Slow, unuseable OpenVPN connection to Dahua NVR

[gregip]

At home I have a Dahua 4216-16P NVR, cabled to a TP Link 4G mobile broadband modem, a static/fixed IP address for the modem and running OpenVPN on the modem. Only the NVR is on this mini network.
I have OpenVPN installed on my laptop and I can connect to my home NVR with my laptop from outside the home NVR network. The NVR's web interface takes 1 or 2 minutes to load on my laptop, which is bad enough, but I cannot quickly access any of the cameras on the NVR. (I've waited 4 minutes but did not get a live view).
The connection obviously works but is of no use if I cannot quickly logon to the NVR and quickly view a camera. Internet speed showing on my laptop is 60Mbps down and 12 Mbps up.
Any suggestions as to how I fix this access problem?

 

[mikeynags]

You most likely need more bandwidth upstream. 12Mbps doesn't appear to be enough to support your video streams.

 

[wittaj]

Make sure it is set up to stream the substreams. Trying to pull up multiple cameras at mainstream will bring it to a halt.

 

[gregip]

Make sure it is set up to stream the substreams.

Yes, it is set up to stream sub streams (704x576). By the way, I'm using SmartPSS on my laptop to access the NVR.

I've tried accessing the NVR through the WIFI modem attached to it (WIFI on the laptop and without using OpenVPN on the laptop) but even a one camera live view results in the stream pausing (buffering?) for between 2 and 6 seconds and sometimes much longer. The view is then quite jerky. I also notice the live stream on my WIFI connected laptop is sometimes 60 seconds behind the live view I can see on the NVR's monitor. I've got the laptop sitting next to the NVR while I'm sorting it out.

So even without OpenVPN, SmartPSS seems very clunky. The SmartPSS indicators show CPU usage about 5% and RAM usage at 44%.
I don't see anything relevant in the SmartPSS manual.
Hopefully there is just some setting I've missed or set incorrectly so all ideas welcomed for me to try.

 

[gregip]

I've also bypassed the WIFI connection (and not used OpenVPN) and connected to the modem by ethernet cable. This still results in a playback which starts but is either extremely slow or hangs a couple of seconds into the playback. I'm using an ethernet/USB convertor since my laptop does not have an ethernet port so is it possible this causes a problem?
Edit: no it's not the cable nor the USB converter. Just tried another laptop with an ethernet port, another cat6a cable and the same problem exists. There is a bottleneck somewhere but I don't know where.

 

[mikeynags]

Can you supply a diagram of your network layout? That may help us troubleshoot your issue more efficiently.

 

[gregip]

Network layout about as simple as it can get.... It's a NVR4216-16P, TP Link MR600 4G modem, one of two laptops (either Lenovo Intel Core i5 8th gen or Leader Core i7 10th gen).

NVR: network port cat5e cabled direct to LAN1 port of modem.
modem: LAN/WAN port cat5 (or cat6a) cabled to ethernet port on Leader laptop which is running SmartPSS.

Both playback and live view on SmartPSS are too slow to be useable. There's probably a simple configuration setting I've messed up but I'm out of ideas.

 

[Valiant]

The modem appears pretty decent, however a lot of people have problems using cctv devices on routers because they can't handle lateral traffic across ports. They are generally created to allow internet access and not have fast switching chips across the LAN ports. Traffic may be passing through the CPU instead which will be a bottle neck.

Do you have a separate Gbit switch to connect your laptop and NVR, then uplink that to the router ?. The cctv traffic will stay on the local switch unless trying to remote in.

 

[Flintstone61]

your 4G device may not be handling the NVR feed at full speed when it is acting as a switch, DHCP server, etc. They tend to be geared more toward streaming data inbound. I've had a couple 4G LTE modems, and the if signal is not strong, it will affect your net speed. ( no expert, just my experience and thoughts)

 

[NightLife]

I'm just curious, using the VPN again, what happens when you try and open VLC and stream an RTSP feed from a camera?