Video Feeds Dropping/Choppy in Meraki Vision

[nszmania]

I am experiencing dropping video feeds and choppy playback when using the Meraki Vision portal. My setup involves displaying a 4x4 video wall with 16 video feeds. I am using a Mac Mini M4, and I have confirmed that CPU, GPU, and memory usage levels are normal.

This issue occurs in both Safari and Chrome. Upon inspecting the webpage's network activity, I occasionally observe HTTP 400 (Bad Request) errors for the .m3u8 file requests. Interestingly, I found that Firefox works flawlessly. I suspect this might be related to CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing), as Firefox has less strict enforcement than Safari or Chrome, which could explain why it's unaffected.

Has anyone else experienced this specific issue? Alternatively, has this problem been reported to Meraki for investigation or resolution?

[BrandonD]

Hi @nszmania,

Thanks for the post, and sorry to hear of the issues! Do you mind providing the model numbers for the MV cameras that are on this video wall?

I am also curious if you could confirm if the issue happens with direct streaming (indicated by the green check mark at the lower left-hand corner) as well as cloud streaming (indicated with a cloud at the lower left-hand corner)?

I only ask as we do have a recently reported issue currently in relation to Gen1 Cameras (MV21/MV71) and video wall feeds that have caused intermittent connectivity. Please note this issue only affects live streaming (historical footage unaffected) and is not present when directly streaming via an individual camera view.

If either of these camera models are present on the video wall I'd kindly request you open a Support Case so that we can confirm & track this issue and report back for next steps. 

[nszmania]

I am using the following cameras. I am using direct streaming the Mac Mini, and cameras are all on the same VLAN using M210 switches.

2 x MV52

6 x MV72

8 x MV12W

[BrandonD]

@nszmania - thanks for the follow-up, that issue mentioned is unrelated in this case.

Do you mind testing creating the App as a PWA (outlined below) and see if this improves your experience? 

https://documentation.meraki.com/MV/Viewing_Video/Vision_Portal%3A_Introduction#How_to_use_the_inter...

I did do some further digging and it does seem our specification recommendations for a 16 Video Wall feed is a follows - not sure on the Mac Mini Specifications you've noted but figured I'd post in the event anyone runs into similar results:

• https://documentation.meraki.com/MV/Advanced_Configuration/Hardware_Guidelines_for_MV_Video_Wall_Wor...

  • OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 bit or a 64-bit processor and operating system

  • Processor: Intel Core i7 such as Intel Core ii7-11800H

  • Memory: 32 GB DDR4

  • Graphics: Discrete GPU recommended

I'd be curious to know if running a smaller video wall feed, such as 4 Tiles - shows similar results or improves the performance, as well as if this is present in https://dashboard.meraki.com or is limited strictly to Vision Portal. As always, if you'd like to submit a support case we'd be happy to investigate further! 

• https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Support/Ways_to_Contact_Meraki_Support

[jumbojake]

Are these cameras directly connected to the switch or are they connected wirelessly? I recently ran into issues with video feeds dropping and was able to solve it by adjusting some wireless settings. 

[nszmania]

The cameras are directly connected to the switch along with the Mac Mini. I confirmed the issue still occurs when I use the Merarki dashboard. I have also tried the PWA on both Safari and Chrome and it still happens. Also, dropping down to 4 tiles the issue still occurs. 

[PhilipDAth]

If you drop back to a 3x3 video wall, does it work?

I've never tried doing this on a Mac before, but on Windows, you need a GPU to make video walls of that size perform "nicely".  Otherwise you get the issues you have mentioned.

The documentation for the 16-panel video wall also recommends a GPU.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MV/Advanced_Configuration/Hardware_Guidelines_for_MV_Video_Wall_Wor...

[BlakeRichardson]

I have a video wall that is 3x4 with only 10 cameras added and on my Mac Mini M2 Pro with all of the devices wired I get a small amount of buffering happening. I was using Safari for my testing with MacOS 14.7.5

Some things to bear in mind

1. How are the cameras connected to the network, POE switch or Injector and what link speed.

2. How many hops between switches until the cameras get to the Mac mini? 

3. What resolution have you got the cameras set at? 

4. Have you run a packet capture to ensure nothing odd is happening on the network? 

[Dunky]

We had similar issues and eventually the PC would deplete resources and need a reboot.

Then discovered that it fell well below the minimum recommended spec.

Have since replaced with an AppleTV running Meraki Display and not had any issues since - we now have 9 of these across the organization.  Only downside is no SSO support as yet.

[nszmania]

I've found that using Firefox on a M4 Mac Mini (16GB RAM) is working without any hiccups. Memory and CPU usage remain stable, and the GPU supports hardware H264 decoding. My setup involves a 4x4 display with 16 camera feeds, all operating on the same VLAN. All equipment is hardwired at 1gbit using Meraki MS210 switches, connected in a stack, and the traffic is DSCP tagged as 46.

Despite this stable configuration, I am encountering drops specifically when using Chrome and Safari (PWA). These drops occur when accessing the video feed via the vision or dashboard interfaces. I also tried the Meraki display feature on an Apple TV, but the delay in the video feed makes it unusable, and it also requires an additional license. It seems Meraki is not prioritizing updates for this display feature to support HLS-Low Latency or SSO, which is disappointing. Interestingly, when I ran a packet capture, I didn't find anything alarming on the network that would explain these drops with these other browsers.

[Dunky]

How long ago did you try the AppleTV?

It used to have a long delay but recent updates have brought that down to circa 3-4 seconds, so may be worth revisiting if that is acceptable?