Internet conneciton is slow or unresponsive when someone is viewing live feed

bundy
bundy
edited March 2015 in SecuritySpy
Hello,

I am excited that I found SecuritySpy. I have been trying it out the last week or so, but have noticed something and was wondering if there was any advice or suggestions.

I have 4 cameras, 2 POE (Axis, Vivotek) and 2 Wireless (Foscam). I have port forwarding on and use dyndns as my host service. Everything works great. I have a Mac Mini Quad Core that runs smoothly with no slowness or hiccups. However, when my parents are logged in and receiving the live feed of an outdoor camera (Vivotek) or the baby monitor (Foscam), the upload speed (according to Little Snitch) is 400-500 mb/s and my internet connection is basically at a standstill. Meaning that if I am on the computer I have issues with trying to do any inbound/outbound connections. My web browser (Chrome) just sits there spinning... I have to shut SecuritySpy down in order to access the internet and do anything. I have high speed cable internet with 50mbs/ down and 5mb/s up, so I would think the speed is not the issue, but it appears it is because the Quad Core mini is just humming along with no issues opening/closing/processing applications, etc.

Is there anything I can do to throttle the upload speed of the live feed that my parents are watching without affecting the quality of the video? Can I limit the speed of the port?

Suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Bundy

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi Bundy,

    We're very happy that you found SecuritySpy!

    Streaming video uses a lot of bandwidth, and it sounds all your upload capacity is being consumed when someone is viewing the live stream. The best solution here is to use another copy of SecuritySpy for the remote viewing (it is free to use for the purposes of viewing only). This will allow you to finely tune the streaming settings to use less bandwidth.

    In the client (viewing) SecuritySpy, create a new network device, set the device type to SecuritySpy, and enter the dynamic DNS address of your server SecuritySpy as well as the username and password. Click the "Get input list" button and select one of the cameras. Select "MPEG-4" as the format, and set a low frame rate (e.g. 5fps). If quality is not too important you can also request a smaller resolution and/or lower quality stream.

    Hope this helps.
  • bundy
    bundy
    Thanks Ben!

    I will try your suggestions. I did make an error in the upload speed of live feed, should be 400-500kps which is like 0.4-0.5 mbs... that just doesn't seem like it would be my upload capacity. Or there is probably a difference between "speed" and "capacity". I've tested my upload speed and it is ~5mbs.

    I will report back my findings...

    Bundy
  • bundy
    bundy
    Hi Ben,

    So I set up a client version of SP on my wife's computer. I did what you suggested and followed the User Manual under the Broadcasting section and using SP as a video server. I guess I am just a little confused on how all this works. So should I add all 4 cameras to the client version? How is it determined when someone is viewing a live stream that it is actually being fed from the client and not the server computer? Do I need to change anything on the server computer that is running SP?

    Sorry, just still a little confused on how the feeds got shifted to the client and is no longer available on the server computer...

    Bundy
  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi Bundy,

    Apologies if I wasn't clear. This is not via the Broadcasting feature (Broadcasting is designed to hook up to a streaming server for mass delivery via multicast - it's a feature that we're phasing out because it's not useful for the majority of users).

    What I'm suggesting works via SecuritySpy's standard built-in web server, to which you have already set up access from the internet. This is described in more detail in the Using SecuritySpy as a video server section of the user manual.

    So on the server you need to do nothing (except perhaps remove the Broadcasting instances that you created). On the client you simply set up a new network video device, as you would for an IP camera, and supply it with the details of your SecuritySpy web server.

    Let me know if you have any further problems setting this up.
  • bundy
    bundy
    Hi Ben,

    I wasn't being clear I guess... I didn't actually go through the Broadcasting feature... just meant that I clicked on that part of the online manual and then scrolled down to the SP server section.

    So on the client (wife's iMac) I add the network devices (cameras on the server) and add the details from the web server. I did this and it appears to work. However, outside connections still are being fed by the server computer, not the client. Do I need to activate the client as a server as well and open up the ports (8000) and close the ports (8000) on the server? This is where my confusion is. I have the client set up, but the live feeds are not coming from the client when accessed from the outside world.

    Again, my host is dyndns, which directs traffic to my internet provider IP address and port 8000 (SecuritySpy Server port). When someone accesses the host URL, the feed is still being sent from the server computer (Mac Mini) because I can monitor the upload feed via Little Snitch. Little Snitch on the client shows no uploading. Do I need to open up a different port # on the client (iMac) and have my host direct traffic there?

    Again, my goal is to have live feeds accessed from the client computer (wife's iMac) because she does not use it as frequently as I use the Mac Mini. As it is now, even with the client activated, it appears live feeds are still being uploaded from the server computer (Mac Mini).

    I apologize for my ignorance on all of this... the networking aspect of my computer world is fairly new to me.

    Again, thanks for you time. I really enjoy using SecuritySpy and can't wait to have it up and running properly.

    Bundy
  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi Bundy,

    My suggestion was for your parents to use SecuritySpy to view the stream - the point was that this allows finer control over the streaming settings in order to lower the bandwidth to prevent problems with your internet upload.

    You could set things up so that your wife's iMac receives streams from your Mac mini, and then your parents connect to the Mac mini for remote viewing, however this seems unnecessarily complicated, and will not solve the problem with your internet upload bandwidth (and it would require an additional SecuritySpy license). After all, the data has to be uploaded via your internet connection somewhere along the line. Whether it goes from Mac mini -> iMac -> remote viewer, or directly from Mac mini -> remote viewer, the same amount of your internet's upload speed (which is the bottleneck here) is being used.

    If the iMac is used less, then you might want to move SecuritySpy over to that machine, so that it becomes the server instead of your Mac mini. However this won't solve the problem with the internet upload bandwidth (I'm assuming that the iMac and the Mac mini are at the same location and therefore share an internet connection).

    So, keep things simple, have your parents use another (free) copy of SecuritySpy to connect directly to your SecuritySpy server (whichever machine you use for it) in order to view the streams, using the low-bandwidth settings suggested above.

    Does that make sense?
  • bundy
    bundy
    edited April 2015
    Lol... after reading your first response, it all makes sense now. Appears I took it off on a tangent and just added confusion. I see what you mean now. I was thinking for some odd reason that the client was set up on my network and then remote viewing was accessed via the client server, thus taking away the broadband draw from the server computer. But like you said, that doesn't really make sense and wouldn't matter since no matter how you look at it the video stream(s) is being uploaded from my network and constricting the broadband connection.

    Thanks for playing along and clarifying things for me. I apologize for the confusion.

    Bundy
  • bundy
    bundy
    Ben,

    Instead of starting a new thread I just thought I'd ask you here. I wanted to try out SecuritySpy Dynamic DNS service (viewcam.me) but everything I enter I get the error

    Error: no data received or blocked connection (7113)

    What does this mean?

    Thanks,

    Bundy
  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi Bundy,

    Good to hear we're on the same page now with the remote viewing setup :)

    As for the DDNS connection, you mentioned that you have Little Snitch installed - my guess is that this is what's blocking SecuritySpy's connection. SecuritySpy makes a secure connection to bensoftware.com in order to set up the DDNS name, so please make sure to allow all outgoing connection for SecuritySpy in Little Snitch.
  • bundy
    bundy
    Ha! You're correct. When I first installed SecuritySpy to test it out I blocked connections, which is what I normally do when I first install new apps... just to see what they are trying to connect to. I allowed bensoftware.com and it worked!

    Thanks!

    Going to test a little more and play around with the settings, then should be ready to purchase a license!

    Bundy
  • Ben
    Ben
    Hi Bundy,

    Great, happy to help. Let us know if you have any further questions!

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