IP Systems and Remote Viewing

[davidc304 0]

Greetings,

 

I have a client that has several sites that currently have hardware DVRs in place. He is VERY unhappy with the quality/frames received from those units (i will not discuss the brand). He wants fluid motion, IE (a guy walks away, instead of just disappearing or chopping away) due to lost frames or whatever the issue may be, clearly due to the remote viewing. Playback is great on site, but all remote functions are choppy.

 

I was in the CCTV industry for over 8 years, so he asked me to investigate what we need to do for his issue.

 

I am sure he just needs to take some small steps and get each location setup with IP systems.

 

The locations have cable modems, with roughly a 6mb down / 1mb up, yea they screw us. According to the cable company, each location has the highest speed up/down available. Anywhere from 3-8 cameras per location. The video streaming will be 90% of the internet load, not much else is internet based for the locations.

 

For the readers, please help me review any high performing IP solution, with the remote side being the main focus. Of course, for a decent price. Hopefully, something you have exp with.

 

Thanks for viewing!!

[thewireguys 3]

Remote live viewing will always be choppy doesn't matter if you use IP or DVR. There just isn't enough bandwidth there for 15+ FPS on one camera let alone 4 8 16 cameras. What resolution is he trying to stream?

 

 

I just demo'd IC Realtime DVRs and they had full motion remotely, but I don't know what there upload speed was.

 

http://icrealtime.com/index.asp

 

I can put you in contact with a guy if you want more info.

[davidc304 0]

Hey, thanks for the response!

 

Probably 2CIF @ 3-5 FPS, MP4, we can cut it to 3 minimum. And with a range of 3-8 cameras.

 

The units he had before these, i think were 2CIF, but used H.264. He liked those units and still raves on their superior remote capabilities, but they are no longer manufactured.

 

Should I lean toward H.264 based compression?

[ChrisP 0]

David- What is the compression on the client dvrs.

 

To get better stream quality I would suggest going with a dvr with H.264 compression. It will give you better video quality while taking lower bandwidth.

 

Is your customer using a CMS to access the DVRs?

[davidc304 0]

Yes, we are using a CMS to access them. And, the old units, we did as well.

 

MPEG4 is the only selectable codec, resolution and quality are the only factors now. And all have been tweaked as much as possible to try to get a good result on the remote side, to no avail. Other than the remote side, the units work great on-site and provide great support. The remote function is our hang-up.

 

After lots of further research, i have found the "ICREALTIME" units to be very attractive. They look like a solid stand-alone solution, with many features "RAID" being one of the best i think. They have a decent reputation it seems, and they support their products with me, and the end-user, that's hard to find. I went through a demo and he left no question unanswered, and knew his product well. I think we will give 1 unit a try and see what happens, they offered me a 30 day test out. Thanks thewireguys

 

Like i said B4, i wont name the "NEW" units in place, but he loved the "OLD" units we had, and they were SecurteX Digital, which has now went out of business. They had h.264 and a slew of other compression formats. I liked them as well, and their support when i needed it was right on the money.

 

Sorry, this thread has completely went off track. I guess it can/should be moved to a different forum...

[buellwinkle 0]

Like thewireguy says, it's not the DVR or camera, it's the network. I have a Mobotix camera with it's proprietory compression which is pretty good and at 1024x768, I can get about .5 fps on a good day. If I lower that to VGA, I can get a consistant 1 fps. that's on a 3MB DSL line, and I believe the upload speed is 768 KB/sec.