IP Camera Feed Delay over POE COAX

[Sinfonia97]

Greetings all. This is my first post as I am at a loss for identifying the issue that I am having with one of my cameras. Typically I am able to find the answers somewhere in the forums. After a house fire 17 years ago, I had the security alarm company run a line for me to use for a camera on the front porch. There was concern at the time that the fire was set intentionally and I wanted to have something to monitor who was coming and going from the front of my house. When I finally went to install the camera I realized they installed a coax line with power to be used with an analog camera. Do to that reason I ended up having to postpone the camera install till I could figure out how to either replace or use the existing coax.

A few years ago I started working on this project again and I came across these POE over COAX converters that would allow me to use the existing line that was run. Everything seemed great at first till several days later I noticed that the feed from that camera was delayed by just over a minute. If I reset the camera it goes back to being sync with all the other cameras, but after a couple days it is delayed again. The camera is an Amcrest IP8M-T2599EW. I've tried changing the bit rate and other configurable variables based on guides here in these forums, but nothing I do seems to fix the issue. I'm also using BI for currently 3 cameras, 2 are WiFi and the third is the problem child. I have no issues with the WiFi cameras at this time accept when our microwave is in use. I am planning on running a new cat 6 line to the garage as I will be adding a second camera there and I want to change the current camera with another Amcrest bullet. Both of those will be powered by a small POE switch in the garage.

I'm hoping someone here can help me figure out where else to look to try and solve this issue or am I stuck with it because I am doing the conversion from IP to COAX and back.

Thanks in advance.

 

[wittaj]

It isn't the POE over coax converters. Many here use those with no problem. I currently am using that exact one and feeding 4 cameras thru it without a lag compared to my other cameras.

I suspect the cameras are going thru your router since you have two of them as wifi?

If so, that Amcrest is probably calling home and you are probably getting that feed after going thru a cloud. And after awhile it can't keep up in the consumer router so it lags and a reboot gets it going.

Did you set it up by scanning a QR code and left P2P on? If so, I would suggest factory resetting the camera and set it up without internet connection and turning P2P off so that it remains a local only camera.

 

[Sinfonia97]

@wittaj Thanks for the information. I do not recall setting it up with the QR code, but it is possible. Never used the cloud storage, so that was disabled. I went to the camera directly and disabled the P2P and restarted the camera. Will see if by tomorrow morning if that has made a difference. I also realized that the motion detection was still enabled on the camera and it does not have an SD card installed, so kind of pointless. Wondering if that may have something to do with it and disabled that as well.

I'll update tomorrow if things are back on track.

 

[Sinfonia97]

Well, did take long. In the time it took me to reply to your post and go back to view the camera in BI it was already delayed by 30 seconds and fast approaching the minute mark. I noticed in BI it was incrementing 1 second on the camera for approximately every 2 seconds in real-time.

I forgot to answer your question about going through a router. I actually have it going through a managed POE switch on a subnet dedicated to my cameras. Unfortunately right now my BI server is on another subnet so it has to go through my PFSense router and through another managed switch to get to BI. I wouldn't expect that to be an issue, but I can do some snooping to see if I am seeing any packet delays across my network.

I did just take a quick look at some network stats and it was interesting to see that the camera in question appears to be sending data for a few seconds and then stops for a few then sends data again. Not sure what could be causing that behavior. If I connect directly to the camera I do not see this issue, but I think in BI it is manifesting as the delay I am seeing. Need to try and figure out why it is sending data in spurts and not continuously.

Here is a view of the traffic from that camera in PFSense

 

[wittaj]

There have been reports here of Amcrest cams doing this despite not giving it internet access.

Another issue is that is a budget camera with 8MP on the 1/2.7" sensor and processor that was designed for 2MP.

We have seen instances in these budget cams that the little processor in them just cannot keep up and then you throw this constant trying to ping out and not get a response and the camera could simply be overloading and maxing out the CPU in the camera.

Another possible issue could be the receive buffer in BI is defaulted at 6MB. Maybe increasing it to 20 or 40MB might make a difference?

 

[Mike A.]

Maybe try bp2008's continuous ping utility. See if you're losing connectivity or other network delay:

GitHub - bp2008/pingtracer: Graphical pinging and traceroute application. Ping Tracer continuously pings each network host between your computer and a given destination, helping identify the source of connectivity problems.

Graphical pinging and traceroute application. Ping Tracer continuously pings each network host between your computer and a given destination, helping identify the source of connectivity problems. -...

github.com

Or can run ping -t but the above is nicer.

 

[TonyR]

Maybe I missed this in your above replies but did you try lowering the cam's res to 1080p (2 MP) , and perhaps frame rate to 10 with matching frame interval just to see if it improves?

Is the POE over Coax converter in warranty?

Can you get your hands on an equivalent length of coax with BNC connectors already installed so you can lay on the floor and bypass the coax the alarm person installed just to see if it's a cable issue? I'm not suggesting you spend any money but oftentimes you can find pieces where people have pulled out of their house, maybe the alarm guy can point you in the right direction.

 

[Sinfonia97]

Thanks everyone, great ideas to try and I will work through them each to see which one may solve my issue. I did try one other thing last night that did fix the issue shown in my network traffic graph. I had the camera set to H.264H and thought I would try H.264 instead. This caused the camera to start sending the data in a continuous stream instead of in spurts. Not certain why H.264H would make the camera react that way, but could be as you mentioned @wittaj the processor was getting overloaded. Unfortunately switching to H.264 did not solve the problem. I've changed the receive buffer and so far looks good, but I need to give it some time to see if the delay occurs again. Typically by now it would already be delayed by nearly 30 seconds, but so far it is keeping up with the stream. I'll respond in about an hour and let you know if it is still in sync or is still getting delayed.

 

[Sinfonia97]

Ok, we are now just over 1 hour in and the delay has not returned. It looks like the default buffer size was causing the issue. I want to thank everyone who gave me some areas to look at.

On another note, @wittaj you mentioned that this camera had issues with the processor not being scaled properly for the sensor. Would the 8MP 4K Starlight IVS IR Turret Fixed-Focal IP Camera IPC-T2831TM-AS S2 be a good replacement? I am looking to improve the cameras I have and add more. I've always heard the Dahua cameras are some of the best. Is that still the case?

Thank you again to everyone who helped figure out this issue.

 

[TonyR]

Ok, we are now just over 1 hour in and the delay has not returned. It looks like the default buffer size was causing the issue. I want to thank everyone who gave me some areas to look at.

On another note, @wittaj you mentioned that this camera had issues with the processor not being scaled properly for the sensor. Would the 8MP 4K Starlight IVS IR Turret Fixed-Focal IP Camera IPC-T2831TM-AS S2 be a good replacement? I am looking to improve the cameras I have and add more. I've always heard the Dahua cameras are some of the best. Is that still the case?

Thank you again to everyone who helped figure out this issue.

For A 4K/8MP camera you want at least a 1/1.8″ 1/1.2" CMOS image sensor, not a 1/2.7"

EDIT: corrected my miscue above (serves me right by "trying" to go by memory). So while I'm at it, below is the minimum recommended sensor size for various MP sizes.
Remember....1/1.2" is LARGER than 1/2.8" and LARGER is better!

• 2MP on 1/2.8"
• 4MP on 1/1.8"
• 8MP on 1/1.2"

 

[wittaj]

Glad it is working.

Also keep in mind that BI prefers straight H264 or H265 without any other codec. Sometimes you can get by with H264H but I suspect that was adding to the problem.

No that camera would not be a suitable replacement - that is basically what you have now. Dahua makes Amcrest so they are essentially the same camera both on the 1.27" sensor designed for 2MP.

Chase sensor size, not MP. In many instances 2MP or 4MP is more than adequate.

If you want 4K, then you need a sensor size of 1/1.2" sensor. 4MP is a 1/1.8" sensor.

You would need something like this camera if you really want 4K, but you need light or be willing to use the built-in white LED as this camera doesn't see infrared:

https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-Full-Color-Syarlight-Turret-IPC-Color4K-T/dp/B0BC1BD9SQ/ref=sr_1_6?imprToken=eNnu.Pmf5hsW5hcTVECAQg&linkCode=w61&m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&qid=1676484310&redirect=true&s=merchant-items&slotNum=0&sr=1-6

If you do not have enough light or do not want to use the built-in white LED, then you need to go with the 5442 series that can see IR. This is a 4MP on the 1/1.8" sensor.

https://www.amazon.com/Loryta-IPC-T5442TM-AS-Starlight-Eyeball-Network/dp/B07S47VXGY/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=5442&m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&qid=1676484404&s=merchant-items&sr=1-2

 

[Sinfonia97]

Just checked out some reviews on the 4k turret you posted @wittaj. That camera is pretty amazing under low light conditions and my front porch has a light on outside all night so this would likely work perfectly for what I am needing to do. I'll likely look to see if there is an equivalent bullet camera with the same capabilities for 2 of my other cameras. I am not hung up on 4K, but I would like to have a vari-focal lens on at least one of them and 4MP. How does the community feel about the IPC-B5442E-ZE SMD 3.0 in the IPCamTalk store? There seems to be a complaint on Amazon that this camera is not secure and you have to jump through hoops to configure it.

 

[wittaj]

Yes there is a bullet form of the 4K/X. It appears they are out right now, but @EMPIRETECANDY sells it on his Amazon store and supplies cameras to the IPCamTalk store, so he would be able to tell you when they are in stock.

The 5442-ZE is a great camera and great varifocal choice.

That reviewer on Amazon had no idea what he was talking about. I set up every single one of my cameras on a computer that does not have internet access. You can set it up the same way you set up the Amcrest cams.

It is best to not go by reviews on Amazon for these cameras because you get incompetent people buying these cameras thinking they are simple scan a QR code like their Ring camera LOL. Plus almost every review is based on a static image.

Go by the reviews here where folks demonstrate how these cameras perform at night WITH motion.

The fact of the matter is EVERY SINGLE CAMERA is not secure if you give it internet access. That is why most of us with BI run a dual NIC system - all the cameras go to one ethernet port in the computer on one IP address subnet and the internet goes to the other ethernet port on a different IP address subnet. That way the cameras cannot talk to the internet.

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