Maximum IP Cameras Supported on Today's Hardware Question

[CCTV6040 0]

Hello, I have a question on IP cameras and hardware maximum limitation support.

Here goes and please ask me any questions about this because I am having a tough time finding out the "correct" answer.

 

Some manufacturers say they can record up to 128 channels of IP cameras. This is all fine but the thing is they never tell you at what resolution, fps, bitrate, etc. What I want to know is what is that actual thresh hold number in Mbps. It seems like this is the ultimate number that would be the defining factor in ANY IP NVR system.

 

I know this is hardware dependent... But let's go with best case scenario on today's PC's with i7 CPU, max ram, best HDD's, etc.

 

Also I know there is a difference with local live viewing and local recording as well as local recording and not viewing live on the NVR.

 

Any point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated as every manufacturer seems to have their own formula. thanks

[buellwinkle 0]

i7 is a consumer grade PC, not really a server also it's old technology as the 10 core romley chips roll out. The state of the art example is a Cisco UCS C460 with 4 sockets, 10 cores each with hyperthreading and you may want external storage and at least 4 ethernet ports for handling the network traffic. Also an IBM X3850/3950, HP DL380/DL580. So 40 cores in one box vs. i7 which is max of 4 cores per box.

 

So there's 3 aspects to sizing

1. network bandwidth, you can only handle so many megapixel cameras per subnet. This should be available from the vendor you are getting the cameras from.

2. how much I/O will you be doing. Each drive has a rated throughput and you have redundancy like RAID so assume you write each bit twice. Only you can figure that out as you need to know how much recording you'll be doing and what level of concurrency is required, all 128 cameras at once? That dertmines how many drives, if you get SAS or SATA, if they fit in the computer or not. Also you have read access, how often will people be viewing recorded video.

3. CPU depends on what the software you are using is doing? Analytics, video motion detection, resolution. Some software use the camera's motion detection like ACTi NVR Entrprise or Exacqvision and they use fraction of other software like Milestone that uses software motion detection.

 

If an NVR is telling you it handle 128 cameras, with 1-2 hard drives and an i7, I would be asking question because I bet it's not 128 1080P cameras.

[vin2install 0]

It also depends if you are doing live viewing or not. Live viewing consumes a lot of CPU power.

You can do recording of 64 x 5MP cameras on a high end CPU, but once you throw in live viewing it will not even come close to that.

[CCTV6040 0]

This is the issue I see. I have never seen a single IP camera solution that can do 64 channels of 5MP recording. Even at 1FPS. even with disabling the live view wouldnt you still max out somehow on the read/write for the hard disk drives?

[thewireguys 3]

I have used ATOM based machines to record 16 and 29 megapixel cameras. If you pick the right VMS CPU power will not be an issue. As you already figured out hard drive I/O is your limiting factor.

[CCTV6040 0]

I have used ATOM based machines to record 16 and 29 megapixel cameras. If you pick the right VMS CPU power will not be an issue. As you already figured out hard drive I/O is your limiting factor.

 

great. How many 16mp and 29MP cameras did you use per server and at what FPS?

[thewireguys 3]

It also depends if you are doing live viewing or not. Live viewing consumes a lot of CPU power.

You can do recording of 64 x 5MP cameras on a high end CPU, but once you throw in live viewing it will not even come close to that.

 

That depends on the codec your using

[CCTV6040 0]

It also depends if you are doing live viewing or not. Live viewing consumes a lot of CPU power.

You can do recording of 64 x 5MP cameras on a high end CPU, but once you throw in live viewing it will not even come close to that.

 

That depends on the codec your using

 

Best case scenario using H.264. What can you get?

[thewireguys 3]

First thing you need to do is figure out your hard drive read/write speed and then you can figure you many cameras you can throw at it.

 

I have one system with 28 total cameras with a mix of 720, 1080 and 5MP cameras. Right now FPS is at 10 and I could double or triple the camera count if I needed to depending on the FPS that the customer needs.

 

As for the ATOM box I was feeding it over 100Mbps of data without issue.

[CCTV6040 0]

First thing you need to do is figure out your hard drive read/write speed and then you can figure you many cameras you can throw at it.

 

I have one system with 28 total cameras with a mix of 720, 1080 and 5MP cameras. Right now FPS is at 10 and I could double or triple the camera count if I needed to depending on the FPS that the customer needs.

 

As for the ATOM box I was feeding it over 100Mbps of data without issue.

 

Here is another question.. sorry for so many questions just trying to figure this out which I think I am almost there.

 

Do you know of any software makers that can read/write to multiple drives at once? Wouldn't it be logical to say that if you can read/write to multiple drives at once that you can do much more now? Does that make sense?

[Soundy 1]

I know in earlier versions, Video Insight let you specify a unique record path for each camera... dunno if they still do. I think GeoVision will let you do it too, but I'm not sure.

[thewireguys 3]

all of them can but what happens when I drive fails? Get a good RAID card

 

What are you asking all these questions for? Are you looking for a VMS system?

[ssmith10pn 0]

A few I have running in the field.

 

 

 

 

[CCTV6040 0]

A few I have running in the field.

 

 

 

 

 

What software are you using if you do not mind me asking? Also is this only recording but live video is disabled?

[ssmith10pn 0]

Live video is the upstream out to the Clients. It's Avigilon.

 

The magic number on these boxes is supposed to be 250Mbps upstream and downstream combined.

[thewireguys 3]

256Mbps downstream only

[ssmith10pn 0]

I didn't know that. So I can put some more load on it then

[buellwinkle 0]

If you get a commercial grade server, some of the newer ones support 16 drives like an HP DL380. So say 600GB SAS 10K drives split into two smart array controllers and setup with raid as one large virtual volume, you can get the throughput to easily support 128 cams. You don't need much memory. Maybe $10K new. They are dead on realiable, had several hundred in my group at one time and I can go for years without having one fail. They typically come with 4 GIGE ports, dual power supplies. Then if you need more storage, you can add their external storage arrays.

 

I know it sounds expensive to some, but if you can afford 128 megapixel cameras, $10K is the least of your worries and you can't afford to have your single point of failure fail. Besides, Meg Whitman is getting desperate running HP and laying people off like crazy, she needs the money.

[thewireguys 3]

Buellwinkle.... Sounds like you have a review that would very interesting to read

[ssmith10pn 0]

Hardware on the screen shots above.

 

 

 

 

[CCTV6040 0]

Live video is the upstream out to the Clients. It's Avigilon.

 

The magic number on these boxes is supposed to be 250Mbps upstream and downstream combined.

 

how many cameras do you have connected to this box?

[voip-ninja 0]

First thing you need to do is figure out your hard drive read/write speed and then you can figure you many cameras you can throw at it.

 

I have one system with 28 total cameras with a mix of 720, 1080 and 5MP cameras. Right now FPS is at 10 and I could double or triple the camera count if I needed to depending on the FPS that the customer needs.

 

As for the ATOM box I was feeding it over 100Mbps of data without issue.

 

Here is another question.. sorry for so many questions just trying to figure this out which I think I am almost there.

 

Do you know of any software makers that can read/write to multiple drives at once? Wouldn't it be logical to say that if you can read/write to multiple drives at once that you can do much more now? Does that make sense?

 

Both QNAP and Synology (as well as I believe Netgear) offer Network Attached Storage boxes that now do surveillance recording.

 

You simply buy the box, buy the hard drives, create a fault tolerant volume on the machine (very easy) and then license and setup the cameras.

 

You can probably build your own box for a bit cheaper but these are SMB class boxes that typically have 3+ year warranties, etc.

 

The downside is that these boxes might not be able to capture the number of cameras you want, and typically their max resolution is limited.

 

The Synology RS3412 rack station can record a maximum of 50 cameras at a maximum total framerate of 360fps @ 1280X800 which is not too shabby for an "appliance".

[thewireguys 3]

I try and stay away from the NAS boxes. They might be a good fit for small systems but from what I have seen they are slow and don't have the enterprise features we need.

[voip-ninja 0]

Fair enough and valid point... 50 cams is pretty good for small system but I'm sure you are right about not having the enterprise/SMB features that a mid to large deployment might call for.

[ssmith10pn 0]

Live video is the upstream out to the Clients. It's Avigilon.

 

The magic number on these boxes is supposed to be 250Mbps upstream and downstream combined.

 

how many cameras do you have connected to this box?

 

I can give you the numbers but does it really matter? It's not going to make it any clearer because there is such a mixture of cameras.

 

(5) 1.0mp Jpeg2000

(17) 1.0MP H264

(2) 2.0MP Jpeg2000

(5) 2.0MP H264

(6) 5.0MP Jpeg2000

(12) 4 channel encoders Jpeg2000

15TB of storage

Running about 35 days of stored video

 

Server #2 has (19) 5MP Jpeg2000 10TB storage

 

Server #3

(4) 4 port encoders Jpeg2000

(2) 5MP Jpeg2000

(6) 2.0MP H264

(11) 1.0MP H264

15TB storage running at about 50%

 

There are about 7 more servers but they are about the same loads.