cglaeser

Any information on pricing and availability?

Do you have a large number of programs that are starting on login? If so, it could take 5 minutes for everything to settle down. Next time, give it a very long time before killing anything and see if it eventually starts.

Any comments or video to share?

Try setting it to Medium. This setting has no affect on the recorded video. The purposed of hi res cameras is to record forensic detail.

What is ClientSettings->Display->ChangeDisplayQuality set too?

The Avigilon server is extremely lightweight. One of my sites had 11 cameras (8 analog and 3 megapixel IP) running on a cheap Atom-based Zortac with no problems. After several years of continuous operation the cheap disk drive started to fail. If I had used an enterprise grade disk drive, it would still be running just fine. My suggestion is to use a dedicated server.

Chrome is my current browser of choice, but I could not get it to work with another Hikvision camera model. IE worked fine. You might give it a try.

My preference is to statically assign virtually everything on my LAN including cameras, servers, printers, etc. I leave DHCP enabled for visitors.

My preference is to use a PoE that is separate from the NVR. I know one installer in our area with many years of experience who uses a separate 24v supply. He runs both power and Cat5 to each camera. He does this because he got tired of replacing failed PoE switches. I'm guessing the PoE switches are more reliable today. For your own system, a separate PoE switch should do fine.

You may also want to consider a multiport POE injector. They are inexpensive and allow you to choose any switch. I recently purchased this 12 port injector to use with my 24 port switch and I'm pleased with the price and performance. http://tinyurl.com/ouonkh4

DNA match of dog poop is quite common and relatively inexpensive. These services are available to catch dog owners who don't clean up after their pets. It could easily be done for humans as well. You would still need a cheek swab, but cost is not an issue.

Any suggestions on where to purchase a Hikvision Turret 3MP camera with 12mm lens? Best, Christopher

I monitor approximately twenty cameras on four Avigilon servers. One server is on my LAN and the other three servers are are remote locations. Reviewing video of the server attached to the LAN is always incredibly fast. Sometimes, reviewing video of the servers attached via the internet are surprisingly fast, almost instant, while at other times the spinning wheel continues to spin for 10 seconds or more. Is there a way to isolate the reason for the drastic slowdown? My download speed is 120 Mbps and the upload speed of the other servers is varies from 2.5 to 5 Mbps.

Today I installed a new Avigilon 1.3MP Lightcatcher dome. The install went well but the camera is dropping data blocks within the H.264 frames. I've tried various settings from 8 fps to 15 fps, and the Keyframe Interval from as low as 2 to as high as 30 and many settings in between. The Avigilon server is standalone HP Windows 7 64 bit i5 4 GB ram desktop with three cameras. The cameras are two 1.3 MP and one analog connected to an Axis video encoder. The two cameras are connected to a Netgear 10/100 POE switch and the switch is connected to an HP gigabit switch for the LAN. Any suggestions on how to track down the bottleneck? Best, Christopher

The 12 Port gigabit power injector arrived today. It's a nice addition to my HP ProCurve 24 port non blocking gigabit switch. Now, I can easily add POE to any port on the switch. Neither device has a fan which is another requirement for me. Thus far, there have not been any dropped data blocks, confirming that the Netgear POE switch was either defective or could not keep up.

Thanks, will do. I have a 24 port non blocking HP gigabit switch for my LAN. It appears there are problems with the Netgear 10/100 POE switch, so I'm thinking of getting a rackmount POE injector and patch it to the HP switch as needed. This one looks good http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EQBR7M8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2SZCFXJT89WME Comments?

Alex connected via Team Viewer and we disconnected the other camera on the POE switch. It is an aging Axis 1.3 MP MJPEG that was generating 15 Mbps. The Avigilon 1.3 MP began working just fine. Appears to be a problem with the Netgear 10/100 POE switch. Will purchase a POE injector and test.

Sent via TV chat.

The cable is a 100' Cat 5e patch cable that I purchased already terminated. I also connected the camera to different 50' Cat 5e patch cable and the problem was still present. I tried several different ports on the 10/100 POE switch and the problem did not improve. Do you suppose it could be a defective switch? I could purchase a POE injector to bypass the POE switch and see if that fixes the problem.

I cranked up the frame rate on the 5 MP to 13 fps and dropped the max bandwidth to 4 Mbps. The 5 MP handled it just fine. I expect there was less forensic detail, but somehow the 5 MP managed to squeeze 13 fps into 4 Mbps without dropping any data blocks within a frame.

Thanks, I moved the server to the 10/100 POE switch with the camera and that did not fix it. Here are two things I noticed. 1. The gain on this 1.3MP Lightcatcher camera can be set considerably higher than other Avigilon cameras. The default is 60 db, whereas the maximum gain on other Aviligon cameras is 36 db. I reduced the gain from the default 60 db to 36 db. That reduced the bandwidth and reduced the problem at night. But it did not eliminate the problem. 2. The bandwidth of this camera seems excessive when compared to 5 MP cameras from the same manufacturer. Here are the settings: 5 MP, H.264, max resolution, 7 fps, 14 keyframe interval, gain 36 db 1.3 MP, H.264, max resolution, 8 fps (can't set it to 7 fps), 16 keyframe interval, gain 36 db The current bandwidth of the 5 MP is 8.8 Mbps and the 1.3 MP is 7.9 Mbps. The scenes are not the same but both have grass and leaves that can increase bandwidth due to detail. The max bandwidth setting of the Aviligon cameras is 12 Mbps. I'm guessing the 1.3 MP Lightcatcher is sometimes hitting that limit. Two questions: 1. Does the Mbps of the 1.3 MP camera seem high compared to the 5 MP camera with similar settings? 2. If an Avigilon camera exceeds the max Mbps, how does it handle this situation. Just it just drop some of the data blocks within a frame, or is there a more graceful way of handling this? I will test this on a 5 MP camera by reducing the max Mbps and see what happens.

The only devices connected to the router at that remote location is the server and the cameras. There are no other devices on the network.

Avigilon 5 MP domes and bullets. One example: 2592 x 1944, 8.4 Mbps Not sure I understand the question, but I'll try and answer. There are four servers in four locations. The servers are dedicated to running Avigilon. The cameras at each location are connected to the server via a local router. I am connecting to the servers via my desktop and client. One of the servers is on my LAN and it is always fast. My client connects to the other servers via WAN. One of the remote locations is our community clubhouse. The only computer on that LAN is the Avigilon server, and nothing else at that location is connected to the internet. Let me be more specific about the task that seems much too slow. I am not complaining about delays when viewing cameras in live mode or recorded playback. Specifically, I am referring to viewing a single image. For example, when I am reading license plates, there is a series of red motion bars on the timeline that indicate when a vehicle passes the camera. To read a plate, all I have to do is click in the middle of the red motion bar. There are times when I can click, click, click in the center of successive red motion bars and the images appear almost instantly. There are other times when I click in the middle of the red motion bar and there can be seconds of pause after each click while the client attempts to retrieve the next image. Sometimes when I drag the cursor across a camera's timeline on a remote server, images appear so fast it's almost magical. Other times, I just click at a single location on the timeline to view a single image and the spinning wheel appears for seconds. I don't expect an 8.2 Mbps stream to fit through a 2.5 Mbps pipe, but a single image is not that much data, and clearly it works well sometimes. I have run speedtest many times on the servers to see if there are any issues with upload speed, but that seems very stable. Any ideas why downloading a single image could sometimes download instantly and other times generate a spinning wheel lasting 3 to 10 seconds? Best, Christopher

Any idea why sometimes it is snappy and other times it is not? There are times when it will display full res images almost instantly when I move the cursor on the timeline. Other times, it takes many seconds, even for the smaller low res image.

Thanks. I seem to recall you mentioned that once before. Good to know.