Video Frame Drop By VMS?

Hi Yves,

There are a few reasons why a VMS may drop frames I can think of:

• Network spikes due to other processes on VMS server (Windows Updates).
• In low bandwidth or network constraints the VMS will drop frames first (camera in focus/single view will try to maintain requested FPS)
• Sometimes VMS architecture could cause long requests/response times from camera, dropping a few frames
• High/maxed CPU especially with high frame rates (30) for multiple cameras.
• What about Anti-virus programs, they're notorious for blocking some VMS processes.

And finally, probably the most common, you can view a camera set at 30fps via browser, but when that camera is added to a VMS where there is usually a FPS default (range between 10-15FPS) it will only accept the max requested and drop the rest.

Tell me about your experience, is your VMS dropping lots of frames? at certain times? only some cameras?

It would also be wise to check whether the IP camera is the bottleneck. During some experiments over here, we thought our VMS was dropping packets when displaying full HD H.264@25 FPS video streams. However, it turned out to be that the IP cameras couldn't cope with encoding the H.264 video streams at the designed frame rate.

Tiago

If you drop the frame rate of the camera, or drop the bandwidth to a lower quality, does your frame dropping problem go away ?

Also, are both of the cameras mentioned being recorded on the same NVR ? If so, start at the NVR. If not, start at the camera / switch / network.

Hello there,

the cameras are viewed on the same video matrix. They are not being recorded on a NVR. The drop in frame rate occurs both individually (i.e., viewing a single camera) or grouped in a 2 x 2 matrix.

I've done the following test just now with a single camera:

Camera model: Axis P1347

Resolution: 1920x1080

Compression level: 30

Video compression: H.264 (GoV lenght: 32, Variable bitrate)

Then, I varied the maximum frame rate as follows:

Max FPS: 10 --> No frame drop

Max FPS: 15 --> Frames are dropped (FPS fluctuates between 10 - 15)

Max FPS: 20 --> Frames are dropped (FPS fluctuates between 10 - 20)

Max FPS: 25 --> Frames are dropped (FPS fluctuates between 5 - 25)

All cameras are connected to the same switch (NetGear GS724TP). Port speed per camera is setup to 100 Mbps. It is worth mentioning that all cameras are facing a full HD monitor displaying "Timescapes".

Try CBR