Striking a balance of camera settings and wireless capability...

[jasauders]

(I just realized I posted to the NVR/DVR/Computer section. This post feels more appropriate in the IP camera section. My apologies!)
Hello friends. I am running 4 cameras on an Ubuntu Server running Bluecherry. Bluecherry has been problem free for me for a while now, but I noticed one of my two Hikvision 3mp 2432 cube cameras is having some issues. It's random, so it's kind of hard to troubleshoot it, but I found myself curious about video settings and how they may effect wireless performance.

My router is a Netgear WNDR3700, which is a wireless N600 router. It's positioned in the living room. The Hikvisions are 1) Just down the hall about 15 feet from the router, 2) upstairs and towards the back of the house. The house isn't huge, so it's not a monumental jump with the centrally positioned router downstairs. Both cameras are attached to the 2.4ghz band, 3mp, 5 FPS. Bluecherry is running via full time record.

The problem is, at times, the upstairs camera seemingly drops off. At night I sometimes find myself working on my laptop, at which point I let the HTPC stream the Bluecherry client's live feed. The HTPC, like all non-wireless things on my LAN, is wired gigabit. That way if one of the girls gets up (these Hikvisions are acting as baby cameras) I'll know. When it drops off I'll see Bluecherry 404 that frame. It'll reconnect, but it can take about 25-30 seconds or so. At one point, I was quick enough to get into a terminal and ping the camera, only to find it wasn't responding. It quickly came back, and Bluecherry found it again and displayed it right away. A bit later I was pinging it and noticed it had higher ping times than the other camera by quite a lot. Later, it stabilized, but I couldn't think of anything that may have changed. This leads me to believe it's a camera thing, not a Bluecherry thing. We don't have a home phone, weren't running the microwave, and don't have neighbors in close proximity. Every once in a while I'll see in the event list the downstairs Hikvision tanked for a 20 second spat, but it's only ever one time, and rare (once every few days). Yesterday the upstairs camera had dropped about 30 times in a 1 hour period... but then it came back for 10 hours problem free before I even changed anything.

The cameras are US models, fully up to date with firmware, and these units in particular are almost 30 days old.

I looked into bitrate, which was set to variable with a cap of 4096. I turned it down to 2048. For the last 12 hours, it hasn't had a single drop, though I think I'd have to see it run for 48 hours to feel confident it's good. I've had these half-day-success-stories before...

So now that the story is out of the way, I can't help but to find myself questioning something. Is it possible that just two wireless, 3mp, variable bit rate w/ 2048 max, 5 FPS cameras could be hitting the wireless hard enough that it detracts from their capabilities? The only thing on the wireless is the two cameras, my laptop, wife's laptop, and our phones. Everything else I've hard wired (HTPC, all desktop systems, etc).

Just curious on your experiences, or if you have any other ideas that I may not have thought of.

Next ideas:
1) Swap each camera's location and see if the problem "travels" to the other camera when it's placed upstairs + simultaneously see if the one yielding a history of drop-offs acts better downstairs
2) Drop the cameras from 3mp down to 2mp (which I really don't want to do, but may prove to be a lighter means and a good troubleshooting step)
3) Set up a Windows laptop streaming the live feed of the upstairs camera. If I see it drop from Bluecherry *and* the Hikvision web UI that'll be even more telling than the ping I did yesterday.

I'll probably do #3 tonight. Only problem is if tonight acts as a "good day" for the camera, it may be totally fine, then start puking at 4 AM when I'm not watching it...

A more thorough test I can probably do is loop a Linux system around the clock pinging the camera with a 3-5 second delay, saving all output to a txt file, then review the txt file at a later time. I may actually do that first thing since it'd be crazy simple and give me full time insight, even if I'm not actively watching the Hikvision web UI at that time.

At the moment I figured I'd just try to arm myself with as much info about the further details of video feeds. I can understand putting 4 or 5 cameras on a wireless G router being too much, but two 3mp cameras on wireless N at only 5 FPS... I wouldn't suspect that that would be an overload given my otherwise very wired/gigabit centric mentality for most other devices. Likewise, while it's on a different floor, it's not a substantial difference with the number of walls/materials to shoot through. But hey, we all know how picky (and goofy) wireless can be at times...

Anyway, think bit rate is a bigger piece to the puzzle than I originally thought? Maybe I'm missing a critical setting I didn't mention? I'd appreciate any insight!

EDIT - I came home somewhat expecting to see in the event list that the camera took a dive. Turns out, it didn't. Everything had been running smoothly without any hiccups. In an effort to instigate it while I was home for lunch, I took a single 10 GB file and pushed it from my laptop to my server over wireless (the server is my NAS but also runs Bluecherry on a separate HDD). It didn't skip a beat. I was even streaming the live feed through the Bluecherry client while this transfer happened. It just completed, no skips with the events. Maybe the bit rate adjustment made a difference?

 

[nayr]

This is the nature of Wireless, by FCC Regulation all your radio devices have to accept interference and let it degrade performance.. nothing can be done about it.

Microwave Ovens cook food @ 2.4GHz, Wireless Toys operate @ 2.4GHz, Game Console/Streaming Boxes use the Frequencies for Remotes.

You require a constant throughput, without interruption.. and quite frankly, Wireless can never guarantee that.. no matter how good your network is and how much money you throw at it, anything can come along and trash it.

 

[pozzello]

that mirrors my experiences with wireless cams too. i think they just have sub-optimal wireless stacks on em.
The foscam i had was terrible on wireless, a hikvision was better, but still had issues.
turning down the bitrate seems to help, as you've noticed, but as nayr points out, it's just the nature of wireless to not be 100% reliable...
went thru all the hoops trying to troubleshoot before i got around to hardwiring all the cams
(except a couple still running on a powerline adapter, which has been solid).

 

[jasauders]

This is the nature of Wireless, by FCC Regulation all your radio devices have to accept interference and let it degrade performance.. nothing can be done about it.

Microwave Ovens cook food @ 2.4GHz, Wireless Toys operate @ 2.4GHz, Game Console/Streaming Boxes use the Frequencies for Remotes.

You require a constant throughput, without interruption.. and quite frankly, Wireless can never guarantee that.. no matter how good your network is and how much money you throw at it, anything can come along and trash it.

Certainly. I just thought it was odd that the one camera was tanking as frequently as it was given the lack of neighbors/no use of microwave/heck the kids weren't even home at the time to have been messing with their toys. Here's a screenshot of a problematic segment yesterday: http://s6.postimg.org/m16ma3k01/bc_drop.jpg

As I suggested above with my edit, when I went home for lunch today things were perfect without any drops despite hammering my wireless to try and instigate the problem. The only thing that changed between the screenshot's errors and now is the router and camera were both rebooted, and the camera's bitrate went from variable with a max of 4096 to variable with a max of 2048.

I could hard wire them. A flexible drill bit doesn't cost much and I know the routes I could take to run the cables. I just struggle with that given the current implementation of these cameras is not permanent given they're kid cameras. But if I do that, I'd have wired LAN ports already ran should a need for them ever come up, I suppose.

 

[nayr]

If you want to keep them wireless, you have to guarantee the storage is avilable.. and the only option is onboard SD and only stream over WiFi when your actually monitoring it live.

there are so many environmental factors you'll never know whats causing problems, it could be aircraft, military signaling.. I grew up out in the middle of nowhere, population 10 for a mile in every direction.. my WiFi sucked ass there because I had an AFB nearby and the'd randomly flood my property with microwaves for one reason or another.. struggled keeping a point to point link a 1/4 mile to my grandma's house even with the best hardware (she had cable tv, and thus cable internet.. I only had dialup).. could take the same equipment elsewhere and get a link a few miles distant with no problems.. just the nature of Wireless, its like the weather.. if you dont like it, just wait and it'll change.

 

[klasipca]

Despite what you will hear about wireless being unreliable, you can run cams stable, but there is definitely a lot more factors (and money) to consider then pulling the wire. In the past I've used 5 Hikvision cams (4x 2432 and 2532) all running on wireless and have not had any issues with dropouts, now I have reduced to 2 wireless cams, but overall my home is still heavy on wireless streaming (Nvidia Shields, tablets, laptops, thermostat, printer and a few other things all running on wireless, sometimes at the same time). First I would be looking at upgrading the router with the best 2.4Ghz coverage, btw I've owned the same router 7 years ago and it was just average back then, so I doubt it can work reliably today with so many demanding HD streams. Also you could consider adding access points to weak spots or better yet you could have wireless bridge using two AC band routers together.

 

[pozzello]

i'll bet Claire is firing up her microwave-wifi-disruptor-ray when she's up to her nefariuos tricks and doesn't want papa to know about it...

 

[Fastb]

@jasauders,

I have that Netgear wireless router for my home LAN. It's not used for WiFi cameras, which are behind my POE switch. My single WiFi camera is connected to a EnGenius ENS1200 802.11ac wireless router (300Mbps). My camera system (wired & wireless cams, NVR, WiFi AP) is seperate, connected to my home LAN by one cat5 cable.

That Netgear router may only be 54Mbps for the 2.4Ghz camera you're using. That said, that Netgear is troublesome for a high reliability connection in my experience at home. Connectivity drops. I suggest check the log file in the Netgear.

My WiFi camera drops occasionally. When I check the EnGenius log file, I see "stuck beacon" errors and other errors. Sometimes the recorded video on the NVR is choppy. Sometimes I'll even see gaps in the "playback" timeline on my NVR. Meaning the WiFi camera connection was interrupted. The NVR is connected to the EnGenius through the simple (unmanaged) POE switch, meaning the Netgear isn't to blame, or home lan traffic. This sometimes happens at night, so the microwave-wifi-disruptor-ray isn't active. And it's not other WiFi, based on distance to neighbors. I only see one SSID, and it's very low energy. (Even if there's a non-broadcast SSID channel, the neighbors are too far away)

Sometimes the WiFi cam dropout lasts long enough that pings fail. When I check the WiFi AP for "connections", the camera doesn't show up in the list. AP to cam distance is ~30', through one wall. It's not a "too far" problem.

Rebooting the AP removed the stuck beacon problem, and restored operation. Things would run well for a while. I set the AP to re-boot every night, that helps.

If there is a lot of image activity, the problem seems to be more prevalent. My hunch: the variable bit rate increases, taxing the WiFi connection even more.

I've come to the conclusion, using some guidance from folks here and my troubleshooting, that WiFi for cameras is inferior to cabled cameras.

Your Netgear WNDR3700 is 2.4MHz & 5GHz. Your camera may only be capable of 2.4Ghz at 54Mbps. And with other devices on the channel, it may be taxed (but check the log file)

 

[jasauders]

Thanks for the insight everyone. I looked at Bluecherry tonight to find Claire's camera dropped again about 15-20 times within the 6 pm hour.

...so I went to Lowe's, picked up a 54" flexible drill bit, and plan to tear into it tonight and hardwire it. At least for Stella's room. Claire's room I'll have to hold off on for another week, as that's when I'm eyeing up running a new line and installing a 2nd camera out back. I can pull both lines at once then since their paths will be the same. I'll just have to tolerate its nonsense until then.

At any rate, I already gave my walls a good, hard stare, and have a plan in mind. Given that Stella's room is right above the basement, that's easy. Given that I renovated Claire's room before, I have an idea of how I can go about it -- far better than I would have known had it not been myself who did the insulation, drywall, etc. for that room.

In the end, I'll have all six cameras, 4 outdoor, 2 indoor, all hard wired/POE'd/gigabitted.

In the future when these Hikvisions are retired from being baby cameras I'll probably go back to using them periodically as wireless cameras for when we're out of town. But by the time these cams are retired from being baby cameras, I'll certainly have a new router.

When browsing the Foscam forum I saw someone call the WNDR3500 very troublesome for maintaining a consistent wireless signal for wifi cameras. I have a WNDR3700. So... makes you wonder.

Cheers, everyone!

 

[nayr]

as they grow up and start to exert independance and want the cameras removed, simply replace them with a wireless access point on low power so they have decent internet speeds in there rooms.. by then the'll be consuming internet by the terrabyte

I wouldn't have wireless if it weren't for the wife and kids, I am happy to yank a wire wherever I need one.. but they love them some tablets, where as I have a distain for touchscreen UI.

 

[jasauders]

as they grow up and start to exert independance and want the cameras removed, simply replace them with a wireless access point on low power so they have decent internet speeds in there rooms.. by then the'll be consuming internet by the terrabyte

That's definitely a thought for sure. The hard wired ports leave some room for ideas in the future. If they follow in their dad's footsteps they'll be rockin a little home server. Or maybe they'll get into some graphics setup requiring a desktop with some massive monitors. Or maybe they'll go unused. Who knows. Who cares. I can't tolerate it for the moment, so we'll fix it. If they get used in the future, great. If not, great.

 

[Fastb]

When we built out the 2nd floor, I wired every room (3 bedrooms, game room, office) with phone, cable, and Ethernet. 15 yrs ago! How times change!
1) who needs a phone jack in a room anymore?
2) Cable TV to every room? Seriously? Watch on-line. Though we do use Comcast in the MBR
3) Wired Ethernet, Cat 5 spec'ed to 10Mbps (100 Mbps was new)

Nevertheless, Cat5 jacks in every room has come in handy! So convenient. When the home lan must be re-booted, the wired devices take care of themselves. TV, Stereo, printer, multiple desktop PCs, NAS, etc.

10 wired devices, 5 wireless (laptops, tablets, phones). As I said my cam network is separate. @nayr has it right (IMHO), wired is simpler, more robust, and for the next few years, superior.

Good luck with the 54" long drill bit. I have one. It's tricky to "steer" the tip. My house had old studs (from the '50's) that contained knots. The bit would sometimes say "Hello" through the wall when half-way to the destination. Not a complete Bummer! I'd restart from there, since plaster and repainting was needed to fix it, I'd use it.

Today's advice: pull cat6 for Gb. Leave a string to pull the new wire in 5 or 10 years. Time flies when you're raising kids. See my comments above about pulling phone lines and cable TV lines to the kid's rooms! Future proof as much as pratical....

 

[klasipca]

My baby cams were wireless I did not want to hardwire them as i knew they wouldn't be there permanently. I ended up removing "baby" cam when kid reached 4.5 who started blocking the camera view. I asked why and got a simple reply "because I don't want you to see me". Then I thought that I wanted to give the kid the privacy and didn't want to develop some sort of dependency of being watched or whatever.

 

[Fastb]

Interesting!
Our childhood didn't (I'll bet) include those kinds of thoughts!
New generations will be "surveillance savvy".
And "surveillance" will get more complex. Carrying a cell phone... Web connected car.... Where the chip-enabled Visa is used.
Good for him, ie: "I don't want to be watched"
Like me.
But I wanna watch you, esp if you're on my job site!

 

[jasauders]

My baby cams were wireless I did not want to hardwire them as i knew they wouldn't be there permanently. I ended up removing "baby" cam when kid reached 4.5 who started blocking the camera view. I asked why and got a simple reply "because I don't want you to see me". Then I thought that I wanted to give the kid the privacy and didn't want to develop some sort of dependency of being watched or whatever.

I was kind of wondering where the cut off will/should be in terms of cameras in the bedrooms. Oldest is 2, youngest is 8 months, so... I have a ways to go to hit that mark yet.

If nothing else, I'll be happy to get these cameras off of the wireless. I can tell my wireless speeds when transferring data to/from my home server have tanked since adding the cameras. I can only assume the cams are soaking up some of the airspace.

At least when the cameras are done being baby cameras the drops will be available to serve another purpose. And if not, oh well.

 

[nayr]

Mine's 5.5yro and dont mind the camera, but he has Epilepsy and we still need it for peace of mind.. just a week ago he fell out of bed and hurt him self crashing down on some toys, we suspected a seizure and then after reviewing the footage he was just stirring and rollie pollie'd right off the side, no seizure.. I only record at night time tho, nothing is recorded in the daytime.

Ive always had the mindset, the day he asks me to remove the camera.. I will remove it immediately, its mounted on the roof tho and he cant block it.. I do see him and his friends use it as a target when playing with nerf guns tho.. and some of his friends have asked about it, and we pop it up on the main TV and they think its neat and go upstairs and put on a tv production.. I dont think the'll mind until they start getting a lil bit of modesty.. and my son's showing no signs of that, he has no qualms about changing his clothes out in the back yard.

 

[Fastb]

I used "baby monitors" back in the day. One way walkie talkie. No video.
As my kids got older, we reached "I don't want you listening to me" stage. Way after they learned they could summon us with "audio" due to crying. (wet diaper, etc)

Check variable bit rate settings. If your kid is asleep, the bit rate should go down. Or play with Motion Detect to alert you...

Lastly, if you suspect the cams are tanking your WiFi speed, you can conduct a simple test. Connect the cam with a cable. Monoprice has low cost cat6 cables. You can compare wired vs wireless speeds. 50 ft cable is ~$10. And Cat cables can always come in handy, like AC extension cords.

Enjoy your kids!

 

[jasauders]

Mine's 5.5yro and dont mind the camera, but he has Epilepsy and we still need it for peace of mind.. just a week ago he fell out of bed and hurt him self crashing down on some toys, we suspected a seizure and then after reviewing the footage he was just stirring and rollie pollie'd right off the side, no seizure.. I only record at night time tho, nothing is recorded in the daytime.

Ive always had the mindset, the day he asks me to remove the camera.. I will remove it immediately, its mounted on the roof tho and he cant block it.. I do see him and his friends use it as a target when playing with nerf guns tho.. and some of his friends have asked about it, and we pop it up on the main TV and they think its neat and go upstairs and put on a tv production.. I dont think the'll mind until they start getting a lil bit of modesty.. and my son's showing no signs of that, he has no qualms about changing his clothes out in the back yard.

Hey, I can't help but to be curious - what's your, if any, night time view mode look like? What I mean is... I have an old 7" Android tablet. One of those that's useless for any sort of typical use, yet still functions so I didn't recycle it. It sits on the night stand plugged in to power. During the night I kick it on and it streams via TinyCam Pro, which pulls in the Bluecherry DVR stream for all cameras. I typically black out the screen at night since I feel dirty wirelessly streaming wireless cams. I'll abuse wired connections all day but pulling feeds from a wireless source only to bounce over to a wireless (tablet viewer) destination... eh. Once I hard wire the cams I might take up just letting it run throughout the night. That way if I hear a noise, I just glance over and it's already showing me the scoop.

I've tinkered with the thought of doing something else, such as an old laptop or something. I'm not really thrilled to be using a 7" tablet for this, but I suppose it works well. Hard to beat the silent nature of a tablet as well.

 

[nayr]

tonight, cant see shit hah.. he built a fort and fell asleep inside, I put a z-wave dimmer in his room and keep it @ 5% at night.. my lil pan-tilt w/out IR does adaquate job, bit blurry but I dont need detail.. I know who it is

nobody really monitors the stream, the recording is just there after the fact.. its on a display in my office but I dont pay a lot of attention to it unless I want to discretely check on him.

 

[jasauders]

tonight, cant see shit hah.. he built a fort and fell asleep inside, I put a z-wave dimmer in his room and keep it @ 5% at night.. my lil pan-tilt w/out IR does adaquate job, bit blurry but I dont need detail.. I know who it is

Good stuff. I actually had a slightly different angle in what I meant with my question. Do you have some sort of live-view running at night next to you for a quick glance should the need arise? Or do you just grab the phone and fire up the app? Given your IT nature I couldn't help but to be curious if you whipped up something.