7 Jan 2024, 10:30

I have a mixture of RLC 822A, 833A and 1210A PoE cameras all connected via a GbE Unifi network, each camera has a fixed IP address. Cameras are running 100Mbps (FE) - auto set by the switch port when the cameras are connected. PoE power is between 3 and 4.5W depending on camera, well within the capability of the switches the cameras are connected to.

All cameras are monitored via two Windows 11 pcs (both up to date with Windows updates etc.).

One pc is used to record all cameras 24/7 to a large NAS, the other is used simply as a means to display the camera feeds on a monitor.

Therefore both pcs are running 24/7, but both are set to auto reboot once a week, in doing this, Reolink is also set to auto restart on pc boot up.

All cameras and the client are running the latest firmware versions:
822A - v3.1.0.1643_22122401
833A - v3.1.0.1648_22122727
1210A - v3.0.0.177_21012104
Client - V8.14.2 - with auto update enabled.

All cameras are set to auto re-boot at 06:00 every day.

When displaying on a multi display screen, all are set to balanced stream, or when just one is being shown, they're set to clear stream.

After a number of hours running, all cameras end up a few seconds behind actual pc time. This gets worse, the longer they run for. This is irrespective of stream settings - even at the lowest stream settings, the problem continues to exist.

As a work around (suggested on cctv and Unifi forums), I reboot Reolionk once a day, which immediately resolves the problem and gets the camera times correct.  

But after only a few hours they end up 5 or 6 seconds behind and occasionally with a jerky/jumping display. For example, one might be 5 seconds behind, but will freeze for a few seconds then jump a few seconds to end up 5 or 6 seconds behind again.

The recorded downloads to the NAS are not affected, it is only the live feeds that are affected.

App on Iphone is fine, since we only have a quick look on a phone from time to time and don't leave it streaming for any length of time.

Speed tests on the Unifi network show it's capable of speeds of 400 - 500 Mbs. I have 500Mbs fibre internet for which the Unifi network hardware is more than adequate. All ethernet cabling is CAT6.

Cameras are showing speeds of 16 - 32 bps download and 168 to 200 bps upload, with round trip pings of max 3ms.

I've heard that Reolink can issue "bespoke" firmware upgrades for certain cameras, but surely, that gets defeated when the next version is issued and installed?

Has anyone found a proper solution to this?