Constant recording of multiple 3MP+ cameras

[DrSurveillance 0]

I have been doing a TON of research, but I have not been able to find the answer to one question. Is it possible to to constantly record several MP cameras at once if they are all 3MP+ each? I know it is more common to only record when motion is detected, but I am aiming for constant recording. And yes, I know some massive hard drives will be required. A gigabit switch will be used.

 

Lets say I have six 3MP cameras, and two 5MP cameras. Is constant recording (and viewing) of all eight cameras (at full resolution & between 10-15fps) possible if a sufficient standalone/dedicated NVR is used? If it is possible, would something like an i7 quad core 3.4 Ghz processor be sufficient?

 

Any information that can lead me down the correct path would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

[shropna 0]

Continious recording is more easy, than motion recording. At most cases, motion recording requires more CPU power, than continious recording. See this calculator:

 

http://designtool.digifort.com.br/calc/

[ak357 0]

I have been doing a TON of research, but I have not been able to find the answer to one question. Is it possible to to constantly record several MP cameras at once if they are all 3MP+ each? I know it is more common to only record when motion is detected, but I am aiming for constant recording. And yes, I know some massive hard drives will be required. A gigabit switch will be used.

 

Lets say I have six 3MP cameras, and two 5MP cameras. Is constant recording (and viewing) of all eight cameras (at full resolution & between 10-15fps) possible if a sufficient standalone/dedicated NVR is used? If it is possible, would something like an i7 quad core 3.4 Ghz processor be sufficient?

 

Any information that can lead me down the correct path would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

Six 3 MP and Two 5 MP on constant recording should be no problem even more

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

and no, you don't typically need something massive like an i7 - with most systems, recording takes very little processing as all the nvr needs to do is receive the stream and write it to disk. it's the video *de*coding on the vms side that's processor-intensive.

[ak357 0]

and no, you don't typically need something massive like an i7 - with most systems, recording takes very little processing as all the nvr needs to do is receive the stream and write it to disk. it's the video *de*coding on the vms side that's processor-intensive.

He wants to record and view at same time

[DrSurveillance 0]

Ohhh I didn't realize motion recording is actually more CPU intensive than continuous recording. But now that I think about it, that makes sense.

 

Sheesh. I should have asked this question days ago. It would have saved me from hours and hours of unsuccessful research.

 

Continious recording is more easy, than motion recording. At most cases, motion recording requires more CPU power, than continious recording. See this calculator:

 

http://designtool.digifort.com.br/calc/

That calculator is very helpful. Thank you very much.

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

Ohhh I didn't realize motion recording is actually more CPU intensive than continuous recording. But now that I think about it, that makes sense.

that partly depends on the recorder and how it implements motion detection. on the systems i use, it's a very minimal performance hit.

 

also, many cameras have their own motion detection, and the nvrs that work with them just take the signal from the camera... so again, it's little or no actual performance hit on the nvr end.

[shropna 0]

Ohhh I didn't realize motion recording is actually more CPU intensive than continuous recording. But now that I think about it, that makes sense.

that partly depends on the recorder and how it implements motion detection. on the systems i use, it's a very minimal performance hit.

 

also, many cameras have their own motion detection, and the nvrs that work with them just take the signal from the camera... so again, it's little or no actual performance hit on the nvr end.

This depends, how NVR do motion recording. If NVR use motion recording, based on motion detection from camera - it's like no aditional load on NVR. If NVR has it's own motion detection - processor load will increase dramatically, but also depends on stream from camera - compression format (mjpeg, H264, MPEG4, etc.), and on incoming video stream resolution and frame rate.

[Razer_SE 0]

When you say massive hard drive you are not kidding around! How many days of archived time are you going to need, and is this 24hrs a day or 8-5 or?

 

I have to run some calculations, but you are really talking a lot of HD space to say the least, plus I would want some redundancy for a drive writing that heavily non stop. I roughly came up with about 40+tb for say 14 days with a quick minute figuring if 24 hours a day using my average 4mp stream from an ACTi camera! As others have said, processor will totally depend on the client you are planning on using. Some are light and some are not, I use i3 processors but I have a light client.

[DrSurveillance 0]

When you say massive hard drive you are not kidding around! How many days of archived time are you going to need, and is this 24hrs a day or 8-5 or?

 

I have to run some calculations, but you are really talking a lot of HD space to say the least, plus I would want some redundancy for a drive writing that heavily non stop. I roughly came up with about 40+tb for say 14 days with a quick minute figuring if 24 hours a day using my average 4mp stream from an ACTi camera! As others have said, processor will totally depend on the client you are planning on using. Some are light and some are not, I use i3 processors but I have a light client.

Do you mean 40TB would be required for one 4MP camera recording 24/7 for 14 days? If so, I think your calculations are a bit off (although maybe MY calculations are off). From my calculations, you would only need about 1-2TB for 14 days of 24/7 recording at 10fps for one 4MP camera (using H.264).

[thewireguys 3]

If your using ACTI cameras use ACTI's storage calculator it will be the most accurate

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

Ohhh I didn't realize motion recording is actually more CPU intensive than continuous recording. But now that I think about it, that makes sense.

that partly depends on the recorder and how it implements motion detection. on the systems i use, it's a very minimal performance hit.

 

also, many cameras have their own motion detection, and the nvrs that work with them just take the signal from the camera... so again, it's little or no actual performance hit on the nvr end.

This depends, how NVR do motion recording. If NVR use motion recording, based on motion detection from camera - it's like no aditional load on NVR.

isn't that what i just said?

 

If NVR has it's own motion detection - processor load will increase dramatically

this is not necessarily true.

 

but also depends on stream from camera - compression format (mjpeg, H264, MPEG4, etc.), and on incoming video stream resolution and frame rate.

and also on how the recorder does its motion detection, how well it's coded, etc.

 

once again, systems i work with do their own motion detection with both analog and ip cameras and see very little effect on performance.

[ak357 0]

 

once again, systems i work with do their own motion detection with both analog and ip cameras and see very little effect on performance.

Forget Analog crap ( you using hardware compression cards anyway)

Load your system with 20-25 --2-3MP cameras

make sure they all do "server motion" recording at full frame

and then come back with results

[GrouchoBoucho 0]

sure... soon as you send me a couple dozen cameras to play with, i'd be glad to.

[ak357 0]

sure... soon as you send me a couple dozen cameras to play with, i'd be glad to.

 

excuses,excuses....

[Razer_SE 0]

Do you mean 40TB would be required for one 4MP camera recording 24/7 for 14 days? If so, I think your calculations are a bit off (although maybe MY calculations are off). From my calculations, you would only need about 1-2TB for 14 days of 24/7 recording at 10fps for one 4MP camera (using H.264).

 

 

I was figuring 8 cameras at 15fps averaging 40000 bytes per second streams. (h.264) That is average for my 4mp ACTi cameras running variable bit rate high quality. I think it was 43tb for 14 days. I have some that are much higher I noticed when looking though. Some as high as 250,000 bytes per second. I can go lower, but see a noticeable difference in quality, and I use them to get license plates so I need the high quality stream. I could well be off, these were quick and dirty calculations lol.

 

Some of my one megapixel cameras stream 2,000 bytes per second, then another of the exact same camera with the same settings at the same site will be at 16,000 bytes per second. Depends on the scene a lot, so you may vary. I have over 70tb of storage now, but I record on motion and I have multiple sites so most sites record to say only 1-2tb getting me anywhere from as low as 30 days to as much as one site with 302 days right now. Must not be busy there lol! My goal is for at least 90 days storage, I'll be working on that more once we finish rolling out the next 20-30 sites.

[beamen 0]

Do you mean 40TB would be required for one 4MP camera recording 24/7 for 14 days? If so, I think your calculations are a bit off (although maybe MY calculations are off). From my calculations, you would only need about 1-2TB for 14 days of 24/7 recording at 10fps for one 4MP camera (using H.264).

 

 

I was figuring 8 cameras at 15fps averaging 40000 bytes per second streams. (h.264) That is average for my 4mp ACTi cameras running variable bit rate high quality. I think it was 43tb for 14 days. I have some that are much higher I noticed when looking though. Some as high as 250,000 bytes per second. I can go lower, but see a noticeable difference in quality, and I use them to get license plates so I need the high quality stream. I could well be off, these were quick and dirty calculations lol.

 

Some of my one megapixel cameras stream 2,000 bytes per second, then another of the exact same camera with the same settings at the same site will be at 16,000 bytes per second. Depends on the scene a lot, so you may vary. I have over 70tb of storage now, but I record on motion and I have multiple sites so most sites record to say only 1-2tb getting me anywhere from as low as 30 days to as much as one site with 302 days right now. Must not be busy there lol! My goal is for at least 90 days storage, I'll be working on that more once we finish rolling out the next 20-30 sites.

It's in BITS. 8000kbits is 1 MEGABYTE a second. My Dahua 3MP at full resolution and max frame rate is 8000kbits = 1MB/s. 60MB for 1 minute. 3600MB or 3.6GB every hour PER cam. 86.4GB per day. 1 209,6GB (1.2TB) for 14 days per camera. This is at everything maxed. You could probably set it down to 4000kbit and still get 90% of the image quality you get with 8000kbit, and you are down to 604,8GB per camera for 14 days. So for 5 cameras running at 4000kbit you would need a bit over 3TB. So just get 4 1TB disks and you should be good to go, as each 1TB disk is actually around 930GB once it's in place in the PC That will give you 3.7TB of storage.

[Razer_SE 0]

Ha, yes, I did not convert my bytes to kb when I was in a hurry. Lol, I get the same numbers as you once a reran my numbers, about 1.2gb for 14 days per camera at my 4mp settings on two I checked this morning.

 

With the OP wanting 8 cameras, I still think something like 6tb would be wanted to get a basic 14-20 day time recording. OP never mentioned if it needed to be 24hrs a day, that would make a big difference too. Sorry for my broke math lol!

[beamen 0]

Ha, yes, I did not convert my bytes to kb when I was in a hurry. Lol, I get the same numbers as you once a reran my numbers, about 1.2gb for 14 days per camera at my 4mp settings on two I checked this morning.

 

With the OP wanting 8 cameras, I still think something like 6tb would be wanted to get a basic 14-20 day time recording. OP never mentioned if it needed to be 24hrs a day, that would make a big difference too. Sorry for my broke math lol!

It's VERY easy to get the exact storage that he needs:

 

cam1: xxxkbit

cam2: xxxkbit

cam3: xxxkbit

etc etc etc

xxx+xxx+xxx= xxx

/ by 8 to get KB/S, then / 100 to get MB/S

 

* 60 to get data per minute

* 60 to get data per hour

* number of hours that you want to record per day

* days you want to record

 

Simple as that.

[Kawboy12R 0]

It seems easy until you realize that you have no way of knowing the kilobits/sec the camera is putting out. It varies greatly on how much motion is in the scene and even whether or not the lighting is good. More motion and poorer lighting gives much higher bandwidth and therefore higher storage requirements.

 

Pick a camera in the Axis design tool and check out what the chart says for bandwidth. Then change the scene and watch the bandwidth change. Then check the bandwidth for the same scene in low light. It's all an educated guess. You just have to use something like that and hope that you come close to what the cameras will actually be watching at the real site. Being off in your estimate can make the realworld usage wrong by terabytes per week. Just using that tool and the sample environments they use, the bandwidth has a possible difference of at least 9 times the amount betweeen the least active and most active scene when I plugged in the Axis camera I have.

 

http://www.axis.com/products/video/design_tool/v2/

[dexterash 0]

Many of the bandwith variables depend on BITRATE (if, however, can be setup/controlled) and type of BITRATE (can be CBR - constant bit rate - or VBR - Variable Bit Rate)

 

VBR is better for bandwith costs, but with a drawback: when motion is small, bitrate is small; translated, if an image is near to static, if a motion suddenly appears will take some secods until the quality will get high (bitrate will raise)

 

CBR is constant: you setup the limit and the recording will be done at it

 

As a very harsh explanation, BITRATE states how many of the differences between one frame and another will be sent