Couple questions mostly about remote viewing

[Wallboy 0]

Hi, I'm going to be installing a surveillance system for our local business and after a little bit of research I think I will be going for an IP Based system, most likely Camera/NVR bundled system and have a few questions, mostly regarding remote viewing capabilities. The Budget will be around $1000 initially and to have an option to add more cameras if needed. We were thinking of starting with a 4 camera system with a 8 channel NVR as 8 cameras is more than we probably would ever need. Was mostly reading about the Lorex/Swann/Q-See systems.

 

After looking at some of the more popular mentioned systems mentioned here on the forum and reading some of the manuals for each system. I have a few questions regarding the remote viewing capabilities.

 

We would like to be able to view the system remotely from both our mobiles and PC. It seems most systems have Apps or come with them for remote viewing, but some systems have limited remote viewing capability from say a PC. Some seem to only have software that support MAC or certain browsers (Internet Explorer eww). The article I read about remote viewing an IP camera on networkcameracritic's website seems to be saying that it doesn't matter and that any browser can access a camera remotely from entering the IP of the camera into the browser. So I'm guessing the only point of software for remote viewing is a nice interface between all the cameras, but is unnecessary for single camera viewing?

 

Also which stream is it viewing? The main stream or the substream? The way I understand it is that mainstream is the stream you'll always be seeing on the local network of the NVR, and the substream is for remote mobile/PC viewing. However if I was on a PC on the local network and accessed the camera via it's IP address in an browser, would I only be able to see the substream? Is the mainstream only viewable from the HDMI/VGA ports on the NVR itself? We plan only to use these ports for initial setup, then would like to use LAN to access the mainstream of all the cameras from a local PC on the network.

 

Another thing we would like is full control over resolution/framerate/bitrate of the substream. It seems most software that comes with these systems only support up to CIF resolution. Not sure why they would do this if the internet connection upload is very good on the IP Camera network. Would be nice to see a good quality image from home on a PC and not some low res stream.

 

Do most of you guys use third party software to get passed these limitations? If anyone with a Lorex/Swann/Q-See system could chime in about some of my questions, it would be appreciated,

 

Thanks.

[msecure 0]

Hi, I'm going to be installing a surveillance system for our local business and after a little bit of research I think I will be going for an IP Based system, most likely Camera/NVR bundled system and have a few questions, mostly regarding remote viewing capabilities. The Budget will be around $1000 initially and to have an option to add more cameras if needed. We were thinking of starting with a 4 camera system with a 8 channel NVR as 8 cameras is more than we probably would ever need. Was mostly reading about the Lorex/Swann/Q-See systems.

 

After looking at some of the more popular mentioned systems mentioned here on the forum and reading some of the manuals for each system. I have a few questions regarding the remote viewing capabilities.

 

We would like to be able to view the system remotely from both our mobiles and PC. It seems most systems have Apps or come with them for remote viewing, but some systems have limited remote viewing capability from say a PC. Some seem to only have software that support MAC or certain browsers (Internet Explorer eww). The article I read about remote viewing an IP camera on networkcameracritic's website seems to be saying that it doesn't matter and that any browser can access a camera remotely from entering the IP of the camera into the browser. So I'm guessing the only point of software for remote viewing is a nice interface between all the cameras, but is unnecessary for single camera viewing?

 

Also which stream is it viewing? The main stream or the substream? The way I understand it is that mainstream is the stream you'll always be seeing on the local network of the NVR, and the substream is for remote mobile/PC viewing. However if I was on a PC on the local network and accessed the camera via it's IP address in an browser, would I only be able to see the substream? Is the mainstream only viewable from the HDMI/VGA ports on the NVR itself? We plan only to use these ports for initial setup, then would like to use LAN to access the mainstream of all the cameras from a local PC on the network.

 

Another thing we would like is full control over resolution/framerate/bitrate of the substream. It seems most software that comes with these systems only support up to CIF resolution. Not sure why they would do this if the internet connection upload is very good on the IP Camera network. Would be nice to see a good quality image from home on a PC and not some low res stream.

 

Do most of you guys use third party software to get passed these limitations? If anyone with a Lorex/Swann/Q-See system could chime in about some of my questions, it would be appreciated,

 

Thanks.

 

My sentiments exactly, with today 3G/LTE technology and full HD mobile phones & tablets, it will be a waste for us to view only SD. Luckily, I manage to find an SDI DVR that allows me to view/playback full HD with either PC/phone/tablet. In fact 95% of the settings can even be done on a mobile. However, if bandwith is no good the video will be pixelised but that is expected. As for the rest of the NVR that is either Dahua/HIK OEM, you can actually select the mainstream when using a PC via browser or their CMS software. In fact I notice Dahua latest 960H DVR has gotten smart with their IE view, when viewing multiple channels, it is on sub-stream, only when you switch to single channel it will display the mainstream. Most probably their NVR will adopt this feature or maybe the latest firmware update may already have this feature.

[Securame 0]

You can usually watch main or/and substream, from both LAN or internet. When watching remotely you will be limited to the uppload bandwidth your internet connection has.

 

A 1920x1080 IP camera might have a bitrate of maybe 4-8mbps on the main stream (1080p), and maybe 256-512kbps on the substream (probably D1). You can choose any time what stream you want to watch. Watching the main stream from a smartphone is usually a waste. But, if you want, of course you can watch the main streams from anywhere, keeping in mind of course that if you want to watch the main stream of 4 cameras, and they are configured with a 8mbps main stream, you would need 32mbps of upload bandwidth.

 

An internet connection is no different than a network connection, just slower, and more expensive.

[atari37 0]

"The article I read about remote viewing an IP camera on networkcameracritic's website seems to be saying that it doesn't matter and that any browser can access a camera remotely from entering the IP of the camera into the browser."

 

The above statement is FALSE. Not all IP cameras will work in any browser.

 

 

"Another thing we would like is full control over resolution/framerate/bitrate of the substream. It seems most software that comes with these systems only support up to CIF resolution. Not sure why they would do this if the internet connection upload is very good on the IP Camera network. Would be nice to see a good quality image from home on a PC and not some low res stream."

 

I have a Q-See NVR and two Hikvision cameras (makers of Swann and Lorex) and I can do everything you're asking about with the built-in software on each individual cameras (web interface), the software on the NVR itself or the web interface, plus the 3rd party software (PSS) that shipped with my NVR. In other words, you have a lot of options here.

 

I will tell you this though, if you're new to all this, I'd consider buying the same brand NVR and Cameras to make configuration straight forward. I had to do some tweaking to get my cameras to play nice with the NVR.

[Wallboy 0]

You can usually watch main or/and substream, from both LAN or internet. When watching remotely you will be limited to the uppload bandwidth your internet connection has.

 

A 1920x1080 IP camera might have a bitrate of maybe 4-8mbps on the main stream (1080p), and maybe 256-512kbps on the substream (probably D1). You can choose any time what stream you want to watch. Watching the main stream from a smartphone is usually a waste. But, if you want, of course you can watch the main streams from anywhere, keeping in mind of course that if you want to watch the main stream of 4 cameras, and they are configured with a 8mbps main stream, you would need 32mbps of upload bandwidth.

 

An internet connection is no different than a network connection, just slower, and more expensive.

 

Right, but why such a large gap between the mainstream and substream quality? The substream should be able to be set as high as you would like up to the mainstream settings if wanted. I understand how QCIF/CIF resolution for smartphones is all you would ever need. But at home on a remote PC, it would be nice to have at least a 720p @ ~2 megabit view for each camera. As of right now, the internet connection upload speed on the NVR wouldn't be able to handle the mainstream bandwidth. Soon however, fiber is going to be available at the business location which then we would have no problem viewing mainstream from remote.

 

I have a Q-See NVR and two Hikvision cameras (makers of Swann and Lorex) and I can do everything you're asking about with the built-in software on each individual cameras (web interface), the software on the NVR itself or the web interface, plus the 3rd party software (PSS) that shipped with my NVR. In other words, you have a lot of options here.

 

I will tell you this though, if you're new to all this, I'd consider buying the same brand NVR and Cameras to make configuration straight forward. I had to do some tweaking to get my cameras to play nice with the NVR.

 

In the Q-See QC Series NVR manual, on page 26, it says: "If you are experiencing any performance issues in your remote or mobile viewing, adjust the settings in the Extra Stream portion of the Camera Setting window. Most QC-series DVRs will only allow the use of the smaller QCIF (Quarter CIF) resolution format for this second stream."

 

This is what had me concerned and why I made this thread. Can you confirm that you can select higher than QCIF/CIF resolution in the camera settings for the extra stream? The PSS software you mention, does it also have substream quality settings? Seems like it wouldn't as the NVR and software doing the substream encoding would have the final say on quality. Unless PSS is overriding something.

[atari37 0]

Let's see if I follow your question. Are you trying to confirm that you can change the sub-stream quality on the NVR's web interface or Q-See's software interface?

 

If so, then the answer is yes. Take a look at the attached screenshots. Before attaching the my Hikvision cameras to my Q-See NVR, I attached them to my LAN and enabled D1 for the sub-stream and enabled 3MP on the main stream before attaching them to the NVR. From there, I am able to change the quality of the sub-stream from the NVR's software, web interface and the PSS software.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Guest

[Wallboy 0]

So the highest substream quality is only 480p (D1) then? This limit is something I don't get. Why does it not let you pick the full res of the camera or at least 1.3M. It doesn't seem like it would be a technical limitation of the encoder in NVRs, as they already can encode multiple 1080p channels. It seems these software programmers assume that the only device using a substream are mobile devices.

 

We plan on getting 1080p cameras, and just want the substream quality to be at least 720p for remote viewing, not SD resolution.

 

Is there any third party software that works with these bundled camera/NVR systems that doesn't constrain you to SD quality substreams?

[luckyfella 0]

The sub stream is really meant for mobile devices which are using cellular service so if the resolution is too high, your

not going to see anyone moving. There will be too much data for the resolution rather than updating the image. On another

note, why even bother having dual streaming if they both are able to reach max resolution? That would be a waste of programming

software. And on any mobile device, ipad, iphone, samsung galaxy, adroid tablet, etc, the resolution of D1 is absolutely stunning.

That's my .02

[atari37 0]

Sub stream is meant for low bandwidth users. Someone on a slow connection will be able to use the low bandwidth to stream and users with lots of bandwidth will be able to use the main stream. I use the main stream when I remotely connect because I have the bandwidth to do so. Why not just connect to the main stream and forget about the sub stream if you want something better than D1? Are you only planning on connecting remotely to the NVR from a cell phone or tablet?

 

Secondly, the D1 resolution for the sub stream is a limitation of the IP camera itself and not the NVR.

[Wallboy 0]

Because from what I understand the mainstream quality is meant for local viewing only (5-8 megabit PER camera). So it is a lot of bandwidth for multiple camera remote viewing at the moment. Why is there no option inbetween these two extremes of low res/bitrate and high bitrate remote viewing. The only option I see is to really lower the bitrate of the mainstream to the point where the quality is acceptable from remote viewing off a PC.

[atari37 0]

For what it's worth the D1 resolution I get on my cell 4.7" phone is pretty good. On the computer (remotely), I always use the main stream.

[ak357 0]

So the highest substream quality is only 480p (D1) then? This limit is something I don't get. Why does it not let you pick the full res of the camera or at least 1.3M. It doesn't seem like it would be a technical limitation of the encoder in NVRs, as they already can encode multiple 1080p channels. It seems these software programmers assume that the only device using a substream are mobile devices.

 

We plan on getting 1080p cameras, and just want the substream quality to be at least 720p for remote viewing, not SD resolution.

 

Is there any third party software that works with these bundled camera/NVR systems that doesn't constrain you to SD quality substreams?

What is screen resolution of your Smart phone ?

[Wallboy 0]

I understand D1 is more than enough for smartphones, we are more interested in remote viewing from a PC off a monitor that is at least able to see a 720p substream of the full 1080p mainstream. Viewing the mainstream remotely is a bit too much upload bandwidth on the current network, but definately enough for 720p@~2 megabit that we would like to have the substream set to.

[atari37 0]

You might be able to throttle the network traffic based on ports or IP.

[ak357 0]

I understand D1 is more than enough for smartphones, we are more interested in remote viewing from a PC off a monitor that is at least able to see a 720p substream of the full 1080p mainstream. Viewing the mainstream remotely is a bit too much upload bandwidth on the current network, but definately enough for 720p@~2 megabit that we would like to have the substream set to.

Then just for fun check Avigilon HDSM (High Definition Stream Management )

see if u like it

[Securame 0]

Right, but why such a large gap between the mainstream and substream quality? The substream should be able to be set as high as you would like up to the mainstream settings if wanted. I understand how QCIF/CIF resolution for smartphones is all you would ever need. But at home on a remote PC, it would be nice to have at least a 720p @ ~2 megabit view for each camera. As of right now, the internet connection upload speed on the NVR wouldn't be able to handle the mainstream bandwidth. Soon however, fiber is going to be available at the business location which then we would have no problem viewing mainstream from remote.

 

There is such a gap because otherwise you (and everyone) would be paying for it with a more expensive device.

 

The point of the main stream is to be able to have a recording at the higher possible resolution/frame rate/bit rate, so whenever an event happened you will have the recording stored at the best possible quality. The point of the substream is so you can have a secondary stream on each camera that is light, so you can see it easily from somewhere else, be it a computer, tablet, smartphone, on the network or on the go.

 

Each stream needs to be encoded, analised for events, stored, streamed, etc. and that needs CPU power which the NVR must provide. And each DVR/NVR has to be dessigned so it exceeds the CPU requirements of all channels with the max settings on (so that it is always able to do encoding at the maximum resolution on all channels at the same time, analise for movement detection, detection areas, video loss, sabotage, alarms, record to hard disk, etc) and if you wanted the substrem to be a 1.3mpx video stream instead of just 0.3mpx, that would make the processing requirements higher.

 

If you really do feel the need of having a substream with as much quality as the main stream; just buy a NVR with double the channels you need, if you wanted 4 cameras, get a 8ch NVR, that way you can have each camera two times, and you can have 4 stream on each camera, with 2 of them being able to go to the max settings.

 

So the highest substream quality is only 480p (D1) then? This limit is something I don't get. Why does it not let you pick the full res of the camera or at least 1.3M. It doesn't seem like it would be a technical limitation of the encoder in NVRs, as they already can encode multiple 1080p channels. It seems these software programmers assume that the only device using a substream are mobile devices.

 

Edit: So yes, it is a technical limitation. The fact that a device can encode multiple 1080p streams doesn't mean it can encode two times those streams with the same computing power.

[Wallboy 0]

Interesting. I didn't know you could change the quality of the mainstream PER camera. Thought it was global settting for all cameras. Edit: After re-reading the manual, doh! Sure enough you can do this. I was so fixed on reading the substream sections in the manual lol. We did plan on buying an 8 channel NVR with 4 cameras initially, but I'm not exactly sure what you mean about "that way you can have each camera two times" Does this mean I hook plug each camera into TWO of the PoE ports on the NVR? How do I go from one cable from camera into two ports on the NVR? Splitter? PoE Switch?

 

"and you can have 4 stream on each camera, with 2 of them being able to go to the max settings."

 

So by 4 streams each camera, you mean the two mainstream AND substream per camera that would be available. But then you say only 2 of them can go to max settings. Don't you mean all 4? The way I would have it setup would be each camera occupying two NVR PoE ports. One being mainstream full quality for local viewing. The other being another mainstream with the quality of my choice for PC remote viewing. And that leaves 2 extra substreams per camera that could be setup for strictly mobile.

 

Do I understand this correctly?

 

Edit: In the Q-See QC series manual, it says "Please note that it is possible to load a camera which is already in use by another channel. In which case, you will have two identical channels."

 

I guess this means I don't need any extra switches or cables and can duplicate a channel right within the software?

[luckyfella 0]

I'm not sure what the issue is here? When you log in with a PC, you have the choice to view the main stream or sub stream. When you log in with your tiny cell phone using cell service rather than broadband, it uses the sub stream. Why in the world would you want to put one camera on two channels? What will that do for anyone?

[msecure 0]

Interesting. I didn't know you could change the quality of the mainstream PER camera. Thought it was global settting for all cameras. Edit: After re-reading the manual, doh! Sure enough you can do this. I was so fixed on reading the substream sections in the manual lol. We did plan on buying an 8 channel NVR with 4 cameras initially, but I'm not exactly sure what you mean about "that way you can have each camera two times" Does this mean I hook plug each camera into TWO of the PoE ports on the NVR? How do I go from one cable from camera into two ports on the NVR? Splitter? PoE Switch?

 

"and you can have 4 stream on each camera, with 2 of them being able to go to the max settings."

 

So by 4 streams each camera, you mean the two mainstream AND substream per camera that would be available. But then you say only 2 of them can go to max settings. Don't you mean all 4? The way I would have it setup would be each camera occupying two NVR PoE ports. One being mainstream full quality for local viewing. The other being another mainstream with the quality of my choice for PC remote viewing. And that leaves 2 extra substreams per camera that could be setup for strictly mobile.

 

Do I understand this correctly?

 

Edit: In the Q-See QC series manual, it says "Please note that it is possible to load a camera which is already in use by another channel. In which case, you will have two identical channels."

 

I guess this means I don't need any extra switches or cables and can duplicate a channel right within the software?

No, cannot work, once you set camera mainstream @1080p even if you duplicate that channel on another window, it's still 1080p. You cannot have another channel of the same camera@720p

[atari37 0]

I'm not sure what the issue is here? When you log in with a PC, you have the choice to view the main stream or sub stream. When you log in with your tiny cell phone using cell service rather than broadband, it uses the sub stream. Why in the world would you want to put one camera on two channels? What will that do for anyone?

 

 

If I'm following what he's after. I think he wants to use something better than the D1 resolution for the sub-stream but he doesn't want something as high as the main stream due to bandwidth.

 

Question for you Wallboy, have you actually seen a snapshot or video from the D1 sub-stream? I can post some screenshot for you to take a look at. It's not bad at all. Remember that the recording happens on the main stream and that will have the full resolution so you can always playback the recorded video if you're not sure about what you're seeing in the sub-stream.

 

One nice thing about my Q-See NVR (and I don't know if all NVR's behave this way) is that, I can playback my videos remotely right after it's recorded. So, you want to watch something in HD remotely? It's there.

[Wallboy 0]

I'm not sure what the issue is here? When you log in with a PC, you have the choice to view the main stream or sub stream. When you log in with your tiny cell phone using cell service rather than broadband, it uses the sub stream. Why in the world would you want to put one camera on two channels? What will that do for anyone?

 

Again, we're not concerned so much about smartphone remote viewing, but remote viewing from a PC. I understand you can view the mainstream from remote, but want to keep the mainstream high bitrate for good quality and local viewing. Viewing that same mainstream from a remote PC would probably exceed our current networks upload speed, especially if viewing more than one camera at once. So the only other option than would be to view the low resolution substream from a remote PC. According to MindTwist, I can duplicate each camera on it's own channel, I can set the full resolution and bitrate mainstream for local viewing and set the duplicated channel to my own custom resolution mainstream that will be more suitable for remote viewing from a PC instead of being forced to 240p/480p from the substream.

 

No, cannot work, once you set camera mainstream @1080p even if you duplicate that channel on another window, it's still 1080p. You cannot have another channel @720p

 

The quote I pulled from the Q-See QC NVR manual wasn't talking about duplicating a window, it was talking about after you initially hook up the system and are finding your cameras via IP search: "Clicking on IP Search will refresh this list. Simply click on the desired camera from the list and it will become the camera for that channel. Please note that it is possible to load a camera which is already in use by another channel. In which case, you will have two identical channels."

 

Does this not mean that when I'm finding my cameras on the NVR, I could potentially add the same camera multiple times until all channels are filled and each of those channels would have it's own mainstream encoding settings?

 

 

Question for you Wallboy, have you actually seen a snapshot or video from the D1 sub-stream? I can post some screenshot for you to take a look at. It's not bad at all. Remember that the recording happens on the main stream and that will have the full resolution so you can always playback the recorded video if you're not sure about what you're seeing in the sub-stream.

 

Yeah I have and it wouldn't be the end of the world if we are forced to only see D1 from a remote PC, but still would like at least 720p remote viewing. If you have any extra channels on your Q-See NVR, can you check in the software where you can manually add an IP of a camera, if you can add the same camera twice and have it on it's own channel so you can set a custom mainstream quality settings for it? Thanks.

[atari37 0]

I just tried this for you. As per the quote from the Q-See manual, yes, you can add the same cam to a different channel. However, the resolution will be the same for both channels.

 

This is what I did. I clicked on "device search" and both of my cameras were displayed again in the search box. I then added one of them to my list of cameras and it added it to channel five. Now on the preview page, I'm able to see the same camera twice (channel 1 and channel 5). I went into the setup and change channel 5's camera settings to 1080p without touching channel 1's config. Channel 1 was setup as 3MP. I went back to the preview page and took a snapshot of both channel 1 and channel 2. Checked the property of both images and they showed up as 1080p not 1080p for channel 5 and 3MP for channel 1.

[msecure 0]

I'm not sure what the issue is here? When you log in with a PC, you have the choice to view the main stream or sub stream. When you log in with your tiny cell phone using cell service rather than broadband, it uses the sub stream. Why in the world would you want to put one camera on two channels? What will that do for anyone?

 

 

If I'm following what he's after. I think he wants to use something better than the D1 resolution for the sub-stream but he doesn't want something as high as the main stream due to bandwidth.

 

Question for you Wallboy, have you actually seen a snapshot or video from the D1 sub-stream? I can post some screenshot for you to take a look at. It's not bad at all. Remember that the recording happens on the main stream and that will have the full resolution so you can always playback the recorded video if you're not sure about what you're seeing in the sub-stream.

 

One nice thing about my Q-See NVR (and I don't know if all NVR's behave this way) is that, I can playback my videos remotely right after it's recorded. So, you want to watch something in HD remotely? It's there.

 

Here is a screen shot of 720p mainstream compare with secondary on D1 on my 4.7" Android

And actually my mainstream is 1080p capture from a Nexus 10 which is 2560x1600

[luckyfella 0]

Have you even tried remote viewing with low bit rate on the main stream set to 1080p? I have a crap load of clients that

allow me to remote in from my laptop and I remote in using the main stream. None of my channels are maxed out on

the bit rate, and the cameras hardly look any different than if they were at highest bit rate.

[MaxIcon 0]

This is all a decision the software developers and/or marketing people make.

 

My Vivotek IP8332s will let you set multiple streams at any selection of resolution and quality that the camera supports. They have 3 streams total, as well, and the first 2 can both be full resolution if you want.

 

It's a trend on inexpensive cameras (and maybe more expensive ones; I don't have any) to have the substream limited to D1. They could change this in the firmware as long as they have enough CPU power to support it.