Server CPU constantly at 100%

[jrothwell 0]

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2950 with 8GB of RAM, 2x Intel Xeon 5130 2.00GHz processors, Windows Server 2012 R2, PERC 5/i RAID 5 and some external HDs connected for archive.

 

I am running XProtect Essential 2017 R1 and have 8 cameras connected. The cameras are set to 30fps H.264, 1080p with bit rate of 8192, and are recording all the time. I am not concerned about storage space or network bandwidth, that's why I have them at 30fps and 1080p. When I 'save' a recording and play it back on a client PC, it plays without issue but the live view and playback from the web, mobile, and client is choppy and laggy because the CPU is maxed out. If I disable all cameras except one, there is no issue and the CPU usage is normal.

 

Please let me know if there are any settings I can tweak to improve the CPU usage.

[jrothwell 0]

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2950 with 8GB of RAM, 2x Intel Xeon 5130 2.00GHz processors, Windows Server 2012 R2, PERC 5/i RAID 5 and some external HDs connected for archive.

 

I am running XProtect Essential 2017 R1 and have 8 cameras connected. The cameras are set to 30fps H.264, 1080p with bit rate of 8192, and are recording all the time. I am not concerned about storage space or network bandwidth, that's why I have them at 30fps and 1080p. When I 'save' a recording and play it back on a client PC, it plays without issue but the live view and playback from the web, mobile, and client is choppy and laggy because the CPU is maxed out. If I disable all cameras except one, there is no issue and the CPU usage is normal.

 

Please let me know if there are any settings I can tweak to improve the CPU usage.

 

I just tried reducing the quaility from 100 to 88 for all cameras and bumping them down from 1080 to 720 as well as decreasing the framerate to 14fps.CPU is still maxed out. I disabled all cameras except 3 and that brought the CPU down to around 90% and resolved the issue I was having but I can't keep just 3 camers enabled. Is there anything else I can try?

[jrothwell 0]

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2950 with 8GB of RAM, 2x Intel Xeon 5130 2.00GHz processors, Windows Server 2012 R2, PERC 5/i RAID 5 and some external HDs connected for archive.

 

I am running XProtect Essential 2017 R1 and have 8 cameras connected. The cameras are set to 30fps H.264, 1080p with bit rate of 8192, and are recording all the time. I am not concerned about storage space or network bandwidth, that's why I have them at 30fps and 1080p. When I 'save' a recording and play it back on a client PC, it plays without issue but the live view and playback from the web, mobile, and client is choppy and laggy because the CPU is maxed out. If I disable all cameras except one, there is no issue and the CPU usage is normal.

 

Please let me know if there are any settings I can tweak to improve the CPU usage.

 

I disabled motion detection on all cameras and now the CPU usage is around 8-10% or less instead of 100% all the time. I changed the default view from all 8 cameras to 4. The CPU still gets pegged at 100% when I view from the mobile app.

[ak357 0]

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2950 with 8GB of RAM, 2x Intel Xeon 5130 2.00GHz processors, Windows Server 2012 R2, PERC 5/i RAID 5 and some external HDs connected for archive.

 

I am running XProtect Essential 2017 R1 and have 8 cameras connected. The cameras are set to 30fps H.264, 1080p with bit rate of 8192, and are recording all the time. I am not concerned about storage space or network bandwidth, that's why I have them at 30fps and 1080p. When I 'save' a recording and play it back on a client PC, it plays without issue but the live view and playback from the web, mobile, and client is choppy and laggy because the CPU is maxed out. If I disable all cameras except one, there is no issue and the CPU usage is normal.

 

Please let me know if there are any settings I can tweak to improve the CPU usage.

 

I disabled motion detection on all cameras and now the CPU usage is around 8-10% or less instead of 100% all the time. I changed the default view from all 8 cameras to 4. The CPU still gets pegged at 100% when I view from the mobile app.

Can u switch motion detection to camera side?

[Magic of Philly 0]

Wow what a hassle, I have yet to see a PC based VMS properly made, there is always an issue except if the user is willing to use the very latest CPU out there with lots of RAM, a very costly endeavor. That's why all of my IP camera installations are done using stand alone NVR's HiKVision based, not only it costs very low, but it gives very superior quality, no worries about a 100% CPU usage and laggyness and I can guarantee you that the CPU inside the HiKVision stand alone NVR which could be had for about $265 (minus hard drive) is much slower than the CPU in Your Dell PowerEdge by a factor of magnitudes, but HiKVision did a much better job at efficiently coding the underlying software for their NVR than what the coder did for your PC based Windows NVR software.

[Boogieman 1]

Wow what a hassle, I have yet to see a PC based VMS properly made, there is always an issue except if the user is willing to use the very latest CPU out there with lots of RAM, a very costly endeavor. That's why all of my IP camera installations are done using stand alone NVR's HiKVision based, not only it costs very low, but it gives very superior quality, no worries about a 100% CPU usage and laggyness and I can guarantee you that the CPU inside the HiKVision stand alone NVR which could be had for about $265 (minus hard drive) is much slower than the CPU in Your Dell PowerEdge by a factor of magnitudes, but HiKVision did a much better job at efficiently coding the underlying software for their NVR than what the coder did for your PC based Windows NVR software.

You are joking right? The op is using a server processor from 2006!!!! 11 years old and wondering why he is having issues...the passmake score on that system with DUAL processors is less than half of a modern i3 processor not to mention that milestone supports hardware acceleration with intel hd/quicksync.

Modern vms software does not huge machines...they are just as reliable if not more reliable than standalone boxes and have a TON more features. Depending on the vms you use and setup, the cost is roughly the same with far superior performance...

Your statement also evidences that you dont understand how standalone nvr's work..they dont do any motion detection or processing and only display substreams on the matrix (or have a limit to the full res on matrix)..I can point you to hundreds of threads with nvr issues...you have likely never used a quality pc based vms.

Spoken like a true amateur.

[Magic of Philly 0]

Wow what a hassle, I have yet to see a PC based VMS properly made, there is always an issue except if the user is willing to use the very latest CPU out there with lots of RAM, a very costly endeavor. That's why all of my IP camera installations are done using stand alone NVR's HiKVision based, not only it costs very low, but it gives very superior quality, no worries about a 100% CPU usage and laggyness and I can guarantee you that the CPU inside the HiKVision stand alone NVR which could be had for about $265 (minus hard drive) is much slower than the CPU in Your Dell PowerEdge by a factor of magnitudes, but HiKVision did a much better job at efficiently coding the underlying software for their NVR than what the coder did for your PC based Windows NVR software.

You are joking right? The op is using a server processor from 2006!!!! 11 years old and wondering why he is having issues...the passmake score on that system with DUAL processors is less than half of a modern i3 processor not to mention that milestone supports hardware acceleration with intel hd/quicksync.

Modern vms software does not huge machines...they are just as reliable if not more reliable than standalone boxes and have a TON more features. Depending on the vms you use and setup, the cost is roughly the same with far superior performance...

Your statement also evidences that you dont understand how standalone nvr's work..they dont do any motion detection or processing and only display substreams on the matrix (or have a limit to the full res on matrix)..I can point you to hundreds of threads with nvr issues...you have likely never used a quality pc based vms.

Spoken like a true amateur.

 

You are joking right?

Nope, I am a terrible joker, trust me you do not want to hear me crack up a joke

 

The op is using a server processor from 2006!!!!

I didn't know were were talking about a XEON version that old, all what I heard was Intel XEON something and something, I didn't bother myself to google what XEON we were talking about, I assumed it was probably something not that old

 

...they dont do any motion detection or processing

 

For the VMS having to determine when to save the stream to the hard drive and when not to, such as in the case of Motion Detection rules, there has to be some kind of processing done by the VMS, to determine when to do something and when not to, when to do this and when not to do that....and the more features and bells and whistle a VMS has, the more processing it has to do because it has more variable that it has to account and monitor at any given time, coupled with the fact that coders (programmers) these days are so lazy that they dont code to efficiency anymore, unlike last generation's coders that they didn't mind coding using Assembly Language, the machine's native language, no compiler needed, they took their time to properly optimize their piece of code in such a way to keep minimum system requirements to a minimum, where the same exact program made using, say C++ and the compiled required a CPU processing power over 8 times higher than the one made with Assemply language to perform the same task. With all that said, it is possible today to actually develop a PC based VMS software that gives you all kinds of bells and whistles that you can possibly imagine entirely using Assembly Language and optimized carefully in such a way that its processor friendly, that an obsolete single core Pentium 4 LGA 478 (remember that socket and processor type of year 2002?) can properly run such VMS wasting no more than a 25% processing cycle at any given time. But once again, computer programmers of today are not programming to efficiency anymore, in fact if your piece of code requires a compiler your work will never be efficient, to make it truly efficient the VMS needs to be programmed straight using Assembler bypassing the need of a compiler and then further optimized. For for this sole reason your highly inefficiently programmed PC based VMS whose stated system requirements to exponentially be greater the number of IP cameras you device to add to the PC because the underlying software developer never took enough time to properly optimize his/her piece of code for CPU friendliness will never been more efficient than a purpose built stand alone NVR.

 

Modern vms software does not HUG machines...they are just as reliable if not more reliable than standalone boxes and have a TON more features.

Are you sure about that? I really doubt that any VMS software is going to be more reliable than a purpose built ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) or in other words a NVR, a dedicated NVR will always be more reliable than running a computer with Microsoft Windows 7 with any VMS software and even further more reliable than running a computer with Windows 10 with any VMS software and here is the reason why: In windows 7 you have more control on how windows updates are to be installed, in windows 10 Microsoft took that control away from you and all updates are forced down your throat whether you want them or not and to make matter worse, I have observed a Microsoft Installer for updates getting hanged in a perpetual 100% CPU cycle until you perform certain "fix" documented on microsoft.com support website, you just cant afford to see that kind of incident on a production machine you just built for your customer for a 16, 32+ IP cameras job you just did occur say 60 days later, I have seen updates hang the CPU 100% cycles perpetually on many machines, including those with Intel Core i7 processors and those in between (i3, and i5), its a problem that has been plaguing Windows 10 and Microsoft technically hasn't fixed the condition. So why am I telling you all this? To give you one example of many why a PC based VMS will never beat the stability and reliability that a stand alone NVR will give you and this is coming from a guy that used to be pro PC back in the days, I have over 35 years in the CCTV installation industry, I come from way back in the days where we used to do time lapse VCR installations with those 360 tvl cameras, then we entered the digital CIF era, there I started building PC's for this purpose and completely rebranded our PC's and we enjoyed telling our customers that we are the builders of our own DVR's, well PC based DVR's first running Windows 95, then Windows 98 briefly until we discovered Windows 2000, then we leaped to Windows XP were we stood there for the longest including bypassing Windows Vista until Windows 7 was released and then we discovered these high definition over coax technologies being developed, we didn't pay much attention to CVI and others and continued doing D1 jobs until we saw TVI, we did our own research and saw that HiKVision's TVI qualifies our business, they develop softwares and VMS which is easy to understand for our customers, installing iVMS 4500 on their smartphone is so easy and configuring it is so straight forward that most of my customers dont have an issue doing it themselves when they get a new smartphone, I can't really say the same for the convoluted mess of Dahua's DMSS which always required me to drive to my customer to install it and configure it for them, but with the introduction of the new age of High Definition over Coax came the fact that we had to retire our old business plan of building and rebranding our own PC's in favor of purchasing the already built and rebranded HiKVision TVI DVR's because there were no TVI PCI Express cards our there in the market, apparently there was and there is no demand to create such PC DVR cards for 1080P TVI cameras, we could no longer tell our customers we are the builders of our own DVR's that we install, but that was compensated quickly by the fact that we no longer had to spend sleepless nights building, installing the operating system, configuring everything, something that took about 2 hours to complete total, now its just a matter of buying the DVR or NVR, driving straight to the customer, installing it there and configuring it on the spot and that's it, now I have much time available to myself and I am giving my customer something that is purpose built to do one job and to do it right, something that comes with an operating system that is only capable of running the software the manufacturer coded to run and operate the standalone DVR and NVR's.

 

So in short, you are wrong, PC based VMS will never be more reliable and stable than Dedicated NVR's or even dedicated DVR's specially if the ones we are talking about were built by HiKVision since that's the only brand we deal with at the moment.

 

Oh, by the way:

Modern vms software does not huge machines

Everyone knows that a VMS software cannot turn this machine: into this machine: https://preview.ibb.co/j2x4YF/Computer_Control_Room.jpg but if you can find any software that is capable to "huge" a machine let me know, I am highly interested I always wanted to run a data center on my own house . Okay, in a more serious note, you meant to say "HUG" not "HUGE" that "e" at the end completely changes the meaning of the word.

[Boogieman 1]

Wow what a hassle, I have yet to see a PC based VMS properly made, there is always an issue except if the user is willing to use the very latest CPU out there with lots of RAM, a very costly endeavor. That's why all of my IP camera installations are done using stand alone NVR's HiKVision based, not only it costs very low, but it gives very superior quality, no worries about a 100% CPU usage and laggyness and I can guarantee you that the CPU inside the HiKVision stand alone NVR which could be had for about $265 (minus hard drive) is much slower than the CPU in Your Dell PowerEdge by a factor of magnitudes, but HiKVision did a much better job at efficiently coding the underlying software for their NVR than what the coder did for your PC based Windows NVR software.

You are joking right? The op is using a server processor from 2006!!!! 11 years old and wondering why he is having issues...the passmake score on that system with DUAL processors is less than half of a modern i3 processor not to mention that milestone supports hardware acceleration with intel hd/quicksync.

Modern vms software does not huge machines...they are just as reliable if not more reliable than standalone boxes and have a TON more features. Depending on the vms you use and setup, the cost is roughly the same with far superior performance...

Your statement also evidences that you dont understand how standalone nvr's work..they dont do any motion detection or processing and only display substreams on the matrix (or have a limit to the full res on matrix)..I can point you to hundreds of threads with nvr issues...you have likely never used a quality pc based vms.

Spoken like a true amateur.

 

You are joking right?

Nope, I am a terrible joker, trust me you do not want to hear me crack up a joke

 

The op is using a server processor from 2006!!!!

I didn't know were were talking about a XEON version that old, all what I heard was Intel XEON something and something, I didn't bother myself to google what XEON we were talking about, I assumed it was probably something not that old

 

...they dont do any motion detection or processing

 

For the VMS having to determine when to save the stream to the hard drive and when not to, such as in the case of Motion Detection rules, there has to be some kind of processing done by the VMS, to determine when to do something and when not to, when to do this and when not to do that....and the more features and bells and whistle a VMS has, the more processing it has to do because it has more variable that it has to account and monitor at any given time, coupled with the fact that coders (programmers) these days are so lazy that they dont code to efficiency anymore, unlike last generation's coders that they didn't mind coding using Assembly Language, the machine's native language, no compiler needed, they took their time to properly optimize their piece of code in such a way to keep minimum system requirements to a minimum, where the same exact program made using, say C++ and the compiled required a CPU processing power over 8 times higher than the one made with Assemply language to perform the same task. With all that said, it is possible today to actually develop a PC based VMS software that gives you all kinds of bells and whistles that you can possibly imagine entirely using Assembly Language and optimized carefully in such a way that its processor friendly, that an obsolete single core Pentium 4 LGA 478 (remember that socket and processor type of year 2002?) can properly run such VMS wasting no more than a 25% processing cycle at any given time. But once again, computer programmers of today are not programming to efficiency anymore, in fact if your piece of code requires a compiler your work will never be efficient, to make it truly efficient the VMS needs to be programmed straight using Assembler bypassing the need of a compiler and then further optimized. For for this sole reason your highly inefficiently programmed PC based VMS whose stated system requirements to exponentially be greater the number of IP cameras you device to add to the PC because the underlying software developer never took enough time to properly optimize his/her piece of code for CPU friendliness will never been more efficient than a purpose built stand alone NVR.

 

Modern vms software does not HUG machines...they are just as reliable if not more reliable than standalone boxes and have a TON more features.

Are you sure about that? I really doubt that any VMS software is going to be more reliable than a purpose built ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) or in other words a NVR, a dedicated NVR will always be more reliable than running a computer with Microsoft Windows 7 with any VMS software and even further more reliable than running a computer with Windows 10 with any VMS software and here is the reason why: In windows 7 you have more control on how windows updates are to be installed, in windows 10 Microsoft took that control away from you and all updates are forced down your throat whether you want them or not and to make matter worse, I have observed a Microsoft Installer for updates getting hanged in a perpetual 100% CPU cycle until you perform certain "fix" documented on microsoft.com support website, you just cant afford to see that kind of incident on a production machine you just built for your customer for a 16, 32+ IP cameras job you just did occur say 60 days later, I have seen updates hang the CPU 100% cycles perpetually on many machines, including those with Intel Core i7 processors and those in between (i3, and i5), its a problem that has been plaguing Windows 10 and Microsoft technically hasn't fixed the condition. So why am I telling you all this? To give you one example of many why a PC based VMS will never beat the stability and reliability that a stand alone NVR will give you and this is coming from a guy that used to be pro PC back in the days, I have over 35 years in the CCTV installation industry, I come from way back in the days where we used to do time lapse VCR installations with those 360 tvl cameras, then we entered the digital CIF era, there I started building PC's for this purpose and completely rebranded our PC's and we enjoyed telling our customers that we are the builders of our own DVR's, well PC based DVR's first running Windows 95, then Windows 98 briefly until we discovered Windows 2000, then we leaped to Windows XP were we stood there for the longest including bypassing Windows Vista until Windows 7 was released and then we discovered these high definition over coax technologies being developed, we didn't pay much attention to CVI and others and continued doing D1 jobs until we saw TVI, we did our own research and saw that HiKVision's TVI qualifies our business, they develop softwares and VMS which is easy to understand for our customers, installing iVMS 4500 on their smartphone is so easy and configuring it is so straight forward that most of my customers dont have an issue doing it themselves when they get a new smartphone, I can't really say the same for the convoluted mess of Dahua's DMSS which always required me to drive to my customer to install it and configure it for them, but with the introduction of the new age of High Definition over Coax came the fact that we had to retire our old business plan of building and rebranding our own PC's in favor of purchasing the already built and rebranded HiKVision TVI DVR's because there were no TVI PCI Express cards our there in the market, apparently there was and there is no demand to create such PC DVR cards for 1080P TVI cameras, we could no longer tell our customers we are the builders of our own DVR's that we install, but that was compensated quickly by the fact that we no longer had to spend sleepless nights building, installing the operating system, configuring everything, something that took about 2 hours to complete total, now its just a matter of buying the DVR or NVR, driving straight to the customer, installing it there and configuring it on the spot and that's it, now I have much time available to myself and I am giving my customer something that is purpose built to do one job and to do it right, something that comes with an operating system that is only capable of running the software the manufacturer coded to run and operate the standalone DVR and NVR's.

 

So in short, you are wrong, PC based VMS will never be more reliable and stable than Dedicated NVR's or even dedicated DVR's specially if the ones we are talking about were built by HiKVision since that's the only brand we deal with at the moment.

 

Oh, by the way:

Modern vms software does not huge machines

Everyone knows that a VMS software cannot turn this machine: into this machine: https://preview.ibb.co/j2x4YF/Computer_Control_Room.jpg but if you can find any software that is capable to "huge" a machine let me know, I am highly interested I always wanted to run a data center on my own house . Okay, in a more serious note, you meant to say "HUG" not "HUGE" that "e" at the end completely changes the meaning of the word.

so much drivel all nonsense..it is evident that you simply dont know what you are talking about...you dont know anything about how vms works or how they are coded...You claim I am wrong, about reliability yet you have never used a modern vms, all you do is install mostly tvi systems using dvr...what comparisons have you done? what studies have you read?

hikvision ivms both server and mobile is a complete joke compared to pc based vms...you are wrong about windows 10 and updates...you should be using the pro version that gives you control..there are VERY easy steps to disable updates.

You are comparing old pc's with capture cards with todays modern vms? please you must be joke. Aside from installing hikvision, pray tell what VMS have you tested?

TVI is easy for you because you are a networking novice, and its most profitable, I get it...there are many like you. Shame that customers lose out.

[Magic of Philly 0]

all you do is install mostly tvi systems using dvr

It is widely accepted and tested time after time again that analog will always be more stable than ip cameras solutions, while its true that IP cameras are getting stabler as the time pass by, it can never beat the stability, reliability and delay free that analog systems can offer.

 

Both IP and TVI are great technologies, but I prefer to do TVI installations on most of my jobs, here are the reasons:

1. 35 years on the field Analog proving I can count on it, I will not adopt another technology that may or may not bring me problems, I am not a gambler. I am going to stick with what has been working for me for the past 35 years and I am glad that Analog is being improved upon and that improvements are constant and that we may see a future TVI 8 MP camera, who knows?

2. The different between what people see on the monitor and what happens in the moment is near 0 ms response time, the same cannot be said for IP cameras where it is known up to 300+ ms delay to occur, for picky customers who might get irritated due to this delay there is not a cure for this for IP cameras setup, sure you might be able to decrease the buffer at the peril of introducing stream based instabilities.

3. The single longest coax run is 1,000 feet for TVI version 2.0 and 2,500 feet for TVI version 3.0 or 1,500 feet at full quality at 3 Mega Pixels, the same cannot be said for Ethernet which caps out at a mere 328 feet and then you have to use network switches that must be powered on the spot to further expand and gain another 328 ft, adding a critical potential future point of failure to those cameras connected to that distant network switch (maybe another contractor could incidentally or accidentally disconnect/unplug the power to that network switch? Maybe the electrical line you used to tap the power for that network switch could be decommissioned in the future and the CEO had no idea the CCTV system depended on power sources other than the one that goes to the CCTV server room and then you will be labeled a "bad CCTV installer". With a TVI system, you can stretch that coax to up to 1,500 Ft and provided that you use a low amperage camera for example a miniature TVI 3.0 MP 0.001 Lux consuming 40 milli amperes) can be entirely powered where the DVR is located. You cant deny that being able to go to the far reaches with one single cable run is very attractive and super reliable since you didn't had to include any intermediaries between the run.

 

because you are a networking novice

I did my CompTIA Network + Certification along with being a computer engineer, I have created and wired networks more than what you can possibly dream of, however I am still not sold on the idea of IP Cameras. You see? I am a perfectionist, I will always go with the most stable and reliable solution. While IP cameras has been increasing in stability as the years pass by, it will never EVER be more reliable and stable than analog systems such as TVI and others and when I am doing a CCTV installation I feel that what I am doing cannot, CANNOT FAIL! I feel like if the life of others depend on my work, that's how serious I take my job and for that reason I have been reluctant to move away from analog, Full HD analog.

 

its most profitable

That, you are right! I thank God that the mode of technology that I have been using for the past 35+ years, even though recently has been upgraded to support HD and beyond, is cheaper than IP cameras solutions. This means that I don't have to settle to earning a $500 profit for a 16 camera installation like a competition I have seen that have thrown himself to wasting lots of money on 16 IP cameras and an NVR, a few PoE Switches, etc in agreement that the most he is going to pocket as pure profit is $500(!!) because because the competition (well actually a computer customer of mines that installs CCTV on a different state than mines) on his area is so fierce that he literally had to sell himself away just to take the job and send some change to his bank account.

Are you kidding me? The same job could have been done with an HD-TVI 3.0 DVR and 16 TVI cameras, a 20 Amps Power Distribution Box, a few box of coax and he would have pocketed over $1,500 of pure profit for this pocket. Admittedly that guy had no idea that TVI existed, he personally told me this when I told him why didn't he consider TVI, I showed him my TVI DVR and he couldn't believe that such a great quality was possible via conventional coax cables. By the way, I know this guy because he is one of my customer that I service his computer from time to time (its possible to have a mutually B2B relationship while being competitors on a different field at the same time - but he services CCTV in a different state so not much of a competition directly with me). -- So this guy was installing mostly IP cameras because he as been told its the best in the market (well depends on who you ask and what variable you look at), he was spending his @$$ off on IP gear and IP cameras to service consumer base where such an endeavor would not be profitable. Come on? You are not going to tell me with a straight face that you will go full blown IP on a customer that doesn't want to pay you what you deserve? Even you, a person that heavily promotes IP cameras will go TVI when your pockets are threatened, now dont lie to me, its a business decision to make decisions that doesn't affect the bottom line.

 

Shame that customers lose out

 

What.. exactly.. are.. customer.. losing.. out?

1. Multiple point of failures?

2. Having to change user names and password individually per each camera?

3. Clusters of cameras going offline because that PoE network switch you installed 328 feet away to connect a cluster of cameras averaged approx 500 feet away lost its power source because the electrical line you used to tap power to that distant PoE switch was decommissioned?

4. The 1 to 3 second delay between what happens in real time and what shows on the monitor? (by the way There are picky customers that will take issue on that and will give you a hard time because of it)

 

Okay, enough of pointing out IP based pitfalls, customers are not loosing out anything with HiKVision HD TVI 3.0 DVR and its accompanying cameras, they can get the very same benefits IP cameras customers get. Here is an example: Did you know that you can install any, yes ANY VMS software, yes even your favorite VMS software and connect to any or all of the cameras behind the TVI DVR in the same manner you would for IP cameras? All what you need to know is the RTSP URL for the camera, lets say you want to connect to mainstream camera #1, the RTSP URL which includes user authentication data would look like this:

rtsp://usename:password@DVR's.IP.Address:Port/ISAPI/Streaming/channels/101 (102 would be for its substream)

Lets say you want to add Cameras 2 to your VMS, well the URL would be:

rtsp://usename:password@DVR's.IP.Address:Port/ISAPI/Streaming/channels/201 (202 would be for its substream)

and so on and so on on this format. Heck, if you want to add an NVR you can even do that, all what you have to do is add one by one each cameras following this same format, all feeds would be fetched form the HiKVision TVI DVR and would show up on the NVR or your VMS software as if they were actual IP cameras and for all intent and purposes they would be treated just as if they were IP cameras, you can take advantage of every single features and functionality your VMS software has to offer.

 

Do you want to have a backup recording at your premise? Well you can use a cheap refurbished Intel Core i5 computer you purchased at Micro Center, etc install a VMS, connect all cameras and instruct it to record at all time, or Motion record, or however you like, then you take that computer and hide it away.

 

Do you want to have an OFFSITE backup recording, say at your house? Well, just configure another computer with an VMS software, connect all cameras, set it to record all the time, or motion detection, or however you like and then take the computer with you and hide it somewhere in your house after making sure its working.

 

In short you can do everything you can do with an IP camera installation with a TVI installation.

 

So... What exactly are customer missing out?

[tomcctv 190]

In short you can do everything you can do with an IP camera installation with a TVI installation.

 

Can you fit a 4mp tvi or 8mp tvi or tvi3 to a standard tvi dvr ....... no...... need to swap all cameras and dvr to upgrade.

 

I would use cvi over tvi any day.

Unlike tvi everything done at dvr end...... ip and cvi are done at camera end.

So can mix mp and upgrade as cameras get better without a new dvr expense

 

How many tvi down 1 coax?

Cvi 8 down one coax.

[Boogieman 1]

all you do is install mostly tvi systems using dvr

It is widely accepted and tested time after time again that analog will always be more stable than ip cameras solutions, while its true that IP cameras are getting stabler as the time pass by, it can never beat the stability, reliability and delay free that analog systems can offer.

 

Both IP and TVI are great technologies, but I prefer to do TVI installations on most of my jobs, here are the reasons:

1. 35 years on the field Analog proving I can count on it, I will not adopt another technology that may or may not bring me problems, I am not a gambler. I am going to stick with what has been working for me for the past 35 years and I am glad that Analog is being improved upon and that improvements are constant and that we may see a future TVI 8 MP camera, who knows?

2. The different between what people see on the monitor and what happens in the moment is near 0 ms response time, the same cannot be said for IP cameras where it is known up to 300+ ms delay to occur, for picky customers who might get irritated due to this delay there is not a cure for this for IP cameras setup, sure you might be able to decrease the buffer at the peril of introducing stream based instabilities.

3. The single longest coax run is 1,000 feet for TVI version 2.0 and 2,500 feet for TVI version 3.0 or 1,500 feet at full quality at 3 Mega Pixels, the same cannot be said for Ethernet which caps out at a mere 328 feet and then you have to use network switches that must be powered on the spot to further expand and gain another 328 ft, adding a critical potential future point of failure to those cameras connected to that distant network switch (maybe another contractor could incidentally or accidentally disconnect/unplug the power to that network switch? Maybe the electrical line you used to tap the power for that network switch could be decommissioned in the future and the CEO had no idea the CCTV system depended on power sources other than the one that goes to the CCTV server room and then you will be labeled a "bad CCTV installer". With a TVI system, you can stretch that coax to up to 1,500 Ft and provided that you use a low amperage camera for example a miniature TVI 3.0 MP 0.001 Lux consuming 40 milli amperes) can be entirely powered where the DVR is located. You cant deny that being able to go to the far reaches with one single cable run is very attractive and super reliable since you didn't had to include any intermediaries between the run.

 

because you are a networking novice

I did my CompTIA Network + Certification along with being a computer engineer, I have created and wired networks more than what you can possibly dream of, however I am still not sold on the idea of IP Cameras. You see? I am a perfectionist, I will always go with the most stable and reliable solution. While IP cameras has been increasing in stability as the years pass by, it will never EVER be more reliable and stable than analog systems such as TVI and others and when I am doing a CCTV installation I feel that what I am doing cannot, CANNOT FAIL! I feel like if the life of others depend on my work, that's how serious I take my job and for that reason I have been reluctant to move away from analog, Full HD analog.

 

its most profitable

That, you are right! I thank God that the mode of technology that I have been using for the past 35+ years, even though recently has been upgraded to support HD and beyond, is cheaper than IP cameras solutions. This means that I don't have to settle to earning a $500 profit for a 16 camera installation like a competition I have seen that have thrown himself to wasting lots of money on 16 IP cameras and an NVR, a few PoE Switches, etc in agreement that the most he is going to pocket as pure profit is $500(!!) because because the competition (well actually a computer customer of mines that installs CCTV on a different state than mines) on his area is so fierce that he literally had to sell himself away just to take the job and send some change to his bank account.

Are you kidding me? The same job could have been done with an HD-TVI 3.0 DVR and 16 TVI cameras, a 20 Amps Power Distribution Box, a few box of coax and he would have pocketed over $1,500 of pure profit for this pocket. Admittedly that guy had no idea that TVI existed, he personally told me this when I told him why didn't he consider TVI, I showed him my TVI DVR and he couldn't believe that such a great quality was possible via conventional coax cables. By the way, I know this guy because he is one of my customer that I service his computer from time to time (its possible to have a mutually B2B relationship while being competitors on a different field at the same time - but he services CCTV in a different state so not much of a competition directly with me). -- So this guy was installing mostly IP cameras because he as been told its the best in the market (well depends on who you ask and what variable you look at), he was spending his @$$ off on IP gear and IP cameras to service consumer base where such an endeavor would not be profitable. Come on? You are not going to tell me with a straight face that you will go full blown IP on a customer that doesn't want to pay you what you deserve? Even you, a person that heavily promotes IP cameras will go TVI when your pockets are threatened, now dont lie to me, its a business decision to make decisions that doesn't affect the bottom line.

 

Shame that customers lose out

 

What.. exactly.. are.. customer.. losing.. out?

1. Multiple point of failures?

2. Having to change user names and password individually per each camera?

3. Clusters of cameras going offline because that PoE network switch you installed 328 feet away to connect a cluster of cameras averaged approx 500 feet away lost its power source because the electrical line you used to tap power to that distant PoE switch was decommissioned?

4. The 1 to 3 second delay between what happens in real time and what shows on the monitor? (by the way There are picky customers that will take issue on that and will give you a hard time because of it)

 

Okay, enough of pointing out IP based pitfalls, customers are not loosing out anything with HiKVision HD TVI 3.0 DVR and its accompanying cameras, they can get the very same benefits IP cameras customers get. Here is an example: Did you know that you can install any, yes ANY VMS software, yes even your favorite VMS software and connect to any or all of the cameras behind the TVI DVR in the same manner you would for IP cameras? All what you need to know is the RTSP URL for the camera, lets say you want to connect to mainstream camera #1, the RTSP URL which includes user authentication data would look like this:

rtsp://usename:password@DVR's.IP.Address:Port/ISAPI/Streaming/channels/101 (102 would be for its substream)

Lets say you want to add Cameras 2 to your VMS, well the URL would be:

rtsp://usename:password@DVR's.IP.Address:Port/ISAPI/Streaming/channels/201 (202 would be for its substream)

and so on and so on on this format. Heck, if you want to add an NVR you can even do that, all what you have to do is add one by one each cameras following this same format, all feeds would be fetched form the HiKVision TVI DVR and would show up on the NVR or your VMS software as if they were actual IP cameras and for all intent and purposes they would be treated just as if they were IP cameras, you can take advantage of every single features and functionality your VMS software has to offer.

 

Do you want to have a backup recording at your premise? Well you can use a cheap refurbished Intel Core i5 computer you purchased at Micro Center, etc install a VMS, connect all cameras and instruct it to record at all time, or Motion record, or however you like, then you take that computer and hide it away.

 

Do you want to have an OFFSITE backup recording, say at your house? Well, just configure another computer with an VMS software, connect all cameras, set it to record all the time, or motion detection, or however you like and then take the computer with you and hide it somewhere in your house after making sure its working.

 

In short you can do everything you can do with an IP camera installation with a TVI installation.

 

So... What exactly are customer missing out?

It is more evident that ever that you dont understand ip-AT ALL.

Changing a password on the camera is difficult for you, I understand.

With tvi you cannot have edge storage on the camera itself.

With tvi you cannot record to multiple locations without relying on the DVR itself to feed it..talk about a single point of failure. (yes you can split the coax but thats a problem in it of itself. If you try an user the TVI unit as a DVR and also feed a vms at full bitrate it will likely choke.

TVI requires homerun of all cables.

TVI locks you in to, in your case, hikvisions subpar mobile app,as well as their sub par event detection and notifications. YUK. Once again you are using TVI because its cheaper and you want to make more money. You just post hours of drivel because you have been called out on it. Maybe just maybe you should get your head out of your ass and try a modern vms. You simply have no clue. This is typical of old school folks who dont want to learn to properly install vms. At least you admit that you refuse to adopt after 35 years. You should inform your clients that there are alternatives but you are simply not skilled enough to implement them.

[Magic of Philly 0]

It is more evident that ever that you dont understand ip-AT ALL.

Changing a password on the camera is difficult for you, I understand.

With tvi you cannot have edge storage on the camera itself.

With tvi you cannot record to multiple locations without relying on the DVR itself to feed it..talk about a single point of failure. (yes you can split the coax but thats a problem in it of itself. If you try an user the TVI unit as a DVR and also feed a vms at full bitrate it will likely choke.

TVI requires homerun of all cables.

TVI locks you in to, in your case, hikvisions subpar mobile app,as well as their sub par event detection and notifications. YUK. Once again you are using TVI because its cheaper and you want to make more money. You just post hours of drivel because you have been called out on it. Maybe just maybe you should get your head out of your ass and try a modern vms. You simply have no clue. This is typical of old school folks who dont want to learn to properly install vms. At least you admit that you refuse to adopt after 35 years. You should inform your clients that there are alternatives but you are simply not skilled enough to implement them.

 

It is more evident that ever that you dont understand ip-AT ALL.

Changing a password on the camera is difficult for you, I understand.

 

I understand plenty in regards how IP cameras work. Changing passwords on an IP camera is not difficult for me, all it takes is logging into the camera's HTTP(S) configuration page and performing the password change, but the issue here is that when you are going to do a 32 or even a 128 IP camera installation, having to change the password of each IP cameras one by one becomes a tedious and laborious task. With an TVI DVR, you only have to change the password of the DVR and only once, thats it. Plenty of time saved.

 

With tvi you cannot have edge storage on the camera itself.

Who cares about not being able to save stuff directly to the camera via a (Micro) SD card. I prefer things completely centralized and if you justify saving stuff directly off an IP camera for redundant purposes in case if the hard drive of an NVR were to fail, you can create a much better redundant approach such as configuring another or a few computers with a VMS installed and configured to save footage on these computers and then strategically place these computers that will keep a clone of everything saved on the NVR/DVR in a combination of onsite and offsite.

 

With tvi you cannot record to multiple locations without relying on the DVR itself to feed it..talk about a single point of failure.

Says who?

There is always the risk of the power adapter of the DVR going bad or other issues and the DVR shuts down, This very same risk ALSO HOLDS TRUE FOR IP CAMERAS SETUPS, The power adapter that feeds into the PoE'd Network Switch can also go bad and if that happens all of your IP cameras goes offline, even if the NVR stays up and operational. I have installed almost 1,000 HiKVision TVI DVR's within the span of a few years and I have YET to see ONE of these DVR's fail, any failures always happens either on the DVR's power adapter, or the DVR's hard drive, things that are remediable without having to sell the customer a new DVR/change the DVR. Once again, all of your IP cameras gets their power from the PoE'd network switch and that PoE Network Switch gets its power from a power adapter, if that power adapter fails, all of your IP cameras goes offline, no question about that, there is no refuting that. Sure, you may say that not all of the IP cameras might lose power if there are a cluster of IP cameras on the far reaches of 500 feet that relies on a secondary PoE network switch that gets its power from another power adapter located on spot where that secondary network switch was installed, but if the long network cable is connected from that secondary network switch directly to the uplink of your primary PoE network switch and the power adapter failed on the primary network switch, it doesn't matter if the secondary network switch that is located 328 feet away to power those 500 feet away cluster of cameras remains operational, the network path between those IP cameras on the far reaches and your NVR/main router breaks the moment your primary/master PoE network switch lost its power source, unless you plugged in the secondary ethernet cable that goes to that far away switch directly to your customer's router instead of your PoE switch but most likely the customer would have occupied all of the ethernet ports of their router so you would have plugged in the cable to that gigabit PoE switch, the one where on my hypothetical example was the one who lost its power source. The same can also be said for other network switches you had to install, say 750 feet away, 1,000 feet away or so, any one of those can loose its power source locally affecting any cameras connected to those far away PoE network switch and all the other network switches of yours whose data unlink depends on the affected switch.

 

So YES! There are cases where one power adapter failure that powered a PoE Network Switch can take out all of your IP cameras.

 

Also, if you do a 8 IP camera installation and all the network cables are homerun to be back of the NVR's PoE network switch, the power adapter of the NVR can also fail, in such a case this will take out all of the IP cameras plus the NVR, if you had inserted SD cards to each one of those IP cameras as your redundancy measures those will also fail as all of the IP cameras would no longer be powered, so nothing would be recording in such an event.

 

TVI requires homerun of all cables.

And what's the problem with this? I have seen IP cameras where all of the ethernet cables are homerunned to the back of the NVR, NVR's come in two modes, one with a PoE network switch already included on the back of the NVR and another where you are expected to bring your own PoE network switch, in either of the case you are required to homerun ethernet cables to either the back of the NVR or to the back of the Poe Network switch, you still have to homerun cables. With TVI you have to homerun coax to the back of the DVR and the Camera's location, I find that to be a great reliability feature. The less intermediaries you have to use between the Camera, Cable and the DVR, the more stable the connection is, the chances of future failure is reduced to a very low probability, if you use quality BNC heads you virtually dont have to worry about any point to point failures for literally ever. You are dealing with less equipment and less electronics.

 

Here let me give your your worst case IP camera installation project:

Scope of the project:

NVR to be installed in the company's CCTV room located in the middle of the large premises.

a few IP cameras to be installed over 1,000 feet to the north in relation to the location of the NVR

A few IP cameras to be installed over 1,000 feet to the south in relation to the location of the NVR

The same for west and east directions. In all four corners of the CCTV room you are required to run 1,000 feet of ethernet cable and because flimsy ethernet doesnt go farther than 328 feet without requiring network switches in between to give you another set of 328 feet to travel, you will need to daisy chain 4 network switches in each direction in order to reach the target areas where the owner wants you to install the cameras, so you will need 16 network switches, that 16 different power adapters that can go bad in anytime, chances are you are going to use the manufacturer's power adapters that came with each of your network switches, and manufacturers sometimes like to cheap out on the power adapters and you end up with a 500 mA 12 V DC power adapter for each network switch. Now fast forward 1 year after completion of the project, half of the power adapters of those 16 network switches fails, most if not all of the IP cameras are down depending on which network switch were to be affected by this. Customer is now calling you angrily complaining that in just one year most if not all of the cameras went offline.

 

IF this was a TVI installation, all what you have to do is perform a long 1,000 feet run of a cable between the DVR and the TVI cameras, there is no further power requirements other than a SINGLE Power distribution box for which amperage I can control by buying the correct one for the load I want to run, I wont have to worry about spending extra money buying a higher amperage power adapter because the one that came with a network switch I deemed it to be too low for me to think it was going to keep on working reliably in the long run. And the other power adapter would be the DVR's power adapter. Just two power sources (DVR's power adapter + CCTV Power Distribution Box(es)) and the whole operation is powered for many years to come reliably, possibly I would have to return back to the site one every 2 to 5+ years to replace failed hard drives, but I wont have to return back to deal with some cameras having gone "offline".

 

With an IP camera for a job of this magnitude, you have the issue that you cannot power all of the IP cameras centrally like you can with TVI cameras up to 1,000, well 1,500 feet now. The last network switch where all the cameras will be connected will be the PoE network switch and that requires a power adapter that is able to deliver many amperes in order to be able to drive all of the cameras behind that PoE switch, and because of the high amperage requirement you can't just run the power cable 1,000 feet to power it centrally, you will have to run a much bigger gauge copper cable and that would cost alot of money, specially since you are dealing with DC that on itself will require the AWG of the cable to be much lower. Sure you can run AC instead of DC and then use AC/DC converters or just a bridge rectifier with capacitor's if you prefer to build the AC/DC converter yourself. But the fact you had to run a low AWG copper cable at a length of 1,000 feet away to centrally power the PoE network switch located 1,000 feet away and chances are you would want to run multiple 1,000 cables to also centrally power all the other intermediaries (non PoE) network switches that wont require that much amperage will rapidly increase your investment, investment for which you might expect proper compensation from your customer unless you eat up the costs and agree to turn a much lesser profit.

 

What a such a headache thinking about the possible expenditures in order to fulfill such a project using IP cameras instead of just TVI. So you see? TVI has its own set of benefits you must appreciate, you can perform a single cable run of up to 1,500 feet and dont have to deal with intermediaries.

 

TVI locks you in to, in your case, hikvisions subpar mobile app,as well as their sub par event detection and notifications. YUK.

With HiKVision you are not locked into anything, Well I haven't checked and tested other software for mobile platforms, all what I know that when mobile is concerned, the IVMS-4500 app is one of the greatest thing there is, its super stable, its easy for customers to understand, specially those customers that only thinks Facebook is the internet and barely knows what "email" is. As far as PC is concerned, there is many options, you are not locked into IVMS-4200, you are use any VMS software you like and you can manually add all of your TVI cameras one by one as if they were "IP cameras" by using a special RTSP URL with your username and password included on the URL, then all of the cameras will show up on your VMS and you can take advantage of all the features your particular VMS has to offer you. So no, you are NOT locked into any particular one software.

Once again you are using TVI because its cheaper and you want to make more money.

Partially that is true, because TVI IS cheaper than IP cameras for the same quality. I am not installing TVI exclusively because its cheaper and I just happen to make more money, I am installing TVI because I DEEM it more reliable, its my personal option, its what 35 years on the industry has taught me and my own observation and seeing others complain that their IP cameras keeps on going offline and that they have to constantly keep on restarting the IP cameras in order for them to appear again on the monitor. Now I dont know how cheap or how of a Chinese generic brand of such an IP camera is, but all what I know is that a great quality name brand HiKVision TVI camera can be had for $68 dollars at my supply house, a camera I know that is not going to fail me or make me look bad, a camera that is capable of capturing very clear and crisp enough videos to be able to read a license place of a vehicle a mere 40 feet away parked on a side walk where the camera is facing. To buy a similar camera from a name brand that is reliable enough to possibly not give the user uptime based issues I would have to spend about 2 to 6 times as much as what I currently spend on my motorized zoom TVI cameras. Um no way.

 

You just post hours of drivel because you have been called out on it

Correction, it doesn't take me hours to post this, it takes me minutes, I type at 140 WPM, as part of me having signed up on this forum to help those asking for help, I am doing this as part of a challenge to further increase the amount of WPM I can type. I am trying to bump that number up to at least 160 WPM. So, in a sense my participation here is an attempt to further increase my rate I can type while I help others at the same time.

 

Now, I dont know how fast you type, but if it would have taken you hours to type a reply like this one then I feel sorry for you, you will need to work on improving your keyboarding skills, there are many free websites out there that can further help in boost your WPM speed.

 

This is typical of old school folks who dont want to learn to properly install vms

I would not have any problems installing VMS and IP cameras, but I dont feel that the IP camera technology has met my expectations yet, I feel that its not stable enough, and that those ones (IP cameras) that are deemed Reliable Enough by the community are over priced and the equivalent TVI can be had for the fraction of the price. And sure, I am open to revisit IP cameras in the future, but it wont be now, not yet.

 

You should inform your clients that there are alternatives but you are simply not skilled enough to implement them.

When you enter a business store front, do you see them inform you that there are other alternatives? No, they sell you, or mention you only the things they currently stock. With all that said, when a customer comes to me asking for security via a CCTV installation project, I don't have to inform them about choices currently not available within my own business.

 

--and no, I am skilled enough to install IP cameras if I want to, like I said before I have a CompTIA Network+ certification, I know all about networking, I have built networks, so I have a very strong networking foundation, installing IP cameras shouldn't be a problem for me since the very same ethernet cables that I have been crimping since way back before the concept of IP cameras existed, but I refuse to do so at the moment. I believe in CENTRALIZATION not in Decentralization, I believe in having just ONE server in the premises, not 32+ different servers being each one of those IP cameras in addition to the NVR that is also a server on its own. No, just ONE server is enough, the TVI DVR and all the other cameras doesn't need to have such functions. Its my own personal through out opinion to decide how I want to run my own business just like its your own personal through out opinion to device how you want to run your own business. I have perfectly valid points and there is nothing in the world that is going to convince me until my expectations in regards to IP cameras are met.

[Mutaz86 0]

It is more evident that ever that you dont understand ip-AT ALL.

Changing a password on the camera is difficult for you, I understand.

With tvi you cannot have edge storage on the camera itself.

With tvi you cannot record to multiple locations without relying on the DVR itself to feed it..talk about a single point of failure. (yes you can split the coax but thats a problem in it of itself. If you try an user the TVI unit as a DVR and also feed a vms at full bitrate it will likely choke.

TVI requires homerun of all cables.

TVI locks you in to, in your case, hikvisions subpar mobile app,as well as their sub par event detection and notifications. YUK. Once again you are using TVI because its cheaper and you want to make more money. You just post hours of drivel because you have been called out on it. Maybe just maybe you should get your head out of your ass and try a modern vms. You simply have no clue. This is typical of old school folks who dont want to learn to properly install vms. At least you admit that you refuse to adopt after 35 years. You should inform your clients that there are alternatives but you are simply not skilled enough to implement them.

 

It is more evident that ever that you dont understand ip-AT ALL.

Changing a password on the camera is difficult for you, I understand.

 

I understand plenty in regards how IP cameras work. Changing passwords on an IP camera is not difficult for me, all it takes is logging into the camera's HTTP(S) configuration page and performing the password change, but the issue here is that when you are going to do a 32 or even a 128 IP camera installation, having to change the password of each IP cameras one by one becomes a tedious and laborious task. With an TVI DVR, you only have to change the password of the DVR and only once, thats it. Plenty of time saved.

 

With tvi you cannot have edge storage on the camera itself.

Who cares about not being able to save stuff directly to the camera via a (Micro) SD card. I prefer things completely centralized and if you justify saving stuff directly off an IP camera for redundant purposes in case if the hard drive of an NVR were to fail, you can create a much better redundant approach such as configuring another or a few computers with a VMS installed and configured to save footage on these computers and then strategically place these computers that will keep a clone of everything saved on the NVR/DVR in a combination of onsite and offsite.

 

With tvi you cannot record to multiple locations without relying on the DVR itself to feed it..talk about a single point of failure.

Says who?

There is always the risk of the power adapter of the DVR going bad or other issues and the DVR shuts down, This very same risk ALSO HOLDS TRUE FOR IP CAMERAS SETUPS, The power adapter that feeds into the PoE'd Network Switch can also go bad and if that happens all of your IP cameras goes offline, even if the NVR stays up and operational. I have installed almost 1,000 HiKVision TVI DVR's within the span of a few years and I have YET to see ONE of these DVR's fail, any failures always happens either on the DVR's power adapter, or the DVR's hard drive, things that are remediable without having to sell the customer a new DVR/change the DVR. Once again, all of your IP cameras gets their power from the PoE'd network switch and that PoE Network Switch gets its power from a power adapter, if that power adapter fails, all of your IP cameras goes offline, no question about that, there is no refuting that. Sure, you may say that not all of the IP cameras might lose power if there are a cluster of IP cameras on the far reaches of 500 feet that relies on a secondary PoE network switch that gets its power from another power adapter located on spot where that secondary network switch was installed, but if the long network cable is connected from that secondary network switch directly to the uplink of your primary PoE network switch and the power adapter failed on the primary network switch, it doesn't matter if the secondary network switch that is located 328 feet away to power those 500 feet away cluster of cameras remains operational, the network path between those IP cameras on the far reaches and your NVR/main router breaks the moment your primary/master PoE network switch lost its power source, unless you plugged in the secondary ethernet cable that goes to that far away switch directly to your customer's router instead of your PoE switch but most likely the customer would have occupied all of the ethernet ports of their router so you would have plugged in the cable to that gigabit PoE switch, the one where on my hypothetical example was the one who lost its power source. The same can also be said for other network switches you had to install, say 750 feet away, 1,000 feet away or so, any one of those can loose its power source locally affecting any cameras connected to those far away PoE network switch and all the other network switches of yours whose data unlink depends on the affected switch.

 

So YES! There are cases where one power adapter failure that powered a PoE Network Switch can take out all of your IP cameras.

 

Also, if you do a 8 IP camera installation and all the network cables are homerun to be back of the NVR's PoE network switch, the power adapter of the NVR can also fail, in such a case this will take out all of the IP cameras plus the NVR, if you had inserted SD cards to each one of those IP cameras as your redundancy measures those will also fail as all of the IP cameras would no longer be powered, so nothing would be recording in such an event.

 

TVI requires homerun of all cables.

And what's the problem with this? I have seen IP cameras where all of the ethernet cables are homerunned to the back of the NVR, NVR's come in two modes, one with a PoE network switch already included on the back of the NVR and another where you are expected to bring your own PoE network switch, in either of the case you are required to homerun ethernet cables to either the back of the NVR or to the back of the Poe Network switch, you still have to homerun cables. With TVI you have to homerun coax to the back of the DVR and the Camera's location, I find that to be a great reliability feature. The less intermediaries you have to use between the Camera, Cable and the DVR, the more stable the connection is, the chances of future failure is reduced to a very low probability, if you use quality BNC heads you virtually dont have to worry about any point to point failures for literally ever. You are dealing with less equipment and less electronics.

 

Here let me give your your worst case IP camera installation project:

Scope of the project:

NVR to be installed in the company's CCTV room located in the middle of the large premises.

a few IP cameras to be installed over 1,000 feet to the north in relation to the location of the NVR

A few IP cameras to be installed over 1,000 feet to the south in relation to the location of the NVR

The same for west and east directions. In all four corners of the CCTV room you are required to run 1,000 feet of ethernet cable and because flimsy ethernet doesnt go farther than 328 feet without requiring network switches in between to give you another set of 328 feet to travel, you will need to daisy chain 4 network switches in each direction in order to reach the target areas where the owner wants you to install the cameras, so you will need 16 network switches, that 16 different power adapters that can go bad in anytime, chances are you are going to use the manufacturer's power adapters that came with each of your network switches, and manufacturers sometimes like to cheap out on the power adapters and you end up with a 500 mA 12 V DC power adapter for each network switch. Now fast forward 1 year after completion of the project, half of the power adapters of those 16 network switches fails, most if not all of the IP cameras are down depending on which network switch were to be affected by this. Customer is now calling you angrily complaining that in just one year most if not all of the cameras went offline.

 

IF this was a TVI installation, all what you have to do is perform a long 1,000 feet run of a cable between the DVR and the TVI cameras, there is no further power requirements other than a SINGLE Power distribution box for which amperage I can control by buying the correct one for the load I want to run, I wont have to worry about spending extra money buying a higher amperage power adapter because the one that came with a network switch I deemed it to be too low for me to think it was going to keep on working reliably in the long run. And the other power adapter would be the DVR's power adapter. Just two power sources (DVR's power adapter + CCTV Power Distribution Box(es)) and the whole operation is powered for many years to come reliably, possibly I would have to return back to the site one every 2 to 5+ years to replace failed hard drives, but I wont have to return back to deal with some cameras having gone "offline".

 

With an IP camera for a job of this magnitude, you have the issue that you cannot power all of the IP cameras centrally like you can with TVI cameras up to 1,000, well 1,500 feet now. The last network switch where all the cameras will be connected will be the PoE network switch and that requires a power adapter that is able to deliver many amperes in order to be able to drive all of the cameras behind that PoE switch, and because of the high amperage requirement you can't just run the power cable 1,000 feet to power it centrally, you will have to run a much bigger gauge copper cable and that would cost alot of money, specially since you are dealing with DC that on itself will require the AWG of the cable to be much lower. Sure you can run AC instead of DC and then use AC/DC converters or just a bridge rectifier with capacitor's if you prefer to build the AC/DC converter yourself. But the fact you had to run a low AWG copper cable at a length of 1,000 feet away to centrally power the PoE network switch located 1,000 feet away and chances are you would want to run multiple 1,000 cables to also centrally power all the other intermediaries (non PoE) network switches that wont require that much amperage will rapidly increase your investment, investment for which you might expect proper compensation from your customer unless you eat up the costs and agree to turn a much lesser profit.

 

What a such a headache thinking about the possible expenditures in order to fulfill such a project using IP cameras instead of just TVI. So you see? TVI has its own set of benefits you must appreciate, you can perform a single cable run of up to 1,500 feet and dont have to deal with intermediaries.

 

TVI locks you in to, in your case, hikvisions subpar mobile app,as well as their sub par event detection and notifications. YUK.

With HiKVision you are not locked into anything, Well I haven't checked and tested other software for mobile platforms, all what I know that when mobile is concerned, the IVMS-4500 app is one of the greatest thing there is, its super stable, its easy for customers to understand, specially those customers that only thinks Facebook is the internet and barely knows what "email" is. As far as PC is concerned, there is many options, you are not locked into IVMS-4200, you are use any VMS software you like and you can manually add all of your TVI cameras one by one as if they were "IP cameras" by using a special RTSP URL with your username and password included on the URL, then all of the cameras will show up on your VMS and you can take advantage of all the features your particular VMS has to offer you. So no, you are NOT locked into any particular one software.

Once again you are using TVI because its cheaper and you want to make more money.

Partially that is true, because TVI IS cheaper than IP cameras for the same quality. I am not installing TVI exclusively because its cheaper and I just happen to make more money, I am installing TVI because I DEEM it more reliable, its my personal option, its what 35 years on the industry has taught me and my own observation and seeing others complain that their IP cameras keeps on going offline and that they have to constantly keep on restarting the IP cameras in order for them to appear again on the monitor. Now I dont know how cheap or how of a Chinese generic brand of such an IP camera is, but all what I know is that a great quality name brand HiKVision TVI camera can be had for $68 dollars at my supply house, a camera I know that is not going to fail me or make me look bad, a camera that is capable of capturing very clear and crisp enough videos to be able to read a license place of a vehicle a mere 40 feet away parked on a side walk where the camera is facing. To buy a similar camera from a name brand that is reliable enough to possibly not give the user uptime based issues I would have to spend about 2 to 6 times as much as what I currently spend on my motorized zoom TVI cameras. Um no way.

 

You just post hours of drivel because you have been called out on it

Correction, it doesn't take me hours to post this, it takes me minutes, I type at 140 WPM, as part of me having signed up on this forum to help those asking for help, I am doing this as part of a challenge to further increase the amount of WPM I can type. I am trying to bump that number up to at least 160 WPM. So, in a sense my participation here is an attempt to further increase my rate I can type while I help others at the same time.

 

Now, I dont know how fast you type, but if it would have taken you hours to type a reply like this one then I feel sorry for you, you will need to work on improving your keyboarding skills, there are many free websites out there that can further help in boost your WPM speed.

 

This is typical of old school folks who dont want to learn to properly install vms

I would not have any problems installing VMS and IP cameras, but I dont feel that the IP camera technology has met my expectations yet, I feel that its not stable enough, and that those ones (IP cameras) that are deemed Reliable Enough by the community are over priced and the equivalent TVI can be had for the fraction of the price. And sure, I am open to revisit IP cameras in the future, but it wont be now, not yet.

 

You should inform your clients that there are alternatives but you are simply not skilled enough to implement them.

When you enter a business store front, do you see them inform you that there are other alternatives? No, they sell you, or mention you only the things they currently stock. With all that said, when a customer comes to me asking for security via a CCTV installation project, I don't have to inform them about choices currently not available within my own business.

 

--and no, I am skilled enough to install IP cameras if I want to, like I said before I have a CompTIA Network+ certification, I know all about networking, I have built networks, so I have a very strong networking foundation, installing IP cameras shouldn't be a problem for me since the very same ethernet cables that I have been crimping since way back before the concept of IP cameras existed, but I refuse to do so at the moment. I believe in CENTRALIZATION not in Decentralization, I believe in having just ONE server in the premises, not 32+ different servers being each one of those IP cameras in addition to the NVR that is also a server on its own. No, just ONE server is enough, the TVI DVR and all the other cameras doesn't need to have such functions. Its my own personal through out opinion to decide how I want to run my own business just like its your own personal through out opinion to device how you want to run your own business. I have perfectly valid points and there is nothing in the world that is going to convince me until my expectations in regards to IP cameras are met.

[Mutaz86 0]

who said u need 4 switches in each direction to reach ur target u will only need ONE fibre cable connected to the other switch

[algarvepaddy 0]

All very interesting, Hilvision does have advantages but these advantages are mostly/all for the installer. The ease of which Hikvision has been hacked is frightening and their response (or more correctly, lack of response) is even more worrying. I am not talking about high-level hackers, anyone with basic skills can access the system. I would not like to have to go back to end users and explain why I put them at such risk.

No need to take my word for it, just GOOGLE it, it is well known and in the public domain at this stage.