platinum 0 Posted February 25, 2013 Have a couple questions on getting the best playback quality out of recorded video. 1. Should I use CBR or VBR? I played with these and CBR seems to be better. I am not worried about HDD space if it gives me better quality. 2. What does the LAN Download option do? Setting is under /System Config/Network. Manual says it processes the downloaded data first. Is that a pre record buffer of some sort? 3. At what bitrate should I record. Right now I have it set to 4096 and that seems OK. 4. What is the difference between H.264 and H.264B? 5. I have a couple 1.3MP cameras, in the specs for the 3208 it mentions playback for 720 and 1080. Does that mean I should not record at 960 or that I will just get less total cameras than I potentially could hook up if I record at 960 instead of 720 for the 1.3MP's. Any other tips for good playback? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mroek 0 Posted February 25, 2013 I don't know the answers to all your questions, but I can answer a couple, I think: 1) CBR means constant bit rate, while VBR means variable bit rate. VBR may conserve some bandwidth and disk space, but I believe that the best quality would be achieved with a high CBR. I don't think it makes much sense to go over 4096 on a 1.3 MP camera of this quality. 3) See 1. 4) I am not certain, but I believe that H264B uses the baseline profile, while H264 uses the main profile. The latter should be better, theoretically. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
platinum 0 Posted February 25, 2013 thanks for the feedback. Is there a general rule on bitrate per mexapixal or something I should follow? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MaxIcon 0 Posted February 25, 2013 Higher bitrate is better quality. Whether it's enough better to justify the lower max record time is an individual decision, and there's always a point of diminishing returns. I'd test it in varying conditions with a lot of fast movement. If you set the bit rate really low, just for comparison, you should see a lot more pixelization around fast movement, and it'll give you an idea of what to look for between, say, 4096 and 8192. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
platinum 0 Posted February 26, 2013 I changed my main feed to CBR 6144 and my sub stream to VBR/6 1024. That seems to look good and I don't see any network bottlenecks so I should be fine. Using 24Mb/s on a 100Mb switch. Let me know what else I should change. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites