SmartPSS DVR/NVR software

[Humboldt]

Not sure if this is hardware or software...so posting it here

We use this at work and love it.
https://download.cnet.com/SmartPSS/3...-77971769.html

Lets us view multiple DVR and NVR security cameras in thumbnails one on screen.
Before it we has to switch IP addresses to go from one device to another.

Currently have 36 cameras on my main view (caught anther shoplifter today).

Double click a given thumbnail and it goes full-screen. Replay, zoom, playback all work great.

Everything worked fine until a couple years ago, when opening full-screen in high res would result in a black screen.

Bump it down to low res and it works fine.

This isn't all cameras, about 1/3 work flawlessly all the time, 1/3 are wonky every now and then, and 1/3 suck a** most of time but work perfectly the rest.

We've trouble shot everything we can. Swapped cables and cameras.
Powered devices on and off.
Updated firmware.

We have some of the fastest internet and server/router connections out there within reason.

Any suggestions?

[Humboldt]

Not sure that SmartPSS is getting overwhelmed since we're not close to what it's rated to support.

Or how it could be the cables if the cameras work well some times but not others.

[Philip]

It could be a number of things, the software, the network adapter, or the PC/video card you're using getting overwhelmed with that many feeds.
Are the problematic cameras a different brand, on a certain DVR/NVR?

[Humboldt]

It could be a number of things, the software, the network adapter, or the PC/video card you're using getting overwhelmed with that many feeds.
Are the problematic cameras a different brand, on a certain DVR/NVR?

By software do you mean the SmartPSS viewer or the devices' software?

I don't think it's be network adapters because when the cameras work well they do so on several machines, and when they crap out it's the same for everyone.

Same with video cards.

Either works fine or not at all (one crappy HP business but with decent upgraded onboard video and two sweet water-cooled custom builds).

I think most of the devices are mid-level Lorex, I'll check on the camera brands but assume they've changed over the years.
We do have a mix of camera resolutions, I wonder if that might be tied in.

The odd thing is they work fine sometimes.

Yes, certain devices have consistent issues of failing to access in full-screen.
When it occurs though, it's only on some of the cameras connected to it, not all of them.
And some devices the issue never occurs.

Thanks for the advice.

[Philip]

Yeah, I meant the SmartPSS may have issues, different resolutions may play a role as well, different video codecs (are all DVRs sending out h265 or h264 feeds? ). h265 is more CPU/graphic card intensive for decompression, but requires less bandwidth on the network side. Definitely helps if the CPU supports hardware h265 decoding, I think Intel started including hardware h265 decoding in the 6th generation of CPUs.

I would also check "Task Manager" on the receiving computer, it would tell you whether the CPU is being overwhelmed, the graphics, or network, I/O ?

I would try to find a pattern, are the cameras that have issues in a certain area, a certain model, using a different codec, or connected to a certain DVR.

[Easto]

I know nothing, but I did have a 16 camera setup at work on my desk and only had minor problems.. My only contribution here would be to check the DVR HDD. These things records up to a certain amount of time and then start to overwrite the old data. Maybe switching to a higher resolution overloads the overwrite process somehow? Try deleting a 1/3rd of your oldest non critical data from the disk and give it a fresh space to record.

[Humboldt]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see what we can come up with.

The odd thing is that SmartPSS is supposed to support up to 64 devices/256 channels.

We have either 4 or 5 devices and 40 channels.

Some devices work fine all the time, some work well most of the time but get wonky occasionally, and some are bad 85% of the time.

High res only, they all work fine if you go low res.

[YeOldeStonecat]

We've worked with a few security camera systems, I don't recall that product...the systems we've seen are usually the all integrated products from the vendor built into the NVR device (not an app installed on a computer).

I did a little Google-Fu on the SmartPSS and was looking for system requirements, didn't find much, but I did note that it hasn't been updated in nearly 3 years. Originated in the WinXP days, and since i still supports that, it's old Win32 code, just wondering if any recent Win10 feature updates impacted its performance. (I'm assuming you're running on a Win10 rig). Are any of the computers you've run it on still running older versions of Windows..just to sorta compare?

Side note, I know Blue Iris is a popular middle man/neutral cam software package a lot of people use on PCs...have you tried that?

I see you note 36 cameras, what else is on the same network you have? Do you have 1x larger network switch? Or several switches daisy chained? VoIP phones?

[triniwasp]

Hey Stonecat, we do run a VoIP phone system, there are 15 PCs, 5 servers, 3 nvrs, 2 dvrs, 2 wifi APs, 10-15 wireless devices (at any given time) , 2 cc terminals, 5 network printers, 5 gb-switches, and 3 routers. Aside from the printers and wireless devices, everything has a static IP.

Five or six years ago, I attempted to do some network analysis with Wireshark, the only thing I took action on, was turning off IPv6 on everything I could.

We do have some fairly long cable runs, a few over 200 ft.

AMA. Cheers!

PS all the machines with smart PSS are Win10 64b machines.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Hmmm...network may be at the point of...needing to be "checked and tweaked".
As an IT guy for businesses.....I cringe and twitch and go into convulsions at the site of finding multiple switches that aren't properly set up..esp when daisy chained.
Multiple switches are common in larger networks...as long as...set up properly.

The 3x routers? That's not making sense. An SMB network should (typically) have 1 router. That's the gateway to the internet. Are you meaning 3x wireless access points?

What brand of network switch? Are they managed?
If managed...do you know if you have any VLANs? A network of this size, I'd be setting up VLANs...1x for default/LAN, another for the VoIP, another for the IoT stuff (such as your cam system), another for the CC/POS system..keep the PCI compliance audits happy.

But..network performance may have some contribution to issues here....so doing things to "tweak" the network, verify the connections, optimize settings in the network..manage multicast traffic, stuff like that. I use Ubiquiti Unifi for all my networks because of the ease of management and in depth "tuning" I can do within networks. So, not sure what brand your network equip is..it may be one that has a nice management system.

[triniwasp]

I didn't design the network topolgy, but I am tasked with maintaining it. None of the switches are managed; they're either Cisco or Netgear. We're using Cisco RVO42Gs for our routers.We use three routers, one for each of our static IPs. Their WAN connections all go in to a single switch, which is connected to our modem. All of our client connections go into a different switch, which is connected to a LAN port on each of the three routers. Only one of the routers is an internet gateway for our LAN clients, another for our web hosting, third for our mail server.

It's been a long time since I took a networking class, but by VLAN do you mean subnetting? I've thought about that, but I didn't know if that was the nature of the issue. I'll take a look on LinkedIN learning, for some VLAN info, feel free to prvoide any links to resources you think are good. Thanks.

[Philip]

VLANs, virtual lans separate traffic, usually different types or devices that don't need to be on the same LAN. Managed switches have their own static IP and usually a web interface where you can login and see traffic statistics, errors/collisions, setup VLANs, configure individual ports for WAN/backhaul between switches, things like that. Still, if you have 30 cameras sending a lot of traffic to the same IP address you will see some collisions, regardless of whether the switch is managed. Switches theoretically only send traffic to the one port of that destination IP address, but some business models allow for more bandwidth per port.

You can usually separate traffic by putting VoIP on a different subnet, for example 192.168.0.* for PCs, 192.168.1.* for phones.

[YeOldeStonecat]

VLANs usually include subnetting, but it's a way in managed switches and routers.....to break up the "one big network" into multiple individual networks that are walled off from each other. They're not allowed to see each other by default. The traffic won't "mix"...and cause traffic jams. Traffic will flow smoother. And you can manage certain types of traffic, like multicast, etc.

So re: the 3 routers (wow, those RV042...I remember those...we install truckloads of the RV models). Old! But back to the routers, so even though you have 3 routers, 1 is for the web server, another for a mail server. But basically the "big" network of all the other computers/devices...is on the third router. OK, I can draw that in my mind. I'd have done it a lot different with 1x router and a good sized switch(es)...all of same brand, to manage in one interface.

But...yeah with that much "stuff" on an unmanaged network...I'd be suspect of messy traffic on the LAN.

*What mail server? Is it well monitored?
*Same for monitoring the web server. Only asking about those 2 because of so many "hacked" mail and web servers now....used for spewing out spam and attacks. (adding traffic to your network..I know they're not on your main LAN but still on the same internet pipe..even though a different public IP)

[triniwasp]

Ah, thanks Stonecat and Philip. These are the Gs, so not quite as old :-). I'm not sure what you mean by 'well monitored' in regard to the web and mail servers. Interestingly enough, we had issues with one of the IPs being a know SPAM IP to a particular domain, when we first aquired them, but we were able to get that resolved.

[Philip]

The "spam IP" designation by those anti-spam databases can be a pain for smaller websites, as they block wide subnet ranges... If any other server from the same datacenter sends out spam, chances are your IP gets blocked for emails too, many domains stop accepting email from your IPs. We have a small IP block of static IPs for SG that has been the same for over 10 years now, but our IPs were blocked on 2-3 separate occasions over the years because of other servers in the same datacenter. It takes some time to figure out that the IPs have been blocked, which anti-spam db has blocked them, and then it is a hassle to get them unblocked. Add to that maintaining a relevant up to date anti-spam filters for incoming mail, and it is not very convenient for small businesses to maintain a mail server anymore.

[YeOldeStonecat]

We used to do a LOT of on prem mail servers. I enjoy not dealing with them anymore, all of my clients I've moved to 365...however one of my colleagues still has a few on prem mail servers (Microsoft Exchange).
Back when I had a lot of them, I always had them send outbound email through a mail bastion host. The email servers never sent directly out to the internet. Also all incoming email to the servers first went through that mail bastion host (to get cleansed of spam/malware). This way, I only had port 25 locked down to open ONLY to that mail bastion host's range of IPs...and not the whole world. I hated the risk of exposing port 25 to the whole world...I'd want to format the server on a weekly basis. And web server...even more frightening to have open/exposed to the internet now.

[triniwasp]

So, here's an update. Situation remedied by replacing one of the NVR's which was a Lorex N86* series. Replaced with an N88* series (their Prosumer model) and voila! Not only did it fix the issue, it appeared the old NVR was causing other network issues, as now all the cameras feeds are smoother and less jittery.

[Humboldt]

Sweet Jesus.

[Philip]

Interesting.. The N88* series seem to have better hardware, they're also newer devices... The N86* quote 15fps recording of 4k video, while the N88* say full 30fps recording.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Does the new NVR have solid state storage? I'm guessing the old NVR has spindle drive for storage....