Footage dropping from numerous cameras
I've been having this issue for months now and originally with a Mac Mini Server writing to a Pegasus R6 drive array. We upgraded to a Mac Pro 3.5Ghz 6 core and while the system handles the video streams better (no lagginess while using the computer) I'm still losing substantial video from numerous cameras. When I say substantial I mean 30s-2min. I have the computer doing 0 compression and it's all handled by the cameras. Even the water marks are all done on the cameras since I wanted to save processing power. It's not always a problem but when I haven't been able to ID thieves twice now because the whole sections I needed were gone... you can see why I'm getting frustrated. Anybody have any ideas? What other information can I provide that might help?
As far as I can tell the cameras are not losing power because the lost pieces do not equate to each other. Most cameras are set to motion capture +1s but some are not and they are still losing footage.
Hardware:
Mac Pro 6 core (3.5GHz, 16GB DDR3 ECC Ram, AMD Firepro D500 graphics chip)
Promise Pegasus R6 10Tbite
Cameras: 17 total with a mix of Axis Mini Dome, Dahua mini dome, and one 5MP fix zoom.
All running on POE setups with NetGear POE switches.
As far as I can tell the cameras are not losing power because the lost pieces do not equate to each other. Most cameras are set to motion capture +1s but some are not and they are still losing footage.
Hardware:
Mac Pro 6 core (3.5GHz, 16GB DDR3 ECC Ram, AMD Firepro D500 graphics chip)
Promise Pegasus R6 10Tbite
Cameras: 17 total with a mix of Axis Mini Dome, Dahua mini dome, and one 5MP fix zoom.
All running on POE setups with NetGear POE switches.
Comments
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Hi - when you say "losing footage", do you see the cameras in question actually disconnect from SecuritySpy (resulting in a blue screen in SecuritySpy's video windows), before automatically reconnecting some time later? Or are the connections stable (no blue screens) but when you go to review footage you sometimes find that there are segments that haven't been recorded that you think should have been?
If the latter is the case, then this should be easy to remedy with some settings tweaks. When you say "motion capture +1", do you mean that you are using a trigger time of 1 second? A 1-second trigger time is fine, but to make the motion-detection more sensitive you can increase the sensitivity value (from the Setup section of the Camera Settings window). This will reduce the likelihood of false-negative events (i.e. missing real motion).
Also, increasing the post-capture time will reduce the likelihood of missing anything. Try at value of 20 seconds or longer (it sounds like you have plenty of storage). Sometimes when there is a lot of initial motion, followed by a period of relative inactivity (but which you still want to capture), SecuritySpy will stop recording because of a post-capture time that is too short.
If you think that it's not a settings issue, but rather that there is some problem with the way that SecuritySpy is performing, please email us the log file (which you will find in the SecuritySpy folder within your Documents folder), and we will check it over to see if we can spot anything going wrong.
Hope this helps. -
When I say "losing footage" I mean my timeline jumps 20s-5mins+. I haven't seen a "blue screen" in SS's video windows but I haven't camped out in front of the monitors for more than 10-15mins at a time.
Yes, I have pre-capture at 1s and have changed the post capture to 15 now. I have the sensitivity set so that when no people are present it's just bellow the trigger point. I have used the exclusion to block off areas with motion that isn't relevant but they are out of the area humans use anyway so I doubt that's the problem. I haven't noticed an issue with the motion trigger not going off when I'm sure there should have been motion. I've confirmed this as some of my cameras over lap coverage area. I've triple tapped the space bar and I'm emailing you the file shortly. Any help would be awesome - thanks. -
Thanks for the info. One thing that the motion-detection algorithm does is estimate the amount of noise in the image by calculating the average value of the variation in pixel intensity over time, and it will use this threshold level to decide if there is "real" motion occurring in a particular pixel (i.e. if the change is some multiple of this noise level). So if you have continuous motion (e.g. some people that stay in the same location in the frame for a long time), this will eventually be seen by the algorithm as background noise, and SecuritySpy will become desensitised to it. This may be what is happening here. The solution is to increase the post-capture time - try 30 seconds.
I'll have a look at the debug file you sent to see if I can suggest anything else. -
I'll up the post capture times on those cameras since the cashiers could be a bit too still for the algorithm. I've updated to the latest version and made sure my frame rate is =or<8fps but I really to don't think it's a processor bandwidth issue since it runs really smooth even when there's tons of traffic during the day.
