The Critical Importance of Real-Time Video
In a professional security environment, video lag—or latency—is more than just an annoyance; it's a security risk. A delayed video stream can compromise the ability of security personnel to react to live events in a timely manner, turning a proactive surveillance system into a reactive, forensic tool. If your Avigilon camera feeds are choppy, stuttering, or noticeably behind real-time, it's crucial to diagnose and resolve the underlying cause. This guide provides a systematic approach to troubleshooting video lag in your Avigilon system.
Understanding the Causes of Camera Lag
Video latency is the delay between an event happening in front of the camera and it being displayed on a monitor. This delay is caused by the time it takes to complete several steps: capturing, encoding, transmitting, and decoding the video. Problems in any of these areas can introduce lag.
- Network Bottlenecks: This is the most common cause. The network may lack the necessary bandwidth to handle the high-quality video streams from multiple cameras, or the network may be congested with other traffic.
- High Camera Settings: A camera streaming at maximum resolution, frame rate, and image quality generates a massive amount of data. If this data rate exceeds what the network or server can handle, packets will be dropped, resulting in lag.
- Server/Client Performance: The Avigilon server (NVR) or the client workstation viewing the video may be underpowered. If the CPU or RAM is overloaded, it cannot process and render the video stream smoothly.
- Firmware/Software Inconsistencies: Mismatched or outdated firmware on cameras and software on the Avigilon Control Center (ACC) server can sometimes lead to performance issues.
- Physical Hardware Issues: A faulty network cable, a failing network switch port, or a misconfigured network device can also be the source of the problem.
How to Troubleshoot and Reduce Avigilon Camera Lag
Follow these steps to identify and eliminate the source of latency in your system.
1. Analyse Network Bandwidth and Congestion
Start by assessing your network's health.
- Calculate Bandwidth: Use the Avigilon System Design Tool or online calculators to determine the total bandwidth your cameras require based on their settings. Compare this with your network's capacity.
- Check Network Switches: Ensure your network switches have sufficient capacity (e.g., Gigabit ports) and are not overloaded. Check the switch's CPU and memory utilisation if it's a managed switch.
- Isolate Traffic: For best performance, high-bandwidth devices like security cameras should be on their own VLAN or a separate physical network from general office data traffic.
2. Optimise Camera Stream Settings
Reducing the amount of data the camera sends is the most direct way to reduce lag.
- Log into the camera's web interface or use the ACC client to access its settings.
- Lower the Frame Rate (FPS): For many surveillance scenarios, 15 FPS is perfectly adequate and uses half the bandwidth of 30 FPS.
- Adjust Image Quality/Compression: Lowering the image quality setting slightly can significantly reduce bandwidth with minimal impact on visible clarity.
- Use H.265 Compression: If your camera and server support it, use the H.265 video codec, which is much more efficient than H.264.
- Enable Keyframe Interval: Ensure the keyframe interval is set to be the same as the frame rate (e.g., 15 FPS = 15 keyframe interval).
3. Check Server and Client Performance
Ensure the computers in the system can keep up.
- Server (NVR): Open the Windows Task Manager on your Avigilon server. Check the CPU, RAM, and Disk I/O usage. If any of these are consistently maxed out, the server is a bottleneck and may need upgrading.
- Client Workstation: Similarly, check the Task Manager on the computer being used to view the live video. If its CPU is at 100%, it cannot decode the stream fast enough. Try closing other applications or using the 'Low Resolution' secondary stream for multi-camera views.
4. Update Avigilon Software and Firmware
Ensure all components are running on compatible and up-to-date software versions. Check the Avigilon website for the latest versions of ACC server/client software and camera firmware.
5. Inspect Physical Cabling and Hardware
Don't overlook the basics. A damaged Ethernet cable can lead to packet loss and retransmissions, causing lag. Swap out the cable for a known good one to rule it out as a problem. Try plugging the camera into a different port on the network switch.