The Best Intercoms
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I need to add a new intercom outside, to work with NX, so that when someone presses the button, it will notify via NX, and to allow two-way communication.
I've been using a Hanwha TID600R which is working most of the time on NX 6.0.5, but occasionally drops its audio stream, and when tried with NX 6.1.2, it very frequently drops stream, particularly when trying to talk with people.
I'd like to know if anyone has had success with any currently-available intercoms with NX, so I could get a different model for the next intercom.
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Hi Edward Dickey,
While I am not in a position to make specific recommendations about brands/models, it is worth checking whether forcing UDP for the RTP transport helps resolve the packet drops.
By default, the communication relies on TCP, which attempts to retransmit lost packets to ensure delivery, leading to potential delays. In contrast, UDP prioritizes real-time transmission by dropping non-responsive packets rather than waiting to retry them.
Forensic video applications generally benefit from TCP to preserve complete visual data, whereas audio streams typically favor UDP, as minor, occasional dropped packets are preferable to accumulating latency.
Best regards.
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Hi Norman,
Thanks a lot for taking the time to look at that. I liked your suggestion re UDP and tried it tonight. Unfortunately it didn't resolve the problem. About 15 minutes after I changed it, the audio stream from the camera through NX dropped out (the video was still working). (When that happens, if there is then an intercom call incoming, they will be able to hear me but I won't be able to hear them. If I click on the dewarp button then click that dewarp button again, the audio returns. Or if I make any other change re the camera, the audio comes back, i.e. it's not just the dewarp button but that's the easiest one to use).
I'm currently experimenting with the audio codecs in case that makes any difference. It has dropped out with G711 and G726. Currently I'm trialing now AAC.
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Hi Edward Dickey,
I tested our setup and verified that we are using the G.711 codec for these TID600R devices.
Currently, I am connecting from Europe to the devices located in the US and am not experiencing any audio drops, even during multi-minute calls. For reference, here are the environment details from my test:
- VMS Version: 6.1.2.42646
- Device Firmware: 2.11.03_20230327_R300 and 2.11.01_20210813_R202
- Connection Type: Cloud connection via proxy
Could you share a few more details about your connection setup (e.g., connection path, network conditions, or specific call durations) so we can better isolate where the audio loss might be occurring?
Best regards.
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Hi Norman,
OK.
VMS Version: 6.0.5.41290.
Device Firmware: 2.12.03
Connection Type: VPN
I am connecting to the TID600R on NX using an i9 13th Gen NX Video Client running Windows 11 with RTX 4060 Ti GPU, via a VPN with an effective potential bandwidth of approx 80mb/sec, but typically running views mostly in low res with total average bandwidth for the traffic from that site being about 25 - 30mb/sec.
The local setting is for 400ms buffer, no double buffering, using hardware decoding, using Direct X, not OpenGL. At the other end, the NX server is a 2024 Dell Server.
There's no other intercom device indoor or outdoor at that site.
When there are calls, they are typically short, only lasting about 20 - 60 seconds.
What happens is that the person rings the intercom and sometimes it's all fine, normal call happens back and forth using NX. But other times, the person will initiate a call, one clicks on the intercom view to reply, click on the microphone icon and speak, then release to hear the person but there's no audio then being received at our end.
In that circumstance, if one clicks on some other icon, like the dewarp icon, suddenly the audio will immediately return (it always does when the dewarp icon is clicked), at which point a normal conversation can be had until finished.
When there's no-one there, if that intercom camera view is left selected on the NX layout, the audio from it streams through continuously, until at some point randomly (anywhere from a few minutes later to many hours later) it just stops streaming the audio (the video part stays streaming in a normal way meanwhile). At that point, if someone comes along and presses the intercom button to have a conversation, the above scenario would happen where you would not be hearing anything via the intercom mic until pressing the dewarp button etc.
Other data of potential relevance:
1. When I upgraded us from 6.0.5 to 6.1.2, the situation became far worse, with the audio from the TID600R failing much more regularly. Also the intercom call notification sound changed to an undesirable bicycle bell type sound, and even if one answered a call, it would sometimes continue to chime again and require some sort of separate acknowledgement.
2. Previously, when using earlier NX Version 6's, I forget exactly which but probably 6.0.0 or 6.0.1, we experienced audio drop-outs randomly happen on a couple of audio-enabled cameras at that site also. This hasn't been a problem with 6.0.5.
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