IP cam amount of gigabytes in a 24 hour period

[trauts14 0]

I am interested in the ACTi E77, which is a 10MP IP cam. In theory if a were recording 24 hours straight through how many gigabytes of data could I expect to see/need to store? Any reviews of this cam would be helpful a well. Thanks.

[ssmith10pn 0]

What frame rate?

[trauts14 0]

i think the E77 will only do 6fps at 10mp if I am correct, so i guess 6fps at 10MP would be my question.I was also looking at a 3.0MP ALIBI that will di 3.0MP at 15fps, but I do not know a thing about ALIBI. Thank you for any assistance

[thewireguys 3]

Google is your friend

 

http://www.stardot.com/bandwidth-and-storage-calculator

[MaxIcon 0]

Generally, frame rate and resolution don't matter on most IP cams when it comes to file size. What matters is the bit rate.

 

For constant bit rate (CBR), it's easy to calculate. Using 4096 kbps as an example:

 

4096 kb/second (bits) / 8 = 512 kB/second (bytes)

512 kB/second * 60 = 31 MB/minute

31 MB/minute * 60 = 1.8 GB/hour

And so on.

 

Use the same math for whatever your bit rate is set for.

 

Variable bit rate (VBR) is harder to calculate, and depends on how the firmware implements it, how much complexity and motion is in the scene, and how well lit the scene is. Best bet there is to record 24 hours or more and calcluate an average recording size.

 

If the resolution and frame rate are too high for the bit rate setting, this can affect quality and require adjustments in one or more of the 3.

[stroonzo 0]

Why buy a 10MP camera and not maximize the bit rate? Storage is cheap.

 

As for the frame rate on your 10MP camera... 6 FPS is not going to be very good for many situations. If there is any moderate speed action (jogging, bicycle, etc) or fast action like traffic, 6 FPS is not enough to get that "good shot" when you're going to need it. You will miss a lot of action between frames. That action could be someone's face.

 

I am going to ballpark this with no calculator. 10MP cam at 8192 kbps 6 FPS for a 24 hour period......... 500GB per day continuous recording. (this is a complete but calculated guess).

 

Another factor that has not yet been mentioned is your NVR solution and its compression capabilities. I would no get a 10MP camera right now. NVRs, storage, bandwidth, camera capabilties, etc are not there yet. 3MP is great.

[thewireguys 3]

^^^ Curious why you think a NVR solution would have anything to do with the cameras compression?

 

Also 6-7 FPS is more then enough FPS for most situations unless you personally just want smoother video.

[stroonzo 0]

^^^ Curious why you think a NVR solution would have anything to do with the cameras compression?

 

Also 6-7 FPS is more then enough FPS for most situations unless you personally just want smoother video.

 

Compression on my mind... What I meant was analytics. With good analytics capabilities, continuous recording would not be needed. For example: Face detection, motion detection, object detection, loitering detection, ANPR, counting, etc...

 

Not knowing the intended use of this camera, we cannot make the determination that 6 FPS is going to be more than enough. Every camera has to be implemented and adjusted for the particular purpose it serves. A 6 FPS limitation is a deal breaker, sorry. Think about the times you've played back at 1/8th. 1/16th, or 1/32 speed trying to get that perfect shot.

 

Another item not mentioned is sensor size. I know it has nothing to do with storage, but I do not trust that 10MP across a 1/2.3" sensor is adequate for good low light (but I also have not ever seen or used this camera). In reality that isn't that much larger of a sensor than a 1/3.2. I am just throwing that out there as a consideration. Maybe you have some info on that to share with the OP. I would suspect anything in 10MP would need to be full frame and if not at least a 1" sensor (to get similar low light performance of a 2MP 1/3" camera). Again, this would come down to the intended use of the camera. With a slow enough shutter I am sure the image will come out. The problem would be the motion blur.

 

I guess I'm just trying to talk him out of the 10MP camera. What do you think?

Edited June 7, 2014 by Guest

[trauts14 0]

thanks for all of the assistance. i do not "need" a 10mp cam. i saw the price and i thought that was a was good deal. i would love to hear any suggestions on any good cams that are onvif compliant even if they are less that 10mp

[MaxIcon 0]

I am going to ballpark this with no calculator. 10MP cam at 8192 kbps 6 FPS for a 24 hour period......... 500GB per day continuous recording. (this is a complete but calculated guess).

8192 kbps works out to 88GB/day for CBR continuous recording. Resolution and frame rate don't matter, only the bit rate.

 

 

One important consideration for MP choices is the increase in linear resolution, not area resolution.

 

Going from 1080p (1920x1080, 2.1MP) to 10MP (3648x2736, 10MP) looks like a 5x resolution increase, but what most people care about is linear resolution, as it's pixels per foot (or whatever) that makes the difference.

 

10MP gives a 1.9x (horizontal) and 2.5x (vertical) increase in linear resolution, so going from 1080p to 10MP basically gives you a 2x better image when it comes to identifying details, assuming the image quality is just as good at the higher resolution (which it isn't on the E77).

 

2MP/3MP is the sweet spot in price/performance right now if you don't specifically need the higher resolution.

[trauts14 0]

Thank you for the assistance. Can you suggest any 2-3MP IP cams that you would buy? I would like to research the 2-3MP cams since that is probably going to be my best bet.

[stroonzo 0]

I am going to ballpark this with no calculator. 10MP cam at 8192 kbps 6 FPS for a 24 hour period......... 500GB per day continuous recording. (this is a complete but calculated guess).

8192 kbps works out to 88GB/day for CBR continuous recording. Resolution and frame rate don't matter, only the bit rate.

 

 

One important consideration for MP choices is the increase in linear resolution, not area resolution.

 

Going from 1080p (1920x1080, 2.1MP) to 10MP (3648x2736, 10MP) looks like a 5x resolution increase, but what most people care about is linear resolution, as it's pixels per foot (or whatever) that makes the difference.

 

10MP gives a 1.9x (horizontal) and 2.5x (vertical) increase in linear resolution, so going from 1080p to 10MP basically gives you a 2x better image when it comes to identifying details, assuming the image quality is just as good at the higher resolution (which it isn't on the E77).

 

2MP/3MP is the sweet spot in price/performance right now if you don't specifically need the higher resolution.

 

Thanks! That makes sense. As you can see from my ball park I did exactly that - assumed 5x (which got me close considering 88*5=440)

[MaxIcon 0]

Thank you for the assistance. Can you suggest any 2-3MP IP cams that you would buy? I would like to research the 2-3MP cams since that is probably going to be my best bet.

 

I like the hik 2CDxxxx series for value and performance, and they're popular with lots of people. If IR performance is important, the EXIR cams get good reviews. If you want a dome cam, you'll need to consider 2 axis vs 3 axis, and IR LEDs under the dome (can cause IR reflection problems) vs outside the dome like the EXIR. Likewise, if you might want to change the zoom, you'll want to consider a varifocal lens, as changing M12 lenses can be tricky. If you want audio and alarm contacts, that's another consideration.

 

For fixed lens cams, the DS-2CD2032-I is a good basic compact bullet, the DS-2CD2232-I5 is the EXIR bullet equivalent, and the DS-2CD2332-I is an EXIR dome that people have had good luck with. These are all good to start with, and you can search the forum for posts on them. Other people will have other suggestions.

 

Empire Security has a 2MP camera, the ESC-IPC1-V 2.0, that has very good WDR performance for its price class, which gives it better night images than the Hiks and Dahuas. I don't have one of these either, but posts with WDR images from this cam are pretty impressive.

[trauts14 0]

thanks for the input. i was going to buy a Solstice NVR since it is compatible with my existing ACTI cams. I will have to check whether Hikvision cams will work with Solstice.

[stroonzo 0]

Resolution and frame rate don't matter, only the bit rate.

 

I am glad to have learned something new. For those who don't quite understand how this is, let me help explain. Once I really began to focus on the above statement it all made sense.

 

The common denominator here is SECOND. You have Frames / Second and Kbits / Second. What you are deciding is over a second how many frames of video you wish to capture, and to that amount of frames, how much compression must be used to limit that second's worth of video to X Kbits of data. The more frames you put into the second, the higher you will define your bit rate (in an effort to maintain the same effective level of video quality).

 

Taking Hikvisions bit rate recommendation chart as an example, you can cross multiply and divide to quickly figure out their recommended bits per frame for any given resolution to achieve either Best, Better, or Good quality.

 

Hikvisions calculations come to this for Best Quality:

 

D1= 102 Kbits per FPS

1MP = 204 Kbits per FPS

1.3MP = 324 Kbits per FPS

2MP = 341 Kbits per FPS

3MP = 512 Kbits per FPS

5MP = 712 Kbits per FPS

 

Based on this, one cannot throw out a blanket statement or suggestion on what to set the bit rate to. As you can see it is directly related to 1 - the desired quality of video 2 - the resolution of the camera, and 3 - how many FPS you wish to capture.

 

Based on this, we can understand fully now how, in fact, resolution and FPS play a factor in storage requirements, but only relative to the desired level of quality of video. However, to calculate the storage requirement, there is no argument to MaxIcon at all. Indeed the bits per second clearly define how much data output the camera is making (with no regard to frames or resolution).

 

What does this all mean? In a nutshell it means that as resolution increases (keeping your desired FPS constant - say 15 FPS and maintaining the desired level of video quality - say Best Quality), the amount of available bits per second processing and output from the camera will have to be increased and your storage requirements will increase to accommodate.

 

This puts these 10 and 12 MP cameras into perspective indeed. Not only have I been weary of these cameras’ sensor sizes, but now let's look at their bit rate capacities. Bits per frame isn't linear over increasing resolution (from the chart Hikvision published you can see this). But taking the amount of increase over resolution seen on that chart, we can estimate that a 10 MP camera would be suggested to run 1190 Kbits sec for each frame sec. At 6 FPS (an unacceptable frame rate), you see that required Kbps to get best quality video is 7140 Kbits per second. Do the math and see how 15 FPS would require 17,850 Kbits per second (2.18 MB of data written every second). Wow, and that is only the main stream of data. Your network will see more to accommodate the secondary substream. You would be writing 7.6 Gigabytes per hour to have a 10MP camera running best quality with the appropriate bit rate set to 17,850 Kbps to accommodate 15 FPS (that is if any present-day 10MP camera could even do 15FPS).

 

Just to top this off - to answer the OP's original question: "How much space in a 24 hour priod for a 10MP camera", let me answer it in a much more calculated way:

 

I would recommended running the 10MP at 7140Kbps to get the best video quality at 6 FPS (the max FPS capability of that camera). In a 24 hour period this would result in 616,896,000 Kbits of data written. That converts to 73.53 Gigabytes.

[dmoore 0]

Nicely put there stroonzo! Simple and too the point. All we need now is an infographic for it.

[stroonzo 0]

Oh you mean something like this?