Setting up a NVR to run over 4G

[R_M]

I am at my wits end with my CCTV system. I am having a serious headache with my system. Having paid a pro £100 yesterday for 2 hours I now feel I’m actually no further forwards.
While my cameras now appear to record perfectly and the quality is far better, I now can’t playback videos at all from my NVR on any level. I can play them fine from my DVR which runs on the same 4G network. I can live stream 4 cameras on live view in Hik-Connect from the NVR in basic mode and all seem to work. 2 way audio work a treat.

I’m now left with a system which is rendered useless for me if I can’t playback via Hik-Connect. I had put it down the fact the images quality from cams was overloading the 4G. However I can’t even playback footage from my 2mp ANPR cam, which worked perfectly in every way prior to be looked at by the pro.

The guy noted some conflicts on the ports, I’ve emailed him this morning for advice as to if this is a router or network issues. But he wasn’t a 4g specialist and didn’t offer much in the way of advise at the time to resolve.

Does anyone who properly knows what they’re doing with this stuff offer remote support? As you can see I happy to pay for the right knowledge!

 

[David]

I am at my whits end with my CCTV system. I am having serious ball ache with my system. Having paid a pro £100 yesterday for 2 hours I now feel I’m actually no further forwards.
While my cameras now appear to record perfectly and the quality is far better, I now can’t playback videos at all from my NVR on any level. I can play them fine from my DVR which runs on the same 4G network. I can live stream 4 cameras on live view in Hik-Connect from the NVR in basic mode and all seem to work. 2 way audio work a treat.

I’m now left with a system which is rendered useless for me if I can’t playback via Hik-Connect. I had put it down the fact the images quality from cams was overloading the 4G. However I can’t even playback footage from my 2mp ANPR cam, which worked perfectly in every way prior to be looked at by the pro.

The guy noted some conflicts on the ports, I’ve emailed him this morning for advice as to if this is a router or network issues. But he wasn’t a 4g specialist and didn’t offer much in the way of advise at the time to resolve.

Does anyone who properly knows what they’re doing with this stuff offer remote support? As you can see I happy to pay for the right knowledge!

I may be able to help, there seem to be multiple problems.

 

[David]

I am at my whits end with my CCTV system. I am having serious ball ache with my system. Having paid a pro £100 yesterday for 2 hours I now feel I’m actually no further forwards.
While my cameras now appear to record perfectly and the quality is far better, I now can’t playback videos at all from my NVR on any level. I can play them fine from my DVR which runs on the same 4G network. I can live stream 4 cameras on live view in Hik-Connect from the NVR in basic mode and all seem to work. 2 way audio work a treat.

I’m now left with a system which is rendered useless for me if I can’t playback via Hik-Connect. I had put it down the fact the images quality from cams was overloading the 4G. However I can’t even playback footage from my 2mp ANPR cam, which worked perfectly in every way prior to be looked at by the pro.

The guy noted some conflicts on the ports, I’ve emailed him this morning for advice as to if this is a router or network issues. But he wasn’t a 4g specialist and didn’t offer much in the way of advise at the time to resolve.

Does anyone who properly knows what they’re doing with this stuff offer remote support? As you can see I happy to pay for the right knowledge!

Is the 4G connection the main internet connection or just a backup?

Do you have a diagram of how your NVR / DVR camera network is setup?

David

 

[R_M]

Hi David, sorry for the delay. I wanted to give the other chap a chance to get it sorted, which he still hasn’t been able to do.

I’ll give you an overview of what my issues are.
My home broadband is slow, we’re taking 5mb down and .5mb up. Uploading anything beyond a low res image is a non starter.

I started with a POC system. Quickly discovered that they’re crap, and no use unless you want constant false alerts, only good thing seems to be reliability. Due to poor broadband I decided to buy a dedicated 4G router. Being a bit green I went for a DLink DWR921, thats ran fine on the 4G for best part of 12months and is never an issue to playback or live view from with the DVR.

So I ‘upgraded’ to an I series NVR. Along with a 7line ANPR and X4 4K cams for the house. I initially dumped the NVR on the DLink for a connection. I had a number of issues with setup and never managed to get playback to work seamlessly. Additionally it misses a lot of events which should trigger motion on the cams to alert HikConnect.

Upon losing my rag with it multiple times I decided I’d be best following advice and call a pro. He spent spent 2 hours on it initially, half of which was sorting out the mess I’d made of config. He got everything so that it records and plays back locally on the NVR perfectly.

However issues with playback persisted. I made contact with the pro and it was suggested that it may be because I have the NVR and DVR on same 4G network. The rational being conflicts being caused having both on same network and on same HikConnect account.

So I duly set about following the recommendations of getting a half decent router. I was told a TP link should be fit for the job. I ordered the best one they do, the MR600. I then set that up as a stand alone router for the NVR, messed about pulling more data cable and got it all wired in. So I’m now POC DVR on the DLink (now with an EE PAYG 4Gdata sim) and the NVR on the new TP link (on my existing EE 4G data contract sim).

The new router is a cat6 and is positioned much better than the old one. The data speeds on WiFi were up to 25mb down and 7-8 up, that lifted to around 40mb and 15mb when wired in to the router. So my mindset is that I’ve now got a bloody fast 4G connection. You can imagine my utter anger when I’ve got it all up and online, only to find I still can’t playback from the NVR with an array of error messages being displayed in HikConnect.

He has tonight spent another hour trying to sort it out. It’s too early at the moment to say if its worked - was very much a let’s try this a last ditch attempt. However, the ANPR would always playback under test, none of the 4Ks would playback without stuttering and freezing on DAY footage. Night footage seems much more stable. Hence being miffed as the internet is fast as hell now.

Should it be such a head ache using EE as the network? He is suggesting EE using a limited number of IP addresses and the fact Hik are hosted on AWS is causing the problem. Looks I’m also stuck with the trusty POC until this ‘better’ IP stuff can be fixed :-(

A further kick in knackers comes when downloading videos to the laptop, can’t play the bloody things with that V playing thing, and then have no way of saving them to my phone. Which I could do no issues with HikConnect.

He is booked in one more time to set up push emails on my ANPR. If his fixes today hasn’t worked I’ll be straight back in touch.

Ip spec below

1x Hikvision DS-7608NI-I2/8P 12MP 8 Port PoE NVR

• 2x DS-2CD2387G2-LU(2.8mm)HIK ColorVu Ext Turret 8MP 2.8mm Mic /PoE BLACK
• 1x DS-2CD7A26G0/P-IZS-8-32HIK 35M LPR Capture 2MP 8-32mm DeepinView DF Bullet
• 1x Hikvision DS-2CD2386G2-ISU/SL/GREY 8MP 4K IP Acusense Audio 2.8mm
• 1x DS-2CD2386G2-IU-2.8MM

 

[R_M]

Is there any end the layers of shite that being rural and having to use 4G dry shafts you with! Had some dodgy van lurking around outside my house. Just spent the last hour F-in about with that useless Vsplayer. The online instructions showing a convert to mp4 doesn’t sodding exist. So yet again this top line shite is rendered useless again. Grrrrrrrrr!!!!

 

[David]

Hi David, sorry for the delay. I wanted to give the other chap a chance to get it sorted, which he still hasn’t been able to do.

I’ll give you an overview of what my issues are.
My home broadband is slow, we’re taking 5mb down and .5mb up. Uploading anything beyond a low res image is a non starter.

I started with a POC system. Quickly discovered that they’re crap, and no use unless you want constant false alerts, only good thing seems to be reliability. Due to poor broadband I decided to buy a dedicated 4G router. Being a bit green I went for a DLink DWR921, thats ran fine on the 4G for best part of 12months and is never an issue to playback or live view from with the DVR.

So I ‘upgraded’ to an I series NVR. Along with a 7line ANPR and X4 4K cams for the house. I initially dumped the NVR on the DLink for a connection. I had a number of issues with setup and never managed to get playback to work seamlessly. Additionally it misses a lot of events which should trigger motion on the cams to alert HikConnect.

Upon losing my rag with it multiple times I decided I’d be best following advice and call a pro. He spent spent 2 hours on it initially, half of which was sorting out the mess I’d made of config. He got everything so that it records and plays back locally on the NVR perfectly.

However issues with playback persisted. I made contact with the pro and it was suggested that it may be because I have the NVR and DVR on same 4G network. The rational being conflicts being caused having both on same network and on same HikConnect account.

So I duly set about following the recommendations of getting a half decent router. I was told a TP link should be fit for the job. I ordered the best one they do, the MR600. I then set that up as a stand alone router for the NVR, messed about pulling more data cable and got it all wired in. So I’m now POC DVR on the DLink (now with an EE PAYG 4Gdata sim) and the NVR on the new TP link (on my existing EE 4G data contract sim).

The new router is a cat6 and is positioned much better than the old one. The data speeds on WiFi were up to 25mb down and 7-8 up, that lifted to around 40mb and 15mb when wired in to the router. So my mindset is that I’ve now got a bloody fast 4G connection. You can imagine my utter anger when I’ve got it all up and online, only to find I still can’t playback from the NVR with an array of error messages being displayed in HikConnect.

He has tonight spent another hour trying to sort it out. It’s too early at the moment to say if its worked - was very much a let’s try this a last ditch attempt. However, the ANPR would always playback under test, none of the 4Ks would playback without stuttering and freezing on DAY footage. Night footage seems much more stable. Hence being miffed as the internet is fast as hell now.

Should it be such a head ache using EE as the network? He is suggesting EE using a limited number of IP addresses and the fact Hik are hosted on AWS is causing the problem. Looks I’m also stuck with the trusty POC until this ‘better’ IP stuff can be fixed :-(

A further kick in knackers comes when downloading videos to the laptop, can’t play the bloody things with that V playing thing, and then have no way of saving them to my phone. Which I could do no issues with HikConnect.

He is booked in one more time to set up push emails on my ANPR. If his fixes today hasn’t worked I’ll be straight back in touch.

Ip spec below

1x Hikvision DS-7608NI-I2/8P 12MP 8 Port PoE NVR

• 2x DS-2CD2387G2-LU(2.8mm)HIK ColorVu Ext Turret 8MP 2.8mm Mic /PoE BLACK
• 1x DS-2CD7A26G0/P-IZS-8-32HIK 35M LPR Capture 2MP 8-32mm DeepinView DF Bullet
• 1x Hikvision DS-2CD2386G2-ISU/SL/GREY 8MP 4K IP Acusense Audio 2.8mm
• 1x DS-2CD2386G2-IU-2.8MM

Let's see if we can sort this out, let me check the specifications of the 4G routers. I'll also need to read your posts a few times to get a better understanding.

I assume that local record and playback at the NVR and DVR (using monitors attached to them) is ok?

Is the main problem remote playback via the broadband connection and or 4G router connections?

 

[David]

@R_M
Let’s see if we can stabilise the network first. As you are in a rural area with limited bandwidth temporarily change all camera video resolutions to 1920 x 1080 at 15fps. Do this to the main and event streams.

Use smart phone to find strongest EE signal (=>3 bars or better) test at windows. Upstairs better as height gives a better signal. When you have found the best place for EE 4G signal move the 4G routers there.

 

[R_M]

Good morning David, thanks for getting back to me. The router is showing a full signal. As mentioned above I did speed test the new connection multiple times and saw solid smooth data graphs and a 21ms ping time. The flat data line and decent ping didn’t scream network issues - I’ve seen bad networks previously where the graph is more like a heart monitor reading. I further tested by downloading files to my laptop, both over the WiFi from the 4G router and via its LAN port. I also had someone else using the network to upload some files while I was streaming a high res video online and it worked fine under load. Is there anyway to test for packet loss?
The chap yesterday did drop the frame rates down somewhere near that. However, 3 of my cams pick up moving traffic and therefor lower frame rate isn’t the best in those instances I believe. (I bought top of the range cams for the best image quality I can get).

Yes local playback is fine, no issues and as I’d expect the footage to be. This is resonates the same when playing back via a web browser. The web browsers would have at least been a work around, but when you get videos is VS, they don’t play in windows and the VSPlaying I’ve had installed for me shows no options to convert to a playable format. Nearly everything I do is on an iPhone, if I can’t get my footage on there it leaves me with a huge problem.

What I can’t get my head around is why playback locally is fine, and I can live stream all 5 cameras simultaneously in HikConnect and can do 2 side by side in HD with no issues, yet can play back one channel of local 4K footage. The same NVR and network will allow the 2mp ANPR to playback anytime, without issue. The night footage on my 4K cams seems easier for it to deal with than day footage. It would stand to reason that day footage is more demanding.

Annoyingly EE in their infinite wisdom disconnected my existing data sim last night as I ordered a new sim yesterday. So much for progress, when back in the day you registered the sim upon receiving and didn’t face down time awaiting the new one. I haven’t been able to do any testing with Hik-Connect as yet.

All my cams are run POE from NVR ports, all on cat5 E. All the cabling was throughly tested both ways prior to being connected, and run away from existing power runs.
My BT was used at the very start when I got my POC system, the .5mb upload meant footage wouldn’t play or live stream, hence how I found myself in the complex world of 4G internet. My BT connection is no longer connected in any way to my CCTV systems due to this.

 

[David]

Let's assume the 4G connection is good and stable. Ping is good to test for network connectivity but is unreliable for quality tests as data loaded routers may drop ICMP (ping) packets.

By VS and VSPlaying, is this the Hikvision VSPlayer App?

As you mainly use your IPhone, is the local wifi network playback ok on it?

What camera video resolution and frame rates are you using for main and event streams.

Do you normally use both the 4G routers at the same time and could there be any intermittent network loops or double natting going on?

if you need to contact me directly my email is dwb5707@yahoo.co.uk, its good to post on the forum as others may get handy tips.

 

[R_M]

Thank David.

So to answer your questions:
Let's assume the 4G connection is good and stable. Ping is good to test for network connectivity but is unreliable for quality tests as data loaded routers may drop ICMP (ping) packets.
I’ve done a packet loss test today, over WiFi with the new router using my phone. I set the test scenario to be as harsh as possible. It showed a 14% packet loss over 60secs, and seemed to lose more once it passed the 30sec mark in the test. When I did a test which less demanding the loss rate was quite a bit less. I try working out how many packets say 20secs of 4K video would be at H265, but got sidetracked.

By VS and VSPlaying, is this the Hikvision VSPlayer App?
So the chap who has been doing the work installed VSPlayer from the Hik portal. I mentioned to him it’s a pain to get footage to my laptop when I when I want to. He informed me that the Hik cctv videos require VSPlayer and won’t play via anything else. When I looked at the release notes online it suggested it is possible to use VSPlaying to reformat videos into one that could be played on windows media player. I assumed then I’d be able use that as a workaround to get the videos up on to OneDrive in Mp4(or what ever the format needs to be), and then download from there on the my phone. The version I’ve got doesn’t have the reformat button anywhere on screen.

As you mainly use your IPhone, is the local wifi network playback ok on it?
My local network, the BT broadband is pretty useless for anything beyond web browsing or using the WiFi network to run my printer and other low bandwidth devices. When ever I playback on Hik-Connect I use the phone’s 4G connection. The BT system isn’t in anyway connected with the CCTV.

What camera video resolution and frame rates are you using for main and event streams.
The cameras are all the latest gen 8mp’s 2 are G2 darkfighters and 2 are the 4K colorvu turrets which only got released weeks ago. The frame rates and resolutions have been turned down a fair bit from where I had them set, which was aimed at best quality. I am somewhat narked at having the lower the quality of what are meant to be top of the range cameras and a beefy NVR.

Do you normally use both the 4G routers at the same time and could there be any intermittent network loops or double natting going on?
I don’t think that’s an issue. The Dlink(POC System) is in the loft and the TP Link(IP System) is in one of the bedrooms, not the one directly below the router in the loft. They are a good 7-8 meters apart. The NVR is run of on Cat5 that I pulled in earlier in the week and is run away from power. I am going to test a pre made cat6 out loft hatch to rule out bad cable.

I’ve another appointment in the diary with this other chap, he is now talking about escalation to Hik themselves. It seems ludicrous being unable to use top brand stuff seamlessly.

 

[David]

I’ve done a packet loss test today, over WiFi with the new router using my phone. I set the test scenario to be as harsh as possible. It showed a 14% packet loss over 60secs, and seemed to lose more once it passed the 30sec mark in the test. When I did a test which less demanding the loss rate was quite a bit less. I try working out how many packets say 20secs of 4K video would be at H265, but got sidetracked.

Make allowances for the packet loss on the wifi connection between the router and your IPhone, no matter how close they are. Do the test from a device connected to the router by ethernet cable. Cellular phone networks are notorious for data packet loss. Even though you see full signal strength on the 4G router your signal quality could be bad but still usable due to data buffering and error correction. Under router settings you may see the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for each antenna (maybe) and the overall combined SNR. This is why I mentioned finding the best window to put the router in, the less obstructed the Line of Sight (LoS) between the router and cellphone tower the better. Trees on the LoS also corrupt the signal especially with leaves on windy days.

When I looked at the release notes online it suggested it is possible to use VSPlaying to reformat videos into one that could be played on windows media player.

Within the VSPlayer bundle there is a program called format converter.exe, you can start it from VSPlayer but I set a shortcut to C:\Program Files (x86)\VSPlayer\FormatConverter\formatconverter.exe. I use this to convert from Hikvision proprietary files (H264+ and H265+) to MP4 (H264) and other formats. You could also try handbrake. I convert to MP4 (H264) and use the g711a audio codec, I find the AAC audio codec to be inconsistent.

VLC is a good tool for video playback, it will playback native Hikvision format.

My local network, the BT broadband is pretty useless for anything beyond web browsing or using the WiFi network to run my printer and other low bandwidth devices.

Your BT broadband is probably ADSL2.

The cameras are all the latest gen 8mp’s 2 are G2 darkfighters and 2 are the 4K colorvu turrets which only got released weeks ago. The frame rates and resolutions have been turned down a fair bit from where I had them set, which was aimed at best quality

As local playback is ok I suspect the 4G network does not have the bandwidth to playback all your cameras at the maximum video resolutions. Keep all your video resolutions and frame rates low for now and see if we can tweak the setup to optimise it for what you have. Another factor to consider is if your IPhone has the processing power to playback all the remote video you want to see, higher video data rates are very demanding. There are probably several small problems in different places giving what appears to be a big problem.

I am going to test a pre made cat6 out loft hatch to rule out bad cable.

If the cable was a problem it would show on local playback.

The NVR is run of on Cat5 that I pulled in earlier in the week and is run away from power. I am going to test a pre made cat6 out loft hatch to rule out bad cable.

Cat5 (100Mb) to the cameras should be ok, not sure about the NVR WAN side at maximum video resolutions and frame rates. I recall that the NVR WAN receive is limited to around 80Mb, check the NVR specifications. Cat5e (1Gb) would be better.

he is now talking about escalation to Hik themselves. It seems ludicrous being unable to use top brand stuff seamlessly.

From what I know that doesn't make sense, did local playback work at the NVR monitor using max video resolutions and frame rates?

 

[R_M]

I will be doing another test wired in, I figured the using wifi from the router to the phone would be the very worst case.

With regards the position of the NVRs router, I have that on a shelf directly opposite a window. Said window is one with DLOS to the nearest mast, which isn’t that far away.

For clarification when I refer to cat5, I am intact referring to Cat5e. I won’t use anything less. Good point on testing another cable, all the data will come back down that cable when I browse in.

Yes, I’ve never had any issues playing back locally or through the browser. All my playback issues seem to come from playing back high res videos.
All my POC cameras are 5mp and I’ve never once had an issues playing back those, the NVR was initially on the same network as the POC. It’s looking more and more like an issues exclusively with trying to playback 4K from the NVR.

The point on bandwidth is a good one too, however I can live view 2 cameras in HD side by side in HikConnect, and all 5 should I choose to. The res does look to drop when viewing more than 2, from what I can see that’s a standard HikConnect feature. So if I can live view 2 in HD, I’m puzzled why I can’t playback just one at similar quality.

 

[David]

I'll reply when I am back home.
I forgot to mention on your test app keep the packet size around 1000 bytes or less to allow for the overhead. It has been many years since I've carried out packet tests but I recall packet testing at less than the standard MTU of 1500 Bytes.

 

[R_M]

I ran a test on the laptop similar that I’d done on the phone and it was better.

Seems like I’m either the most unlucky person in the world, or tech is just cack. But now I can’t even web browse in to my NVR now, can get the login page. Enter details and get Network Abnormal.
Was attempted to sort out my ANPR cam which has been dropped down to such a low level I can no longer read plates. You just couldn’t make this up, my god the security installers world is lucky I didn’t pay 2.5k for this to be installed professionally and it not to work. I’d have been on their case daily.

 

[David]

With regards the position of the NVRs router, I have that on a shelf directly opposite a window. Said window is one with DLOS to the nearest mast, which isn’t that far away.

How far away is the tower? Sometimes too close can be as bad as too far, I know your test results look good but conditions vary all the time. Login to your 4G router and let me know the average RSSI and SNR?

For clarification when I refer to cat5, I am intact referring to Cat5e. I won’t use anything less.

My network is cat5e, that's all a standard domestic install needs. The uplink ports on my PoE. switches are 1Gb with 100Mb individual ports. I did the install myself and made all the cables.

The point on bandwidth is a good one too, however I can live view 2 cameras in HD side by side in HikConnect, and all 5 should I choose to. The res does look to drop when viewing more than 2, from what I can see that’s a standard HikConnect feature. So if I can live view 2 in HD, I’m puzzled why I can’t playback just one at similar quality.

When you are viewing 2 or more, in HD side by side, you could be seeing lower resolution streams, viewing 1 a higher resolution stream.

Yes, I’ve never had any issues playing back locally or through the browser. All my playback issues seem to come from playing back high res videos.
All my POC cameras are 5mp and I’ve never once had an issues playing back those, the NVR was initially on the same network as the POC. It’s looking more and more like an issues exclusively with trying to playback 4K from the NVR.

Moving to 4k cameras is more demanding network wise especially over 4G in rural areas, you could be connecting via 4G then microwave backhaul onto the fibre optic backbone.

I ran a test on the laptop similar that I’d done on the phone and it was better.

Latency and Jitter are about normal, benchmark those results for future reference

Seems like I’m either the most unlucky person in the world, or tech is just cack. But now I can’t even web browse in to my NVR now, can get the login page. Enter details and get Network Abnormal.

Its just normal IT stuff, affects everyone the same. Are you still having local login problems?

Just a thought is your NVR, cameras, and 4G router firmware current?

David

 

[R_M]

So another update and one which is slightly more positive than others previously.

Had another session today with the IP guy and he seems to have found and fixed the problems.

Turns out all the cameras were feeding in to one channel (D1). He assigned each its own within the linkage action page. Have been testing it all day and it’s vastly improved. The cameras are still missing some things they should be pinging notifications for. But, I’m down in single digit percentages being missed now.

The ANPR is now sending email from a gmail account, it again still isn’t emailing out all plates, but again it’s damn good start.

The other thing changed was the audio format. Only negative thing thus far is the 2 way audio now not working on the only cam which has that function.

Next on the list is trying to get the cameras viewable within my Ajax alarm app.

 

[David]

Only negative thing thus far is the 2 way audio now not working on the only cam which has that function.

I find G711a (A-Law) to give consistent one way performance for my setup, which format do you use? AAC is a more modern audio protocol but gives me problems when used remotely.

Next on the list is trying to get the cameras viewable within my Ajax alarm app.

Ajax may use RTSP to access the video stream from your NVR / Cameras. I setup user / operator (no admin rights) accounts on my NVR / cameras for RTSP access. There are various threads on the Hikvision forum on RTSP, look at this one here.

If you will view video remotely use the sub-stream as high resolution video playback may not be stable.

 

[R_M]

I find G711a (A-Law) to give consistent one way performance for my setup, which format do you use? AAC is a more modern audio protocol but gives me problems when used remotely.


Ajax may use RTSP to access the video stream from your NVR / Cameras. I setup user / operator (no admin rights) accounts on my NVR / cameras for RTSP access. There are various threads on the Hikvision forum on RTSP, look at this one here.

If you will view video remotely use the sub-stream as high resolution video playback may not be stable.

I am hoping the Ajax integration should be easy, everything about the Ajax so far has been brilliant to use.

 

[David]

I am hoping the Ajax integration should be easy, everything about the Ajax so far has been brilliant to use.

If it is well written package the setup of the RTSP URL should be transparent to you.