StanLee2066

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I'd like to clear up some items in my original post in case someone reads it in the future while researching their own issues.

I confused Mb/sec (bits) with MB/sec (bytes). At 1280x720, 30fps and no compression, m1114 bandwidth is ~45Mb/sec (about 6 MB/sec). My DNS325 has a measured write speed of 12 MB/sec, so why it freezes (major dropped frames) is not clear, but I'm not worried since as soon as compression is increased to 5, everything works as expected (I keep it at 20 anyways).

But to move on to something that has kept me experimenting for awhile and I've definitely been able to prove...

That slight freezing...or frame dropping that I've noticed on my m1114 is positively caused by a weak camera CPU that cannot handle it's own motion detect monitoring - has nothing to do with recording to my NAS or bandwidth. If I have two motion detect windows open, recorded video freezes so much it's unacceptable. With one window it's just slightly annoying - only for fast movement. With no windows active it's smooooth as silk! Axis also clearly notes this in their manuals: 'Use of motion detection may affect camera performance'. I don't see this in the manual for the p33 series cameras, and the fact that voip-ninja mentions four such motion detect windows being active on one of his p33 cameras with no issues also proves that Axis have installed much more powerful CPUs in their newer cameras and/or overall better design for performance.

Anyways, I'm glad I've eliminated any possible bandwidth/NAS related issues in my setup and am now ready to upgrade to a newer more powerful camera. Watch for a m1114 for sale on eBay soon!

I've never liked viewing video with ACC. It always seems jittery and laggy compared to watching it with AMC or viewing the files with any other media players. As far as I'm concerned it's a very unpolished product that needs lot's of work....but it's free I suppose.

I don't have an Avtech camera, but I'm pretty sure all IP cameras can only be assigned one IP. If you wish to view your camera from outside your LAN, it's essential that it be set as a static IP address. If you use a service provider that dynamically assigns your external IP address, you will also likely need to use a DDNS service.

I use to get this all the time when recording to my NAS. Recording first ~3-4 seconds after motion detect fine, then freezing for ~8-10 seconds, then fine after that. The freeze time was caused by the spin-up time of the hardrives. They were set to sleep after 10 minutes so this happened quit often, and was a big problem since the first few seconds are critical when someone is approaching the camera.

I'm currently making changes to my setup to avoid this, however with an SSD drive on a PC that is always on I imagine this would not be cause of your problem.

Also, I'm having some problems with the quality of the stream now. It seems to drop frames and is jerky. I have 50/100mbit fiber, so it's not a speed problem. Any suggestions? It might be a router problem. I have opened TCP and UDP ports in one rule, maybe this is the reason. I will update this thread if the router is the cause of the dropped frames.

Do you have any motion detect windows running? If I have more than two running at once on my Axis camera I'll also get jerky streaming video. The camera on-board CPU just can't handle the workload.

I've also measured 45mbps when streaming 1280x720 @ 30fps (uncompressed). Depending on your settings you could be pushing your network more than you think.

From voip-ninja "The advantage of taking a low price from an Amazon reseller is that typically you are very well protected (vs eBay or craigslist, etc)."

I wouldn't worry about buying from eBay - especially if using PayPay. You've got guaranteed protection. There are a couple of eBay stores that sell only Axis cameras and are trustworthy. The one I bought from even price matched from another online retailer.

You have a very valid point about 1280x720@30fps - for 24/7 recording. That would be nuts. But my recordings are activated on motion, and basically set on a 9-5 weekday schedule when I'm not home. I'll just get a handful of ~5 minute recordings of the mailman, kids getting home from school etc. So I'll just get a handful of small daily recordings. With a fast LAN and terabytes of storage...why not? If I do get some 'bad guy' activity, I'll have the best quality available. All set to auto delete after 7 days.

As I mentioned, it gets bad and ugly with high bandwidth video recordings (over 5mbps), freezes for seconds at a time, but gets fine below that.

However I'm begining to notice if it's normal (at least for Axis?). When I look at footage on buellwinkle's review site, just noticed I see some of the same thing! It's on his review if the p1344. The 'Daytime' footage, where you watch a couple of vehicles doing a turn on the street. The video is basically smooth, but freezes slightly a few times.

buellwinkle, if you read this reply can you please confirm this? Thanks!

Overall quite pleased with this camera. Picture quality/low-light performance, and the total functionality/features provided by Axis make this a great buy. I love the multiple streams! That being said, I will likely be selling this camera to upgrade to another higher end Axis model. Here's why:

1. NAS recording.

My whole home network is gigabit - except for the m1114 which is 100mbps. Video, when viewed at 1280x800, low compression (H264) and 30fps, is nice and smooth. Recording directly to local PC also works well with smooth playback of recorded file. However there are some issues recording to the NAS. I have the DNS325, which is also gigabit but only has about 30mbps write speeds (tested myself). This should be plenty, as I’ve also tested a max 8mbps video bandwidth from the m1114 under worst case conditions – all video at max settings and late evening when picture is getting noisy. Recorded video under these conditions will freeze for 1-2 seconds about every 30 seconds. If I change the video settings in the camera so the bandwidth is less than about 4-5mbps it actually improves to the point where it is quite acceptable – just the fraction of a second pause every once in a while. There are still non-perfect recordings even lower thans 1mbps. Although very acceptable, annoying to my picky eyes. I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is very likely due to the NAS only having 128mb of RAM for buffering – or a bug in the 325 NAS firmware that needs to be corrected.

Solution?: Get a camera with on-board SD. I can only assume this will do the trick since recording to local hard drive is fine.

2. Motion detection.

A lot has been said on how motion detection is done in-camera, so that it does not put stress on a PC and you can even turn the PC off. Unfortunately (at least for m1114), recording to file – even directly to a PC – works well if only one Motion Detection window is selected. I had two windows setup, one for email notifications and the other for video recordings. The recorded video freezes like crazy! Much worst that mentioned above. One Motion Detection window running at a time is fine. This leaves me to believe the processor on the m1114 is not powerful enough to handle more than one window of detection. Makes sense. If a powerful PC can begin to get bogged down with motion detection how can it be expected for a tiny micro on the camera to handle it!

Solution?: Just use the one window and/or external PIR – unfortunately m1114 does not have hardware input detection.

Anyways, I thought I’d bring this up because after many months of ready articles/forums, I’ve never noticed anyone mentioning the issues I’m experiencing. The workarounds are such that I would not feel the need to replace the camera except that I’ve also decided on more features such as audio input and definitely want the PIR to reduce stress on camera and also for more accurate motion detection.

I’m leaning on the AXIS P3364-VE since it appears to have even better low light capabilities than the m1114 with some nice extra features – although for more than 2x the price!

Thanks for listening!

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, buy your app very likely can only stream MJPEG. It is very in-efficient when compared to h.264. You probably need to compress much more than you might expect.

Using Task Manager in Windows, you can easily see how much bandwidth is being used up (click on Resouse Monitor - Windows 7). Check send B/sec.

Some exampes with a quick test I just did:

640x320 MJPEG, @ 40% compression and 5fps is ~202k B/sec

640x320 h.264, @ 30% compression and 24fps is ~138k B/sec

Hi,

If I get an Axis camera, will it also work on ACTi NVR PC software as if it was also an ACTi?

Thanks!