General question on use of POE switch for NVR

avspin

avspin

Getting the hang of it
Jan 18, 2021
114
65
Reno, NV
I have a Dahua NVR with POE for 16 cameras. Been happy with it. But I wanted to use BI on my computer just to monitor the feeds as I'm not crazy with Smart PSS.
Right now all the cameras on the NVR send a sub-stream over my network to my computer. The resources used are pretty, less than 1-2%.
When I put some cameras on a switch in order to use BI the full 4K stream is now being sent through my network. Plus BI is using a bunch of resources (not recording) to the tune of 26%. mY computer has 32G of RAM.
So is this the correct way to set up? Am I correct in thinking I'm using more bandwidth on my network by using a switch?
Just trying to understand it all.
thanks
 
I bet your NVR is sending you a less than 4k stream, so it doesn't take much to decode and display it. Decoding and displaying a 4k stream just takes more computing power. If your CPU is getting hammered, check if the software you're using can take advantage of hardware decoding in your graphics card, that should unload your processor a bit.
 
You can also just put the IP address of the NVR into the Add camera section of BI and then hit find/inspect. Down on that tab is a cameras section and you just change the number. Then copy the camera (that is actually the NVR) and then change the camera number to the next one. This isn't for this NVR but another brand, but the find/inspect should find it. Go with what it says.

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I tried that with Blue Iris and I can only get the first channel. There is a post from last year that showed the path which included the channel number. But in the newest version, which I have, the path is blank. I emailed BI a couple of days ago about this, still waiting for a response.
 
MattCam said:
I bet your NVR is sending you a less than 4k stream, so it doesn't take much to decode and display it. Decoding and displaying a 4k stream just takes more computing power. If your CPU is getting hammered, check if the software you're using can take advantage of hardware decoding in your graphics card, that should unload your processor a bit.
Click to expand...
The computer I'm using has an i7-8086K over clocked to 5.1 and dual GTX1080ti s in SLI over clocked. I don't want heat them up too much. I like the sub-stream to my PC as it's low bandwidth and low resources. I will keep the switch in the system for backup.
The NVR I replaced was the same one but Q-See and the power supply went out after 14 months. So I bought a new power supply a few days before deciding to upgrade to the Dahua. It has the same power supply so now I have a spare when needed.
I'm just concerned as 16x 4k cameras sending data though my network would use a bunch of it.
 
Just run a separate switch for your camera stuff. Put all of your cameras and your NVR on a dedicated switch, put the rest of your computer stuff on a different switch, connect them through 1 port. That will keep the traffic between your cameras and your NVR separate from the rest of your traffic, for bandwidth purposes. If you want to separate them more for security purposes then maybe add VLANs.

What's the point of having all that hardware if you're not going to use it? I'm running a 12-core machine myself and it gets banged on all day. I usually have a couple of virtual machines and 3 or 4 Visual Studio instances plus cameras streaming, no problem. You paid for the hardware, use the hardware! ;)
 
Ahh, ok I never thought about that. I can keep cameras off the network, power them through the switch the send the feed from the NVR through the sub stream. Going to try that later today.
Thanks!
 
So that didn't work. I unplugged 6 cameras from the NVR. Plugger 2 cameras into the switch and plugged the switch into an empty POE port.
Could not find any camera on the config tool. The two cameras I did use had an IP address when plugged into the switch before.
I don't know if I need to change a setting for this to work.
 
That's how I started. But that means all the 4K cameras are using my network bandwidth instead of a smaller sub stream.
Is there a chart or formula to determine exactly how much bandwidth a camera uses?
 
avspin said:
Is there a chart or formula to determine exactly how much bandwidth a camera uses?
Click to expand...
Add up the bitrate for each camera to get the total that would go through an uplink or to an NVR LAN interface.

With maybe 5-10Mbps per camera, 8 cameras will be well under 80Mbps which is just 10% of the typical 800Mbps of a gigabit switch uplink.
 
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