PC based NVR for 30x 2MP IP cameras

[jojino 0]

Hi guys, I am new to CCTV with IP cams.

I want to build a 3-4 individual systems each with 20-30x 2MP IP cams, then connect them together somehow into single large system to allow admin to keep an eye on everything in complexity. I would love to use video analitics too, but I have no idea how powerfull should be each of the PCs to take care of that easyly.

 

My existing testing system : DVR from a PC core 2 duo 2,2GHz, 4GB RAM, GPU onboard......with 6x2MPx cams recorded at 10fps with 1Mpx resolution only. With this configuration the CPU is at 100percent (and I have several features for video analitics still off)

 

apparently I have 2 Mpx cams, which are not recorded at full size (using rtsp channel for 1Mpx only), and CPU is 100percent. The same UBNT Cameras on same machine works as follows on different softwares :

UBNT Unify - 10cameras, 10fps, no analitics, CPU is full

Genius NVR -10cameras,10fps,no analitics, utilization 65-75percent of CPU

Other software I cant think of now : 6 x camera and CPU was full..

 

>So my questions are :

- How powerfull should be the PC to record and do video analitics for 20-30IP Cams 2Mpx, at 10Fps? (any recomended performance score )

- do I need a RAID 1 (It doesnt seems the utilization of HDD is somewhere close to max. now)

- Is GPU used for IP cams at all?....does it help to better perform some actions for PC based NVR.

- what is the best NVR software to use advanced features as video analitics, etc....

The UBNT Unify NVR software seems OK, but it doesnt have a timeline to move on synchronously for all cameras. So it is painfull to use the stored data then and search for something on various cameras. Genius NVR seems as my favorite, even not so user friendly.

 

If there are any advices for me in case I wrote something not correct, I am very glad for any comments.

[Mr. T 0]

Hi guys, I am new to CCTV with IP cams.

I want to build a 3-4 individual systems each with 20-30x 2MP IP cams, then connect them together somehow into single large system to allow admin to keep an eye on everything in complexity. I would love to use video analitics too, but I have no idea how powerfull should be each of the PCs to take care of that easyly.

 

My existing testing system : DVR from a PC core 2 duo 2,2GHz, 4GB RAM, GPU onboard......with 6x2MPx cams recorded at 10fps with 1Mpx resolution only. With this configuration the CPU is at 100percent (and I have several features for video analitics still off)

 

apparently I have 2 Mpx cams, which are not recorded at full size (using rtsp channel for 1Mpx only), and CPU is 100percent. The same UBNT Cameras on same machine works as follows on different softwares :

UBNT Unify - 10cameras, 10fps, no analitics, CPU is full

Genius NVR -10cameras,10fps,no analitics, utilization 65-75percent of CPU

Other software I cant think of now : 6 x camera and CPU was full..

 

>So my questions are :

- How powerfull should be the PC to record and do video analitics for 20-30IP Cams 2Mpx, at 10Fps? (any recomended performance score )

- do I need a RAID 1 (It doesnt seems the utilization of HDD is somewhere close to max. now)

- Is GPU used for IP cams at all?....does it help to better perform some actions for PC based NVR.

- what is the best NVR software to use advanced features as video analitics, etc....

The UBNT Unify NVR software seems OK, but it doesnt have a timeline to move on synchronously for all cameras. So it is painfull to use the stored data then and search for something on various cameras. Genius NVR seems as my favorite, even not so user friendly.

 

If there are any advices for me in case I wrote something not correct, I am very glad for any comments.

 

Well sir it sounds like you are biting off quite a large helping of pain in the arse with this but lets see if I can help a little.

First let me say that typically analytics for 20-30 IP cams are going to be handled by there own server unless they are edge based analytics in which case they have no effect on the server. If they are handled by the server I would suggest looking into whoever manufactured them they will have specific requirements for their software. The second part of your question can vary quite a lot depending on what codec the camera will transmit its video to your server with, for example a camera that is streaming using an h.264 codec will be more cpu intensive because it has to be decoded by the computer whereas a camera that is using mjpeg will require less cpu, however the inverse is true of network utilization so be careful when considering which to use if bandwith is an issue. Third and also quite important to the first of your questions is whether or not you will utilize the server for client side software i.e. viewing and playback of the cameras. This step is usually quite cpu intensive and I personally wouldn't recommend for a 30 camera system. Basically look at distributing your system a bit and you will have a much more pleasant end result.

 

Question 2 is going to vary based on your risk tolerance, in other words how valuable is this video? RAID configurations vary largely and can get quite expensive, however if you want to make sure you will never lose video go with a replicated RAID 6 or RAID 60, for video that if a HDD fails no big deal use a RAID 0 and happy days, its really up to you (customer) as to how much to spend and how ok they are with losing video. (In relation to this question be sure to spend the extra money and get HDD's that can handle w/r all the time and have the speeds to match how much video you are pushing to them at any given moment).

 

Question 3 GPU's are used with some VMS client software, where camera recording is concerned it is not really considered. Exacq Vision client software will use GPU as well as Milestone, you have to check the specs of the VMS you are using to see if it will.

 

Question 4 I have worked with Exacq, Milestone, and ONNSI, all are very feature rich and support varying levels of integration with different products (access control, analytics etc) you have to research starting from the analytics side to find which one suits your needs/price range the best.

 

Good luck and best wishes!

[jojino 0]

Hi Mr. T., thank you for kind reply. Sort of you are right, and I want to specify my project more in deep.

- video data are not much important, so RAID I guess for now is not must.

- network is built arround a Gigabit swicthes and 2MPx cameras with RTSP

- today I have 10cameras, other 10 comming this week. final stage will be about 80pcs.

 

Cameras should be split into small groups (as I noticed 1 PC can work with 10-20 maybe more Cameras), but I would keep the number of groups to as low as possible ideally.

I have no idea about the analitics thing, if that needs to be done on the NVR side, or only on some central PC taking care of the sync of all NVRs to single system....dont know, just know I will need the Video analitics, and let several users to view some video from some cameras when they need to.All cameras from all future cameras should look like from single NVR (moving slider on timeline should display all videos from all Cameras to be changed accordingly)

 

So today : I need to do decisions suitable for future : buy some PCs which will be powerfull enough for final stage 20 or more Cameras per group. As I understood it correctly, My network should be OK even with MJPEG format (about 650Mbits), and the CPU needs on NVR will be lower, I think I would prefer this, so the PC will have some free resources.

Regarding GPU : as I understood it correctly, GPU is not very important for NVRs. So main specs for PC NVR are CPU power and alot HDD space. I guess alot RAM will not make much of difference too.

 

Do you have any specs of PC NVRs with context of IP cams and Fps connected...any guidelines?

 

Thank you for your help anyway.

I think my system will look like this one :

http://www.axis.com/sites/all/modules/custom/axis_html_modder/imageScaler/scale.php?img=sites/default/files/12_5d_0.jpg&w=600

kind regards. Jozef

[zoglike 0]

If you are willing to spend the money it sounds like an Avigilon system would be perfect for you.

www.avigilon.com