Placement Options for NVR & HomePlug with POE

[rpwooste]

I’m looking into the ReadyView 8MP cameras with the 6TB drive, but have some questions for the experienced folks in this forum.

My router isn’t close to were I want to setup the NVR and cameras, I figure this is a common challenge and wonder what solutions others have chosen?

I could run HomePlug-AV (ethernet over powerlines) from my router up to my attic where I could put the ReadyView NVR and then run the cameras through the eve “windows” in the attic out to the cameras. However, this would mean the NVR is in a very hot attic, and running over HomePlug-AV for its connection back to my router.

How resilient to attic temperatures is the NVR? I’m in California so it gets very hot in my garage attic.

Alternatively if I run the NVR inside the house, can I use HomePlug-AV from the NVR to the cameras by adding a POE switch that the cameras are connected to, i.e. using HomePlug-AV to go through my powerlines, and then a POE switch to add the power for the camera?

Does this HomePlug-AV + POE method work with more than one camera? I.e. can you actually just connect one port on the NVR via HomePlug-AV to the POE switch and then connect 4 cameras to the POE switch? Or does the NVR actually require one camera per port? Basically I guess I’m asking whether the cameras operate as true IP devices, and thus should work over any network combination, or whether there’s something special about ports 1-4 on the back of the unit, it seems that you have to use 1-4 to get the cameras onto page-1 of the display, so that seems to imply these aren’t normal arbitrary network ports.

Is there a Windows/Web interface to the NVR? It seems focused on Android/iOS support but I haven’t understood if you can view the cameras and control the NVR via a web browser, especially with the NVR inconveniently placed in an attic.

[gene131]

Hi,

I would not recommend installing the NVR in the garage attic, due to the attic temperature.
The NVR is basically just a simple Linux computer with a SATA HDD as the storage medium. In case the NVR itself (CPU/GPU/Mobo) does not crash during operation due to overheating, I strongly believe that the HDD will not last too long while working 24/7 writing to the disk.

In my case, I ran CAT6 wires through the attic to each camera (during the hot Texas summer) and connected each camera to the POE port on the NVR, so I cannot comment on the HomePlug-AV / POE switch situation. On a side note, my setup has 7 cameras (6 x 4MP and 1 x 5MP with audio), and the bandwidth required to see all cameras at once is between 24-30 Mbps, so make sure the Powerline network has enough speed (I tried them once, ended up running CAT6 throughout the house).

Regarding the Windows / browser interface, only IE 11 works on Windows 10 (due to the ActiveX plug-in required). As another option, you could use the software available at the OEM for the NVR http://www.uniview.com/Products/Software/PC/ (thanks jebusx). The mobile app is … satisfactorily (good enough for viewing, but forget it if you want to configure the NVR.)

I have connected the NVR to one of my monitors via HDMI, but I used the browser a lot for the initial configuration (mouse and keyboard beats mouse alone). You can use other browsers to login and configure the NVR, but no viewing (live, nor playback).

[rpwooste]

Thanks Gene! Your configuration sounds somewhat similar, so in your home the camera cables go through the attic, where did you put the NVR if not in the attic? I’m wondering how you ran the wiring to the NVR? And then how did you get your NVR connected to your router - that seems to be another huge cable run challenge.

I’ve tested the HomePlug-AV and I get 100-200 Mbps in different sockets around my house back to the socket next to my router. I haven’t tested the attic yet, but it sounds like if I could just put the NVR in my living room next to my router, directly connected with ethernet, and then run Home-Plug from the NVR to the attic, if I get >100Mbps there, then if I go from HomePlug-AV, to a POE switch which hopefully handles the heat, then I might successfully run 2-3 cameras from the POE switch (it’s only 60W so probably only 3 cameras anyway, and I think that’s enough.

I’m not sure if you’ve tested this, but do you know if the device works if you plug just one cable into camera port 1 on the NVR, then run that to a POE switch and connect 3 cameras to the switch? Do they show up as three cameras on the system, or does it only see one camera because only one of the ports on the back of the NVR is connected?

Thanks,
Roland.

[gene131]

Hi Roland,

I ran the cables from the attic through the wall, using the hole where an old antenna cable was coming in. I had to make the hole in the fire-stop bigger (1") in order to run all 8 cables, then removed the old antenna connector plate and installed a Low Voltage Cable Plate https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00193U3O0/ I set up the NVR on top of a small desktop PC I have, on a shelf, close to the battery backup and the 8 port network switch that I am using, which is connected to my router. It was a PITA to run the cables (and fix the wall), but I hope they will last long enough to make the work worthwhile. I have to admit that my wife was against the idea, but once the cables were organized and the wall repaired, she was pleasantly surprised “you only added ten more cables”.

I had the option to install the NVR in the living room, next to the TV, modem, cable box, another switch, AVR and all other things, but the NVR is white, all other devices are black, so … that was out of the question (wife approval factor zero). The NVR ended up in the study with all my other computers and screens.

Your network has enough bandwidth and the cameras use very little power (in the Maintenance -> PoE Port status, none of my cameras are going over 4 W) - that could be different with 4K cameras.

I have seen forum comments about using DHCP to configure the cameras and use a PoE switch, but I cannot comment on that, as that does not apply to my configuration.

In the NVR Network config under TCP/IP, there is a line “Internal NIC IPv4 Address” that seems to imply that the NVR can act as a DHCP server. The cameras are set up with a static IP, but after moving and resetting a few cameras to other ports, it seems the IP is assigned by the NVR (DHCP), then the camera config is set to static IP, as the address has changed a few times for each camera. Sorry if that does not make much sense, but I am not a network admin, so that is the best way I can explain it.

Hope that helps!

[rpwooste]

Answering my original question with what I ultimately did, hopefully this helps others.

I first installed the cameras with cabling through the walls into the garage attic, installing the NVR in the attic. The ambient temperature of the attic rose to 104F and the NVR failed within a few hours. The WD software locked up and things stopped working. At the time the WD ReadyView app has an indicator for HDD temperature and that got to 55C (131F) which is within spec, but clearly quite hot.

I then cut some additional holes to run the wires into the house, putting the NVR into the house instead. So it’s wired directly to the cameras, but I don’t have a network drop near the NVR. So I then used TP-Link AV2000 Home-Plug over Mains adapters to run ethernet through the mains wiring from the NVR to my router, and established a network connection there. The network benchmarks at about 100-200Mbps on the Home-Plug piece of the link using some LANBench tests. However, the WD ReadyView IE based application in the Maintenance->Network->Network Statistics tab actually has it’s own test, and there it currently reports Idle Receive BW of 45Mbps, and Idle Send BW of 65Mbps, so I guess that’s what it thinks it can get over the Home-Plug network.

With this solution I never used any POE switch, so I never ended up testing that part of the equation.

The Windows interface, via IE (no other browser supported) works quite well. The Android support is OK, but pretty basic and the UI a little annoying.