Mobile app liveview/playback

[Jerminator7]

Hello all, I recently purchased a new 5 series NVR and some cameras ip8m-2597. I'm really liking the system except for one thing. When i try to view liveview or playback footage on my mobile phone (note 10) it's not very smooth so to speak. I understand that the occasional hiccup is going to occur but this is a steady pause then play. Almost like a heartbeat.
I have went through and tinkered with various settings one at a time to try and help the issue but have failed so far. I also have ran speed test before and after trying playback to check speeds. I find is hard to believe it's a bandwidth issue since I get 90-115 Mbps on lte and 200Mbps on 5g Wifi. So my question is, am I asking to much to view playback a single 4k video stream smoothly on a mobile device? Sorry for the wall of text just exhausted from trying to figure this out. BTW I do love the night time image quality of those cameras.

EDIT: Just realized I posted under NVR section instead of Mobile App.

[longedge]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

The effect that you are describing sounds like network jitter to me. Have you noticed if the problem occurs when you are viewing one particular camera? If that is the case, then you could try swapping cameras around and see if the problem follows the camera or only affects one position.

Another troubleshooting option would be to reduce the resolution that your camera/s are set to. As this is viewing on your phone, you need to look at your sub stream, I'm guessing that it is that which is being displayed.

[Jerminator7]

I have tried different cameras. A ip8m-t2499e. When i view the substream live it's nice and smooth on any camera since the bit rate is really low of course. Only when in full 4k does it do this. It does seem worse with the ip8m-2597's. I have noticed when they are running looking at the same area their bit rate seems really high compared to the 2499 camera. I set them to a 8192 bit rate and they are running almost double that according to the nvr at 13-16k a sec where as the 2499 stays pretty close hovering around 7-9k a sec. I can get the bit rate down when i use h265 just not sure if thats the best to use for playback or go back to h264h.

[longedge]

My take on this is that you've got a network issue. Data transfer rates are part of the equation but latency is also very important i.e. the time between sending packets of data and when they arrive. If latency isn't stable and constant it causes this sort of problem. I have this problem on one very long ethernet cable which I suspect is of poor quality (it's a flat one that I can tuck down the edge of my carpets).

If you are able to use H265 without issues, then that's the one to go for. Smaller file size so less 'strain' on the network. The downside is that it takes more processing power encoding/decoding and some devices might struggle to handle it.

[Jerminator7]

Thank you for the tips. I had some time to do more digging. I ran a ping test from one of my desktops thats connected to wifi and was getting 2-4ms pings to the nvr consistently. Wired it's sub 1ms.

I did how ever notice that when i maxed out the bit rates on the cameras that a difference appeared. The 2499 at 10k sec bit rate still was mostly smooth barely any pauses. Definitely with in reason i would say for that bit rate. The 2597 how ever maxes out at 8192 and would barely playback. Constant freezes.

So i set staic ips on the nvr and the pc and connected them to thier own gig switch. And using ASP the issue is still there with the 2597. I dropped the frame rate to 15 fps and still not any better. The only way I can get a good playback from the 2597 is to try and reduce the bitrate to around 4k or less with h265 encoding. At 8192 even the NVR sometimes seems to struggle with playback from that camera.

[jack7]

...The only way I can get a good playback from the 2597 is to try and reduce the bitrate to around 4k or less with h265 encoding. At 8192 even the NVR sometimes seems to struggle with playback from that camera.

I don't know what's wrong with the 2597, but keep in mind that h.265 with a much lower bitrate than h.264 will produce similar video quality. Perhaps even at 4096 vs 8192.

[Jerminator7]

Yeah, I don't see very much of a image difference with h265 at 4096 vs h264 at 8192. Far off objects you can sort of tell the difference but not to much. Not that i have a choice for the camera. Anything higher and it just wont play back smooth.

I opened up a RTSP stream with VLC and took it off the mount walked it to a different location and it's fine. Even at higher bit rates it's smooth as silk. Soon as I walk back and point it at the same area it starts skipping again. I'm guessing with all the trees, shadows and the reflections off my cars are driving the codec nuts and the camera starts dropping frames.

So to get a smooth playback I have to use h265 with 4096 bit rate or it's useless. I can't use any h264 because then the camera bitrate won't go below 10-12kbs no matter what bitrate I set. If I try 8192 with h264 the bitrate skyrockets to 22-26kbs. I even tried reducing the code stream to 1080p with no difference. But if I have to do that whats the point in having a 4k camera?

[Jerminator7]

Well I talked to Amcrest support and they lowered the camera setting to what I already found out through playing around. h265 with 4096 bitrate and 15fps. I did mess around some more though and discovered that the playback is smooth when using chrome app ughh. Using ASP, ie or the mobile app the playback has the freezing/choppy stream. I'm assuming it's a software/firmware issue not being able to decode the amount of data coming in due to bad optimization.

Anyone else able to stream 4k playback footage with no issues? I'm almost ready to throw in the towel and send these cameras back.

[James.S]

*Topic Moved*

@Jerminator7

As Longedge mentions i agree this sounds very much like an network congestion issues especially when using a high MP camera. If you are connecting to ASP,IE this will be a direct connection with the camera ( Unless you are accessing them though port forwarding) If you are seeing it choppy when directly connected over your own network this could indicate the camera is having network stability issues between the camera and the home network. I would recommend looking into this avenue. many connection issues we encounter are mainly because the camera is having connection stability issues and is having a hard time holding on the the home network.

How is your camera connected to your network?

[Jerminator7]

Cameras are directly connected to the NVR at the moment. Then the NVR is connected to my router where my PC is connected. Everything is CAT6e cables hand made and tested.

I also bought another poe switch with gigabit connections so I could isolate from my main network. I also tried connecting them through that switch to the lan port of the NVR and plugged my PC into the new switch with the NVR and the PC isolated from everything on my network. Liveview and Playback on the NVR is fine connected either way.

The issues arises when I try to remote view camera streams or playback on even a hardwired connection to any of my PCs. Cameras connected through the NVR or connected with the POE switch. I have 3 different PC's I have tried it on, all connected to the isolated switch one at a time using ASP. I was wanting to use ASP to view live footage and playback on my HTPC connected to my TV instead of having a noisy NVR with tons of camera wires running to it sitting in one of my living rooms.

If it was network related I would think the choppy video would not be consistent. But I can literally set a timer so it and tell you when it's going to happen.