VLan for remote cameras

[reolink_333507142684871]

I have 3 reolink cameras connected direct to a reolink NVR and 5 cameras connected to another switch that connect back to the NVR across the LAN. The cameras connected direct to the NVR have always worked better, picture comes up quicker, work better in the app etc. One camera on the remote switch would always take 5 goes of pushing the play button to appear. After running it like that for over a year I had the idea to trunk the 5 cameras back to the NVR via a VLan. This way the NVR thinks the camera are plugged into one of the camera ports. Now everything runs brilliantly, all cameras appear as part of the NVR, they all come up first go, config/management of the cameras is better etc. My question, does reolink have some sort of existing functionality to replicate this? Eg some way to set a VLan on the camera and then some way to set a camera VLan on the LAN port of the NVR? The advantage of being able to do it in the reolink side is you wouldn't need managed switches and in my case I could have 1 less device in the network.

For anyone asking why I don't run the remote switch back to a camera port, it's because the remote switch has non reolink devices on it and I only have 1 underground cable running to the remote switch.

[Lafunamor]

@reolink_333507142684871 chances are that there is a lot of issues when using this feature. VLAN support on consumer network equipment is very inconsistent. some just ignore it, some devices strip the info... I'd like to see the feature available to us, but I assume for support this would be a tricky one.

[joseph_1979]

@reolink_333507142684871 Nope. Cameras and NVR should be on the same subnet.

[Westgate]

I recently discovered a new downstream switch (Netgear GS308P) was not getting along with any of the 3 reolink cameras. This caused a lot of what you're describing from a UE stand point. One thing to check to investigate if there may be a switch incompatibility is full time recording. If you playback where you expect full time recording and you notice a very consistent pattern of small dead spots (black / blank / no recorded footage), then you may have a switch that just doesn't play well. I did so much testing on this and actually can't really say it was an incompatibility with the cameras (as it could have also not been playing well with the NVR). Just try to sub out the switch and see what happens. Might save you some time and guess work.

[reolink_333507142684871]

@westgate it's possible, I have the NVR connected to a Netgear switch GS728 from memory and then that goes off to a tp link TL-SG1210P that has the cameras connected. I actually added another device, a mikrotik RB791 in the middle to add the VLan tag. Since then it's been 100% rock solid with all the same switches and cables, so not sure what the issue was. I think it just works better with cams on the camera side of the NVR.

[KimchiGUN]

This is what I'm talking about. It's not a switch being compatible. It is a feature that makes the lag.

IGMP Snooping, Loop Detection, STP, Multicast/Unicast feature... these are the things off the top of my head that I would investigate.

I've been a network/wireless engineer for almost 20 years.

I added my cameras manually to the NVR. Per a static and I entered the static into the NVR. IGMP Snooping would help with the scanning of devices across switches and VLAN. Maybe enabling that will help?

[reolink_333507142684871]

@kimchigun you could investigate those things and maybe find a solution, but putting the cameras on the cam side of the NVR solved all problems straight off with no messing about. It reduces config (no need for static IPs), it allows the NVR to set camera IPs and so the NVR knows the camera IPs straight up. To me it's the way the NVR is designed to work and it works better in the app that way. You can also have WiFi cams come into a camera port (I haven't tested that as I don't have any WiFi cams).