Dahua network connection saturating laptop CPU

[RickyGee 0]

This project is described in the thread “more than 4 cameras on Dahua NVR” below. All the equipment has arrived and I have it set up on my kitchen table while I configure everything.

 

The cameras connected easily to the NVR and the internal firmware drives the locally connected 20” CRT computer monitor, providing nice images but limited control of the cameras. The included mouse and remote work well. The NVRs came with a CD loaded with a ConfigTool, PSS software, user guides and other utilities.

 

Almost none of the included software works… After several days of screwing with it, I finally got the WEBREC.cab plugin installed in IE and was able to open the WEBSERVICE through the ConfigTool. When I add more than one camera image into the GUI, the processor goes to 100% and stays there, even though I can add all 4 cameras. The same happens with the PSS software (V4.06 and V4.06.6) but I had to add Rory’s DPIfix patch to get the PSS to work. Thanks, Rory.

 

Here’s the test setup: 4ea Dahua HF3300 cameras recording at 1080P, 30fps, 8192Mbps VBR to a Dahua NVR3204V-P with 2TB 7200rpm Seagate HDD. The NVR records and displays these cameras on the local monitor just fine with about ½ second latency.

 

My laptop is an HP Pavilion D7 Entertainment PC with 2.2Ghz dual core 64bit processor and 4GB RAM. I’m running Win7 64bit and IE9 64bit with a 17” local display at 1440x900 resolution. It plays Blu-Ray HD movies through its HDMI port to my 56” TV without breathing hard. It has an ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics card with shared memory. Memory usage never gets past 46%.

 

Has anyone else experienced this CPU saturation with network access? Is the Dahua software incompatible with 64bit systems? I would think that the laptop display through the network connection should equal the local display on the attached monitor. Is that unrealistic? Thanks. -Rick

[dexterash 0]

Brand/Supplier of cameras?

[ivan_sh 0]

2.2Ghz dual core , show 4*1080P the real stream, the cpu is not good , if u can use the core i7 , the 4*1080P show will be very fluent , the percentage of CPU will be very low .

[Q2U 0]

Try dropping your frame rate down to 5 FPS and also try scaling back your VBR. Don't run unecessary software on your laptop when trying to manage your cameras. Try scaling everything back, and then slowly move up until the CPU starts to bog down. You may also want to invest in a product like Blue Iris.

[MaxIcon 0]

CPU usage can be tricky, and totally depends on the software product.

 

It's probably not the network data per se saturating the CPU, but the processing of the video. Software that does its own encoding to record will put a heavy load on the CPU. Other software bogs down when it renders to display, so recording will be fine, but the more cams you display, the worse the CPU load gets. Server-only systems that record and don't display are more likely to be CPU friendly, but you really have to test out different software to see what will work on your system.

 

Regardless, 4 x 1080p cams at 30 fps will bog down many systems due to the high frame rate.

 

What's the actual CPU model? That's an important factor.

[RickyGee 0]

Thanks for the tips. I've been offline over the weekend. Please forgive me for the delay in getting back. The cameras are Dahua HF3300 3MP box with fuji 3MP auto iris lenses and Dahua NVR3204V-P. They are set to record at 1080P within the NVR. The 3M setting doesn't work with any camera (black screen).

 

I've played with adjusting frame rates, bit rates, and quality settings and have all other apps closed on my computer. I can make improvements in CPU usage, but 2 images will still saturate the CPU with even the lowest settings.

 

I'm guessing at this point, but I'm thinking that my computer is running in compatibility mode and the additional processing (32bit/64bit) to make the translation is at the root of this. Does that make sense? If so, is there a better workaround?

 

As for Blue Iris, I've considered that but have read that BI doesn't play well with Dahua equipment either. Is that true? The NVR firmware is disappointing in that you cannot review video at a fast enough playback speed, making blind searching very time consuming, and many camera settings can not be accessed through the NVR.

[RickyGee 0]

CPU usage can be tricky, and totally depends on the software product.

 

It's probably not the network data per se saturating the CPU, but the processing of the video. Software that does its own encoding to record will put a heavy load on the CPU. Other software bogs down when it renders to display, so recording will be fine, but the more cams you display, the worse the CPU load gets. Server-only systems that record and don't display are more likely to be CPU friendly, but you really have to test out different software to see what will work on your system.

 

Regardless, 4 x 1080p cams at 30 fps will bog down many systems due to the high frame rate.

 

What's the actual CPU model? That's an important factor.

 

The HP Pavilion D7 Entertainment PC has an AMD Turion X2 dual-core mobile RM75 2.2Ghz, and 4GB RAM, 64bit.

[RickyGee 0]

Brand/Supplier of cameras?

All Dahua from HDsecurity, specs above. PSS software version 4.06.0 (1/9/2012) and PSS 4.06.06 (1/15/2013). The PSS does the same thing; one image loaded takes 75% of my CPU capacity and 2 images saturates the CPU.

 

The CPU handles other taskes and multiple apps and video (like BluRay) without breathing hard. For instance, it will play back a BluRay 1080p H.264 movie and use only 15-30% CPU usage (from my hard drive). A single small image in the 4X4 screen display from the Dahua NVR will use almost 75%, WEBSERVICE or PSS.

[RickyGee 0]

Maybe it would be more helpful if I was more precise with my questions, so let me give it a try;

 

1) Is the Dahua webrec.cab designed to run in a 64bit version of IE9? (Y/N)

2) Is the Dahua PSS (version 4.06.xx) designed to run on a 64 bit system? (Y/N)

3) Is the Dahua video stream out of the network port in .DAV format? (Y/N)

4) Is the Dahua .DAV player designed to run on a 64bit system? (Y/N)

5) Is there a better fix for the DPI skin display issues with the PSS software than Rory's DPIfix.exe?

 

Thanks guys. I really appreciate your comments. -Rick

[RickyGee 0]

2.2Ghz dual core , show 4*1080P the real stream, the cpu is not good , if u can use the core i7 , the 4*1080P show will be very fluent , the percentage of CPU will be very low .

I don't think that is an option for my laptop. Besides, I can't imagine Dahua creating PSS software that is supposed to display as many as 32 cameras from multiple networks simultaneously, requiring a super computer just to run. I've seen YouTube videos demonstrating PSS that appear to be displayed on typical setups, not something special.

 

If I can live stream 1080p off the internet and my CPU is only running at 30-40%, then something has to be wrong to have just one camera causing it to go to 75%.

[MaxIcon 0]

The HP Pavilion D7 Entertainment PC has an AMD Turion X2 dual-core mobile RM75 2.2Ghz, and 4GB RAM, 64bit.

 

The Turion Mobile RM-75 gets a Passmark benchmark of 1131. This is not very powerful by today' standards, and I'd expect it to struggle with multiple 1080p cameras, especially at high frame rates.

 

My i3-540 benches at 2659, and handles 6 cameras, 6 MP total, 10 fps, using Blue Iris. When just viewing, it runs 60% CPU, and when 3 cams are recording at once, it jumps to 85-90%. Adding one more 1 MP cam causes it to max out and bog down during recording.

 

My i5-3570k benches at 7127, and handles 8 cams at 10 MP without any issues and with room for one or two more, using the same settings as above.

 

Benchmarks aren't completely reliable performance indicators, but it looks like the Turion is pretty underpowered for hi-res IP cams.

[RickyGee 0]

The HP Pavilion D7 Entertainment PC has an AMD Turion X2 dual-core mobile RM75 2.2Ghz, and 4GB RAM, 64bit.

 

The Turion Mobile RM-75 gets a Passmark benchmark of 1131. This is not very powerful by today' standards, and I'd expect it to struggle with multiple 1080p cameras, especially at high frame rates.

 

My i3-540 benches at 2659, and handles 6 cameras, 6 MP total, 10 fps, using Blue Iris. When just viewing, it runs 60% CPU, and when 3 cams are recording at once, it jumps to 85-90%. Adding one more 1 MP cam causes it to max out and bog down during recording.

 

My i5-3570k benches at 7127, and handles 8 cams at 10 MP without any issues and with room for one or two more, using the same settings as above.

 

Benchmarks aren't completely reliable performance indicators, but it looks like the Turion is pretty underpowered for hi-res IP cams.

Wow, thanks. Excellent info, very helpful. I'm going to have to rethink my approach to this project since my friend's PCs are probably in the same league as this one and there is no budget to buy new computers...we blew it all on the cameras and recorders...

[RickyGee 0]

I am getting a brief prompt that I cannot decipher. It was so brief and awkwardly written that I had to take a screenprint just to read it. Anyone guess what this means?

 

"Prompt. decode ability is pool:the engrossments of CPU and memory of PSS are too larger" (SIC)

 

I'd post a copy of the screenprint, but I haven't figured out how to do that on this forum yet. -Rick

[Kawboy12R 0]

If CPU bang for the buck is an issue here's an interesting chart. I'm not an AMD fanboy by any means (mostly for high heat and motherboard/chipset reasons) but the AMD 8 core CPUs give a lot of bang for the buck. Not sure how effectively Dahua software uses AMD CPUs though. Lots of stuff is optimized for Intel so real-world results might not match CPU charts from synthetic benchmarks.

[dexterash 0]

Maybe it would be more helpful if I was more precise with my questions, so let me give it a try;

 

1) Is the Dahua webrec.cab designed to run in a 64bit version of IE9? (Y/N)

2) Is the Dahua PSS (version 4.06.xx) designed to run on a 64 bit system? (Y/N)

3) Is the Dahua video stream out of the network port in .DAV format? (Y/N)

4) Is the Dahua .DAV player designed to run on a 64bit system? (Y/N)

5) Is there a better fix for the DPI skin display issues with the PSS software than Rory's DPIfix.exe?

 

Thanks guys. I really appreciate your comments. -Rick

 

1)Can be run on any version, but it's best to be installed on 32 version using admin rights

2)Can be run

1+2- they are not designed for a 64 arch; they will not run on an 64-only system; they rely on Windows compatibility to run them in 32 mode

3)yes and no; DAV is a file format with a header containing parts of that stream

4)same as 1,2...

 

As an overall, these systems are not designed to harnest the power of the GPU (most modern movie players do that), so they rely on CPU (as in "software decoding").

 

If you wonder why, I can tell you that there are dedicated solutions to decode&display the stream - one of them is your NVR. Also, the whole system can function and can be used with no PCs at all, even if you scale up the system. Doing this using only dedicated hardware makes a robust system. Solutions are provided, as an alternative, for PCs(like PSS)&other devices(like mobile devices), but that doesn't make them a primary device/robust device.

[buellwinkle 0]

I don't know how much of a bargain it is when there's i7-3770 processor desktops for about $650 and you really don't see that many high end AMD servers on sale. Sure, the chip costs are less but I don't believe the AMD has the video built in where the Intel has the HD4000 video built in.

[Kawboy12R 0]

True, if you're going with built-in video AMD is very slightly less of a bargain but considering you can get a motherboard on Newegg right now that INCLUDES built-in video for $40 so the point is moot. I'm just saying that it's possible to upgrade an existing PC with motherboard, CPU that'll play with i7s and not be ashamed, and some RAM for under $250, certainly well under $300, which is well under the cost of just an i7 processor. That assumes that the existing PSU can provide the juice needed for one of the power-hungry AMDs.

 

Again, I'm not an AMD fan (never bought one) but why not if the up-front upgrade cost of an i7 box is scaring them off?

[RickyGee 0]

Maybe it would be more helpful if I was more precise with my questions, so let me give it a try;

 

1) Is the Dahua webrec.cab designed to run in a 64bit version of IE9? (Y/N)

2) Is the Dahua PSS (version 4.06.xx) designed to run on a 64 bit system? (Y/N)

3) Is the Dahua video stream out of the network port in .DAV format? (Y/N)

4) Is the Dahua .DAV player designed to run on a 64bit system? (Y/N)

5) Is there a better fix for the DPI skin display issues with the PSS software than Rory's DPIfix.exe?

 

Thanks guys. I really appreciate your comments. -Rick

 

1)Can be run on any version, but it's best to be installed on 32 version using admin rights

2)Can be run

1+2- they are not designed for a 64 arch; they will not run on an 64-only system; they rely on Windows compatibility to run them in 32 mode

3)yes and no; DAV is a file format with a header containing parts of that stream

4)same as 1,2...

 

As an overall, these systems are not designed to harnest the power of the GPU (most modern movie players do that), so they rely on CPU (as in "software decoding").

 

If you wonder why, I can tell you that there are dedicated solutions to decode&display the stream - one of them is your NVR. Also, the whole system can function and can be used with no PCs at all, even if you scale up the system. Doing this using only dedicated hardware makes a robust system. Solutions are provided, as an alternative, for PCs(like PSS)&other devices(like mobile devices), but that doesn't make them a primary device/robust device.

Thanks Dex. As always, your response is very much appreciated. Now I understand. I thought (wrongly) that the video would be handled by the GPU so the saturation made no sense. Now it does.

 

Unfortunatly, that means my whole concept for this project is toast... the plan was for primary access and control to occur through the network connection and this equipment apparently can't be used that way, at least not without acquiring some much more powerful PCs than are currently available, and then I have my doubts. ActiveX controls, 32 bit apps, 32 bit IE only limitations, and the latest CPU technology just seems like a mismatch from the outset. I've never been so frustrated trying to get stuff to work.

 

Last night, I tried to connect a camera directly to the PC with the ConfigTool. It worked once before, but it failed this time. I'm getting APPCRASH messages that webrec.ocx v 3.1.0.3 is faulting (DHsecurityCntrl) and the WEBSERVICE hangs. I believe a good, stiff drink may be in order...

[dexterash 0]

Have you tried the latest version of PSS(available @DAHUA's site)?

[RickyGee 0]

Have you tried the latest version of PSS(available @DAHUA's site)?

Yes, that's the V4.06.06. The CD came with V4.06 from Jan12, and the latest version on the DH site is Jan13, but BahamaSecurity shows a V4.06.08 that is not listed on the DH site, and I didn't try that. I did have to use Rory's DPIfix.exe to enable access to all the control buttons in the windows in PSS (like the device configuration screen, which wouldn't display the OK button at the bottom,,,) even in the V4.06.06.

[MaxIcon 0]

If CPU bang for the buck is an issue here's an interesting chart. I'm not an AMD fanboy by any means (mostly for high heat and motherboard/chipset reasons) but the AMD 8 core CPUs give a lot of bang for the buck. Not sure how effectively Dahua software uses AMD CPUs though. Lots of stuff is optimized for Intel so real-world results might not match CPU charts from synthetic benchmarks.

 

Whether the AMD 8 core and Intel i7 chips give as much extra as their benchmarks imply depends on whether the software can use all 8 cores or 8 threads, respectively.

 

The AMD chips blow away the Intel chips on a synthetic benchmark/dollar basis, but if you check the real-life benchmarks, comparing things like games, office apps, video encoding, etc, there's a huge dependence on whether the software uses all the cores. Single to 4 thread tasks tend to favor Intel's more efficient architecture.

 

The other issue some people worry about is power usage, as you mentioned, which is related to CPU usage. AMD chips typically have a higher total power design (roughly 30% higher in the current high-end chips, I think), so if the systems run at the same CPU %, the AMD chip will consume more power. If the AMD chip runs less CPU % for the same camera setup, the total system may use less power, even though the AMD chip has a higher max power usage.

[RickyGee 0]

FINALLY!! I have one problem resolved. The Dahua ConfigTool stopped working and wouldn’t display any video with a camera directly connected (via POE switch) to the laptop. It also crashed and hung with a webrec.ocx failure APPCRASH notice.

 

After much fussing, I got a clean install of IE9 V9.0.8112.16421 native 32bit browser. Then I had to install not one, not two, not three, but FOUR activeX controls. SurveillanceCtrl was installed into the Webrec/Single folder and DHsurveillanceCtrl, RealVideoCtrl, and PlayBackCtrl were installed into the Webrec/Torch folder.

 

Then, even though I am the only user on this PC and have admin rights to everything, I had to open the browser by right clicking and choosing “Run as administrator”.

 

After jumping through all these hoops, the ConfigTool is working perfectly and I can see and adjust the camera settings, and aim the thing during install.

 

Now I need to figure out why the Veracity Pinpoint adaptor I bought so that I could use by laptop to aim and adjust the cameras at install isn’t working… It would be nice if at least ONE thing would work right out of the box… it appears the Pinpoint adopts a crossover technique and I’ll have to make a crossover patch cable to undue that, in order for it to work.

 

Now, on to the network setup. Thanks to everyone for the good discussion, the helpful tips and information. Hopefully this thread will help others. -Rick

 

Update - I had to install yet another, #5, ActiveX control ComDlg into the Webrec/Torch folder. I'm glad this system will never be connected to the internet. That's a lot of hacker vulnerability.

 

Also, the Veracity Pinpoint required a crossover patch cable, to reverse the built-in crossover. So now that's working....

 

Now I have to find a fix for the fact that the IP setting I set the camera to (and deselect DHCP) is overridden by the NVR once I hook it up to the NVR. I assigned a class 3 IP (192.168.1.xx) but the NVR automatically overrides this setting and assigns a class 1 IP (10.1.1.xx). It does not appear to be any way to turn off the DHCP function in the NVR, as I have already deselected DHCP and given the NVR a static IP in the class 3 range (192.168.1.xx). I used the configTool to assign a static IP to all the cameras before connecting them to the NVR and that turned out to be a waste of time...

Edited April 19, 2013 by Guest

[RickyGee 0]

I don't know how much of a bargain it is when there's i7-3770 processor desktops for about $650 and you really don't see that many high end AMD servers on sale. Sure, the chip costs are less but I don't believe the AMD has the video built in where the Intel has the HD4000 video built in.

It appears that the Dahua firmware and software does not utilize hyperthreading and is running in only a single core. That would explain the requirement for a 32bit architechture for it to run.

 

It would also explain why my dual core processor is saturated so easily; rather than use the graphics card, the software is using 1/2 of my CPU to do all the decoding and rendering. It is incapable of using multicore processors.

 

While I'm amazed at this poor software engineering approach taken by Dahua, it is what it is, and I'm stuck with it. But your comment about the Intel chip having HD4000 video built in caught my attention. Did you mean that the Intel motherboard has the video built in, or is the i7-3770 built to handle this single core video load by itself?

 

I have an old desktop I built with as ASUS P4C 32 bit motherboard and a P5 3.2Ghz single core CPU that I retired years ago that I'm thinking may run this dahua stuff better that the new gear.

 

Edit: My comments here are totally wrong. See the posts below. I owe an apology to the Dahua software engineers for this error. They have much work to do to improve their product in other areas (like the Dpi fix), but they do utilize multi-core technology. And the fact that they included an automatic toggle between extra stream and main (without mentioning it...) is actually really cool, and saved this project.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Guest

[RickyGee 0]

If CPU bang for the buck is an issue here's an interesting chart. I'm not an AMD fanboy by any means (mostly for high heat and motherboard/chipset reasons) but the AMD 8 core CPUs give a lot of bang for the buck. Not sure how effectively Dahua software uses AMD CPUs though. Lots of stuff is optimized for Intel so real-world results might not match CPU charts from synthetic benchmarks.

 

Whether the AMD 8 core and Intel i7 chips give as much extra as their benchmarks imply depends on whether the software can use all 8 cores or 8 threads, respectively.

 

The AMD chips blow away the Intel chips on a synthetic benchmark/dollar basis, but if you check the real-life benchmarks, comparing things like games, office apps, video encoding, etc, there's a huge dependence on whether the software uses all the cores. Single to 4 thread tasks tend to favor Intel's more efficient architecture.

 

The other issue some people worry about is power usage, as you mentioned, which is related to CPU usage. AMD chips typically have a higher total power design (roughly 30% higher in the current high-end chips, I think), so if the systems run at the same CPU %, the AMD chip will consume more power. If the AMD chip runs less CPU % for the same camera setup, the total system may use less power, even though the AMD chip has a higher max power usage.

Yeah, it looks like the Dahua Firmware/Software does not use muti threading and runs in just a single core, despite the multiple cores available, either physical or virtual.

 

I've always used Intel chips until this laptop, my first, came along. My last desktop build (10 yrs ago) had a crack baby hybrid Gigabyte MB that died (my only, ever, MB failure...) and I was looking at a full out new build with peripherals, or this laptop which turned out to be a good deal and pretty versatile.

[dexterash 0]

I've tested it now. As you can see, it's multithread (at least, equal CPU usage when started to decode)

 

Streams are from 2 remote MP Speed Domes, 1 remote MP 3200 and some channels of a D1 DVR.

 

System I've used: Dell XPS430 with Q8300 CPU (C2Q@2.5), 6 GB RAM, ATI RADEON HD2600PRO and Win 7 64 Ultimate.