one 4K). and saw stuttering and freezing. It was fine to 4-5 but adding the 6th produced stuttering and occasional freezing on motion.
My cameras stream from the NVR

Using substream (512-1080 bitrate) to view multiple cameras as designed, I can stream 20-25 with little or no visible problems
 
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bigredfish said:
So these cameras are on your LAN and stream through your router? You have a bottle neck somewhere, all systems do at some point in streaming video. Maybe your router

I just tested in a 9 camera layout, on SmartPSS Lite, running 6 of them in Main Stream mode simultaneously. (Five 4MP and one 4K). and saw stuttering and freezing. It was fine to 4-5 but adding the 6th produced stuttering and occasional freezing on motion.
My cameras stream from the NVR

Using substream (512-1080 bitrate) to view multiple cameras as designed, I can stream 20-25 with little or no visible problems
Click to expand...
You're right; the bitrate is the issue. Thanks! However, I doubt my router is the limiting factor here—it's more likely a limitation with SmartPSS.
 
It is usually the router. The NVR/cameras don't buffer like a Netflix does and a lost packet and the router asks for it again and too many lost packets and it can't keep up.
 
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User321 said:
You're right; the bitrate is the issue. Thanks! However, I doubt my router is the limiting factor here—it's more likely a limitation with SmartPSS.
Click to expand...
Nope likely your router or your actual machine you’re viewing on
 
bigredfish said:
Nope likely your router or your actual machine you’re viewing on
Click to expand...
My router's CPU is running at around 2%, my PC's CPU at 23%, and the GPU at 8%. The PoE switch could be the issue, though I'm not certain; it should support 1 Gbit/s, while the actual cameras stream bitrate is less than 10 Mbit/s.
 
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