Slow refresh rate when viewed remotely

[riggz 0]

I have a couple Dahua HFW2100 cameras set up at my home. When viewing them from each internal web page it looks fluid real time, however whenever I view remotely from my phone using the IP Cam Pro app I get about 1 frame every 3-6 seconds. It also updates this slow when using my laptop via the internet. Is it because my internet is too slow to upload? I have Comcast cable and have what I thought was a decent upload speed.

 

Thanks in advance!

[thewireguys 3]

What is your upload speed? Say those cameras are pushing 4Mbps each and you have 2 cameras. You would need a 8Mbps upload to get the full frame rates.

[buellwinkle 0]

Go to one of those sites that measures you internet peformance, like SpeakEasy.net and click on Speed Test and check your download and upload speeds on both your home internet and the place where you are trying to access the cameras from. Also, regardless of connection speed, consider there's a certain amount of latency when using the public internet due to all the hops your connection has to make. You can go into a dos window on a PC or a terminal window on Mac and enter tracert (on windows) or traceroute (on a Mac or Linux) and see how many hops its taking, but I bet it's a whole bunch. Anything over a few hops is bad.

 

Also, there's a bunch of bandwidth calculators you can use to figure out what bandwidth you need for a given resolution, compression method (h.264) and frame rate. It doesn't factor in latency though.

 

Those Dahuas have dual streams. Just access the camera remotely from the second stream which you can set to much lower resolution and frame rate. From a remote location, it's not like you will likely need HD resolution anyway. What's interesting is the Costco version of your camera assumes you want the second stream.

[riggz 0]

How do you access the second stream?

[buellwinkle 0]

On the Q-See version, it's an option on the login screen, has radio buttons for LAN (main stream) or WAN (sub stream). It could be the newer firmware for your camera lets you do this. The other way is to login to the camera and then click on Sub Stream in the upper left.

 

You set the choices for the second stream by clicking on SET and then Video under Camera on the left. It will show the Main Stream on the left and the Sub Stream on the right and ou can set a lower resolution and frame rate for the sub stream. If you are using PSS software to view the cameras remotely, there has to be option to reference only the sub stream. If you are using VLC to view the cameras remotely, there's an URL command that tells it to go to the sub stream.

[riggz 0]

Not sure what my upload speed is but its probably less than 2mb up. I was able to set the sub stream to a CBR of 40 and do 5fps. Then by using a rtsp stream url I changed the subtype to 1 instead of 0 which I guess means the sub stream? Now when viewing from the mobile app I get about .9fps. This is good enough as I only want to see if someone is walking around my entry points.

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

remember that that upload speed is being used by everything else on your network. if you have torrents running, they're probably using a good portion of that. if you run something like a slingbox, that will use most of your upstream while it's being viewed.

[riggz 0]

I have nothing else using any bandwidth when I tried to view the cameras.

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

are you *sure*? you'd be surprised what can be going on behind the scenes on your network. does your router have traffic graphs or even logging? how many devices are on your network in total?

[Pulse 0]

Remember to change stream in IP Cam Pro camera settings, camera details stream numer is set in Ch#. filed. I use this program to watch 5 cameras (1mpx, 8fps) sent from 10 mbs DSL and received on phone via WIFI 6 mbs. It's not as smooth as when I'm watching it locally but it works quite ok.

[riggz 0]

are you *sure*? you'd be surprised what can be going on behind the scenes on your network. does your router have traffic graphs or even logging? how many devices are on your network in total?

I am 100% sure as the speed is slow even with no computers turned on.

[Pulse 0]

Run the test and you will know if it's your ISP fault.

[riggz 0]

Here's the results. I am located just north of Atlanta, GA:

 

Local:

 

Cross Country:

[riggz 0]

Maybe it's the app? What android app is everyone using?

[StanLee2066 0]

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

[riggz 0]

The app I am using is IP Cam Pro by Robert Chou. I has an option to use " experimental h.264 dvr code". Which I am using.

[Pulse 0]

Something must be wrong

 

I'm sending signal from 5 cameras via DSL

 

and receving on phone via WIFI

 

I use the same app, H.264 codec too. Screen is refreshed from 1 to 3 seconds, generally, most of time it's 1-2.

You have a lot better connection it should work smooth.

 

Try to play with settings or other app. Try accessing camera from browser and see if it works smooth.

I tried with my settings, I set quality to low and it made no change in refresh rate and image quality. I have no idea from where IP Cam app is taking video. It seems it has it own settings.

When I'm vieving remotely from cameras via laptop or remotely via NVR it works smooth on the same connection.