Axis M2014-E and M1054 Cameras
Hi all,
I have 3 M1054's and 1 M2014-E connected to Security Spy. I have an Xserve 8 core 2.66 with 12GB RAM and SSD System Drive with 2TB internal RAID 5 Storage. It is connected to my network with a bonded link at 2 x 1Gb. I think it safe to say this should be fast enough for video capture of 4 cameras...I set this up about a year ago and all seemed well. It was capturing Mpeg initially but I moved it to H.264 about 6 months ago. I have always ensured I have the latest version of the software and the cameras are running the latest firmware. Recently after we had an issue and I needed to go back to the footage, I noticed that the footage would jump a few frames every second or 2. ie you watch a car go past and it would move smoothly then jump across half way. Sometimes it would jump back a little bit then disappear off the screen. I have stated playing with compression, gov rates etc etc and checking all settings. Given there are massive amounts of variables, I just wondered if anyone else had experience with such issues and resolved before I go quietly mad changing everything ;-))
Many thanks in advance,
Oli
I have 3 M1054's and 1 M2014-E connected to Security Spy. I have an Xserve 8 core 2.66 with 12GB RAM and SSD System Drive with 2TB internal RAID 5 Storage. It is connected to my network with a bonded link at 2 x 1Gb. I think it safe to say this should be fast enough for video capture of 4 cameras...I set this up about a year ago and all seemed well. It was capturing Mpeg initially but I moved it to H.264 about 6 months ago. I have always ensured I have the latest version of the software and the cameras are running the latest firmware. Recently after we had an issue and I needed to go back to the footage, I noticed that the footage would jump a few frames every second or 2. ie you watch a car go past and it would move smoothly then jump across half way. Sometimes it would jump back a little bit then disappear off the screen. I have stated playing with compression, gov rates etc etc and checking all settings. Given there are massive amounts of variables, I just wondered if anyone else had experience with such issues and resolved before I go quietly mad changing everything ;-))
Many thanks in advance,
Oli
Comments
Some other pointers:
- When using H.264 streams from the cameras, make sure to select the "No recompression of video data" option for the camera, as described in our SecuritySpy User Manual. This gives the best performance and quality.
- For H.264, a GOV length of around 32 is good - don't set this too high as this makes the video streams more difficult for SecuritySpy to deal with.
- Use a frame rate of around 10fps from each camera. The resolution of the cameras you are using is quite high, so if you have set a very high frame rate for all the camera, this may saturate the CPU of the computer and lead to issues similar to what you are seeing.
Good luck!
I have reverted to JPEG (MJPEG doesn't work with these cameras or so it appears) and this seems to have resolved the issue so many thanks for that. I moved to H.264 to gain sound but that appears to have been added to JPEG HTTP in one of the updates now so all good. I do use re-compression due to need to upload offsite and file size is critical. However, server has plenty of spare processing power! Have reset gov to 32 just in case we try H.264 down the line... Think all my other issues are camera related (tweak focus on the M2014 slightly and redo 'defined exposure zone' to mask out sunlight from the windows! I get a plugin failure message...???).
I will play with the 'onboard' compression settings to tweak file size and quality and think we are then there...
Just as an aside - my father-in-law is looking at buying the software and has 2 FosCams. He has downloaded SSpy to test and has one of the cameras working fine. However, he cannot get the F19802W to work at all with SSpy. Is this supported?
Many thanks once more,
Oli
One last point having now resolved all the above - the frame rate I am getting on all the cameras no matter what I change or do (within JPEG) is 7fps. Whilst this is fine for the purpose - is there a reason for this you can think of? If I go to the live view on the cameras for the same stream - I am easily seeing 20+fps. The inbound network traffic to the server is 26MB/s so no issue there and can't see any other parameter that would suggest it is being taxed. I used to have it varying between about 5 and 20fps from memory but can't think what I might have inadvertently changed to affect this. Video device settings is on default for fps but changing it makes no diff. Not critical as this is fine but just wondered if these was an obvious setting I had missed.
Many thanks,
Oli
PS any thoughts on getting a stream from the Foscam F19802W?
Glad to hear the JPEG mode is working well for you. Provided the network is fast enough, there is no reason in particular I can think of that would limit the frame rate of this stream. Usually such problems are due to slow networks, or wireless networks where the speed is limited by range. The camera can also be set to limit the frame rate of its streams but I presume you checked this?
As for the FI9802W, we don't officially support it due to problems reported by users, however there is in fact a FI9802W device profile built into SecuritySpy, so this is the one to use if you are going to try to get it working. Make sure you have the latest firmware loaded onto the camera and don't change any of the camera's default ports. Some users have reported success, others have reported lots of problems, so if you can change these for some other cameras that would be a good idea - I could recommend some if you let me know your requirements.
Hope this helps.
Yeap it is most odd. All cameras are on cat6a cabling into a managed gig switch and the 'live view' on all of them works at full fps... Will have a look over the weekend if I find time but essentially it is doing what I need so no real issue...
Will remote into my father-in-laws minimac server and run a few tests. We did change the ports over so will revert this and test. It does have the latest firmware but they do seem a little 'mickey mouse' compared to the axis cameras I have but I guess the old phrase goes - 'you get what you pay for'.
Many thanks for your assistance.
Oli