Frame rate great on Mac, Terrible on PC

[gleep52]

I have iCamSource 2.5 installed on two different macs, 16 cameras added, runs beautifully. 

I have iCamSource 2.5 installed on three different windows PCs (1 xp, 2 win 7) and even with one camera, on all three systems, the framerates are absolutely terrible.  The XP machine is about 4 years old, while the two win 7 machines are less than 1 year and very high end.

All computers are on the same network.  (gigabit, copper and fiber)  Frame rate stays the same whether on 3G, LTE, or Wifi - great for mac host, bad for win hosts.  I have always had this problem in the past and wanted to note it here on the forum so that the windows source can be updated to work as well as the mac.  I'd like to hear from anyone who is using the windows source software that is having good luck. 

I also noticed on the windows version, you can add more than 16 cameras - which is a feature I greatly desire, but it crashes when you try to start the service.  On the mac version you cannot add more than 16 cameras... can this feature be added?

Can anyone shed some light or point something out I may be doing incorrectly?

[SKJM Support]

Does the video appear slow in iCamSource on the computer as well?  The image in iCamSource is determined by the camera.

Is your webcam plugged into a USB hub or extension cable? If so, please try plugging it directly into the computer.

Make sure that Windows is fully updated through Windows Update and that you have the latest drivers installed for your webcam.

Please make sure there aren't any other video capture programs (such as Skype) running. They might be fighting iCamSource for access to the camera.

[gleep52]

These are all IP cameras.  The video is smooth in the iCamsource, just not in the iCam app.

There is no video conferencing software installed on any of these PCs, nor are there any webcams.

Same cameras work fine on the Mac, do not work fine on the PC.

Computers have all the latest updates - even tested without AV installed.

[gleep52]

^bump... any other ideas?

[SKJM Support]

What is the % CPU usage when the iCamSource is running? Also, what is the fps setting for each camera? Please drop it down to about 2-5 fps to see if that improves stability.

[gleep52]

When video is feeding, the CPU hits about 30%... I don't know what you mean about dropping the frame rate to 2-5fps for stability?  Nothing is unstable, it's just not fast like it is on a mac.  Same camera settings work fine on a mac... I'm not even sure I have permission to change the frame rate of the cameras... As it stands right now, it is roughly 1 frame every second or two seconds... it's incredibly slow.  Same settings on a mac source, brilliant.

[SKJM Support]

On local Wi-Fi, you should see a few frames per second.
On a remote Wi-Fi hot spot, you should see about a frame per second.
On 3G, Apple requires us to keep the framerate less than 1 frame every 2 seconds (0.5 fps).  This has been the limit since iCam was first released.
On EDGE, you'll probably see about one frame every 5 seconds or so, or as low as 1 frame every 10 seconds if you have a poor EDGE signal.

If the framerate you're seeing is significantly lower than that, please let me know what framerate you are seeing and what connection type you're using.

[gleep52]

I appreciate the replies... but I think we're getting off track here.  On the same network, same connection, same devices, etc - mac is fast, windows is slow.  I've been testing it on wifi in my cases and used to use it on 3G on my ipad, and it was still faster than 2-5fps when opened fullscreen... it's always been fast when run on a mac... I'm just asking what can be done to speed up the video feed for the PC side? 

[SKJM Support]

What is the Brand/Model of each camera? Which ones are on the Mac and which ones are on the Windows computer?

[gleep52]

We have Axis 216FD cameras, as well as some Axis 215PTZ cameras.

Same cameras on the mac were tested on the PC.  I have tried it with JUST 216FD cameras, and then JUST the 215PTZ cameras, as well as a mixture of the two.. same results every time.  Fast on the Mac, slow on a PC.

[SKJM Support]

What URLs are you using for the cameras? What is the image size is of video frames that come from the cameras (640x480, 320x240, etc.)? Also, what are the frame rates of the video streams, 30 fps, 15 fps, 5 fps, etc?

[gleep52]

http://<ip address>/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi
Video res is 4CIF (704x480/576)
FPS is 10

[SKJM Support]

We have seen cases in the past where the framerate was slowed by third party software that had hijacked the JPEG encoding functions from the operating system.  Do you have any sort of image or video encoding software installed on your computer?  The encoding software that we've seen the problem with before was ffdshow and calibratedQ XD Decode, but there are probably other similar products that do the same thing.

[gleep52]

Nothing like that... in fact one of the systems I'm testing it on is a brand new Dell workstation which has been reformatted and has a fresh vanilla copy of windows 7 installed.

Other thoughts?  I'm tempted to take a video of the performance to show what I'm talking about... surely it can't be just me with this problem though, is it?

[daniellh]

I came across this post because I too am not impressed with iCam's quality of video.

I read the comment: "On 3G, Apple requires us to keep the framerate less than 1 frame every 2 seconds (0.5 fps).  This has been the limit since iCam was first released." and this makes sense, it isn't your fault.

How do other developers get around this, like JumiCam? I use this as well and frame rate is very fast however it does not have the excellent motion detection I rely on like iCamSource.

This app would be nearly perfect if the quality of streaming could be improved over 3G. I get a notify that there is motion in my apartment but the people moving appear to move and vanish and its really tough to see whats going on. You'd think in this age of crazy fast fiber internet speeds and decent 3G/4G speeds I'd be watching at 30FPS haha. In my dreeaaaammss I suppose.