Pelco cameras Bandwidth hogs

[ddp1960 0]

I have several Pelco IP cameras, IDE20DN, IM10C10, IXE20DN.

Cameras upgraded to latest firmware, running DS Control point 7.4.363 on a P9700 Laptop for testing. CPU usage hits 80-90%+ with just 3 cameras.

I set these up on a separate Gigabit HP Switch so it doesn't choke the rest of our network for now. But it looks like it is only pushing about 25Mb/s so it's not that intensive.

 

We are having trouble getting the recoding to work properly. the IM10 seems to pick up most motion, the others rarely record, and will stop before someone goes through the door, so it doesn't record them entering.

 

Looking for some tips on how to set this up to record properly.

Can someone provide a step by step process to set this up properly?

 

Also if there is a better software, I don't mind paying if it is stable and more feature rich. Control point doesn't seem to clearly show when there is recorded video in the timeline so if you want to just review motion footage for the day it is hard to determine.

 

Are these cameras any good or are they junk, can't seem to find a lot of user tips and information on using these.

 

Any comments and ideas appreciated.

Thanks

[buellwinkle 0]

The problem with most NVR software is that the software handles everything and with h.264, it can use a lot of CPU cycles to decode the cameras, analyze for motion detection and recode to write video out. Running something like that on a P9700 core 2 duo, well that's not going to happen. Start thinking of getting a new PC with the new Haswell i5 or i7 processors or maybe pick up an old Ivy Bridge processor PC with an i5 or i7, seriously.

 

Alternatively you can go with more efficient software like Exacq which should support your cameras.

 

As for it not recording the event from the start you have to understand a little about how the buggers work. First what happens is video motion detection is done over time, say motion that occurs for over a few frames or what they call make time, so instantly you lose the first few frames. Next it's H.264, so it has to start on an I-frame or key frame, so on most cameras this is set to 1-2 seconds, so 30fps camera may have the I-frame set to 30 or 60. So depends on how you catch it, you could lose as much as second or two. So you see how you can easily lose the most critical portion of your video as the subject walks through your field of vision. But most NVRs or NVR software allows you to setup a pre-event recording and I usually set it to the max it allows, like 2 to 5 seconds. There also settings for how long to record when motion stops before it's re-triggered. I can't imagine that Pelco would leave this out of their software, just have to RTFM.

 

As for bandwidth, seems high, but with h.264, 2MP cameras, you should set them for 4-6Mbps at most, so 3 should be 12-18Mbps. The 1.3MP indoor dome, maybe set that for 3-4Mbps.