SPECIALISED SERVER TECHNOLOGY FOR HD SURVEILLANCE

Calculating Processing and Storage

requirements for Megapixel CCTV
 AGENDA

The basic formulas for calculating IP CCTV Bandwidth and Storage are as follows

Bandwidth(Mbps) = FrameSize(Kb) * FPS * Cameras / 1024

Storage Space(TB) = (Bandwidth(Mbps) * Days Reqd * 24hr * 60min *

60sec * %Activity) / (8 x 1024 x 1024)

We will be looking at each component and the variables involved in this calculation
to enable you to do manual calculations if required as well as looking at the best use
of some of the industry available calculators and potential shortfalls in their use.
 FRAME SIZE

• The physical size in Kb of individual images

• A combination of resolution and compression
• Higher resolution = higher frame size
• Higher compression = lower frame size
• Whilst compression codecs are improving all of the time in general
the greater the compression the worse the image quality
 COMPRESSION

There is nothing more data intensive than video…….. except multiple streams of HD Video!! As a result CCTV
applies compression to allow the huge amount of images we require to be stored

Full frame compression (JPEG, MJPEG, JPEG2000)

• Compression applied across full image but a full frame is captured very time
• Frame size and Bitrate are constant and easy to calculate
• Less compression artefacts in fast moving objects
• Much higher storage overhead
• Peak bitrate and Average Bitrate are the same

Manufacturers default settings are usually optimised for image quality / Bitrate trade off.
 COMPRESSION

There is nothing more data intensive than video…….. except multiple stream of HD Video!! As a result CCTV
applies compression to allow the huge amount of images we require to be stored

Conditional compression (MPEG2, MPEG4, H264)

• Image stream is made up of Key frames (I frames) and partial frames (P frames) where only the movement in
the image is updated relative to the Key frame.
• Bit rate is variable and harder to calculate
• Increased scene complexity and scene activity increase bit rate
• Peak bitrate used for processing calculation and Average bitrate used for storage calculation
• Generally much lower storage requirement

Manufacturers default settings are usually optimised for image quality / Bitrate trade off.
 SCENE ACTIVITY

This is where experience can play a big part in calculating storage during a site survey

• The amount of bandwidth taken up by an H264 compression will be defined by scene

complexity and scene activity
• A ‘complex’ background eg a brick wall will not compress as efficiently as a plain
background eg a white wall
• Ambient scene activity will still increase bitrate , think about trees, sea, clouds, etc
• Image noise at low light still constitutes scene activity as far as the camera is concerned
and is often a cause of bitrate peaking at night
• PTZ movement constitutes very high scene activity as a moving camera is equivalent to a
constantly moving image
 MOTION DETECTION

This is where experience can play a big part in calculating storage during a site survey

• Ambient and non relevant movement can be filtered out and trigger levels set to
determine when recordings are captured
• Very useful for reducing storage requirements where several cameras are in sterile
environments for portions of the recording period
• Allow engineering time to set up. Leaving motion settings on default rarely delivers the
required results
• A second site visit after the system has been running a while can usually offer significant
improvements in storage efficiency.
• Video analytics can further fine tune which events are to be captured and stored
 BITRATE

• For full frame rate recording this is easy to calculate , Bit rate per camera (Kbps) =
Frame size (Kb) x Images per second
• For H264 most camera manufacturers will give charts of Average bitrates at
various compressions and scene activities
• If you standardise on cameras do your own tests to be comfortable with bitrates
in various scenes
• Average Bitrate is used to determine storage requirements for a server / system
• Peak bitrate is used to determine throughput requirements for a server / system
• Many systems allow the Peak bitrate to be capped
 BITS vs BYTES

• Usually, we refer to file sizes and file transfer speeds in megabytes (MB).
• Throughput and bandwidth are calculated in megabits per second instead
(Mbps).
• One byte is made up of 8 bits, which means that when doing your calculations
you need to pay extra close attention to which unit you're using

Bits (the smaller of the two) is abbreviated to lower case "b" and bytes (the larger)
is abbreviated to upper case "B“
 ARCHIVE TIME

Quite simply, how long does the customer hope to retain video for?
Once this is established this number remains a constant for the calculation and per
camera follows the following formula

Total recording (s) = Days x hours x minutes x seconds

So for 31 days 24/7 recording

Total recording (s) = 31 x 24 x 60 x 60 = 2,678,400 seconds

 THE FORMULAS

• If all cameras have the same resolution / frame rate / etc the formulas are as below

• Peak Bandwidth (Mbps) = Peak Bitrate (Mbps) x number of cameras

• Average Bandwidth (Mbps) = Average Bitrate (Mbps) x number of cameras

• Storage Required (TB) = (Average Bandwidth(Mbps) * Archive time (s) * % Activity) / ((1024 x
1024) x 8))

• Alternatively calculate per camera type and add the results

 POTENTIAL STORAGE LOSSES

• OS and Application (on SSD for SL machines)

• Internal Disk firmware, file system, boot data, shadow files and formatting
• Base10 vs Base2 losses
• OS calculates using Binary and HDDs using Decimal. This means that for example an
8TB disk will show as 8000000000KB / (1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 7.45 TB in Windows
• As a rule of thumb allow 10% total losses on the RAW storage after RAID applied to
be safe
 A LOOK AT SOME INDUSTRY CALCULATORS

• We have yet to find a good processing and storage calculator

• You are most likely to use an off the shelf calculator to do the maths so here are
some things to look out for
SECURE LOGIQ DESIGN QUESTIONNAIRE
 SUMMARY

• Use a calculator you trust

• Compare calculator results with results achieved
• Remember that different VMS’s may require different server configurations
even if the total storage requirement is the same
• Always allow a little extra, it is easy to soak up spare capacity by offering
customers more than you quoted, the opposite is not true and upgrading a
server in situ has an associated cost and can cause issues
• If in doubt, ask the experts!!!!