PC Server Selection

Recording Processor Consumption
Hardware Recommendations

— DETEXI IP-Surveillance Planning – PC Server Selection — Recording Processor Consumption —

PC Server Selection

Recording Processor Consumption

Recording specifications, particularly the following parameters, vary with every application of the DETEXI NVR Software —

Number of cameras to be recorded
Video Resolutions of recordings
Frame Rate FPS

In simplified terms, we will consider processor consumption in terms of a camera recording with CIF resolution (352x240), where the processor consumption of recordings at other resolutions will have a linear relationship to that of the CIF recordings. For instance —

A camera recording at 4CIF (704x480) will need 4 times the processing resources as a camera recording at CIF.
A Megapixel camera recording at 1600x1200 or similar will need approximately 22 times the processing resources as a camera recording at CIF.

This means that the NVR can handle 4 times the number of cameras recording at CIF, as it can at 4CIF, and so on. So we say that a system can handle a certain Maximum Total CIF-FPS across all recording cameras, where the total CIF-FPS required for an application can be calculated as the SUM of all cameras CIF-FPS.

We generally group IP-Surveillance Systems by the number of cameras they maintain:

Small — 5-15 cam system max 400 total CIF-FPS

Large — 20-60 cam system max 850 total CIF-FPS

However, if the recording specifications of a 15-camera system are aggressive, resulting in a larger Total CIF-FPS, the resources of a typically larger system would be necessary.

15-camera system example

As an example, let’s consider a 15-camera system, with:

13 cameras recording at 5 FPS with 4CIF resolution and
2 Megapixel cameras recording at 3 FPS with 1600x1200 resolution.

15-CAMERA SYSTEM
Cameras recording at the same resolution	# of cameras	Resolution Coefficient	FPS	CIF-FPS
Cameras recording at 4CIF	13	4	5	260
Megapixel cameras recording at 1600x1200	2	22	3	132
Total Required CIF-FPS				392

Based on these calculations, the 5-15 camera hardware recommendations outlined in the next section will be sufficient for this sample system.

— DETEXI IP-Surveillance Planning – PC Server Selection — Hardware Recommendations —

PC Server Selection

Hardware Recommendations

We generally group DETEXI IP-Surveillance Systems by the number of cameras they maintain —

Small — 5-15 cam system max 400 total CIF-FPS
Large — 20-60 cam system max 850 total CIF-FPS

However, if the recording specifications of a 15-camera system are aggressive, resulting in a larger total CIF-FPS, the resources of a typically larger system would be necessary. The system should be designed taking future expansion into consideration. Adding too many cameras to a small system may result in an overall decrease in performance and stability and even loss of recordings due to limited storage space.

General Server Recommendations for DETEXI NVR Control Center

Hardware	5-15 cam system max 400 total CIF-FPS	20-60 cam system max 850 total CIF-FPS
Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon Proc
(2) Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon Procs
2 MB Cache per Dual Core Proc
1333 MHz Front Side Bus
2 GB – 667 MHz DDR2 RAM
4 GB – 667 MHz DDR2 RAMs
Windows XP Pro OS or Server OS
128 MB on-board RAM Graphics Card
256 MB on-board RAM Graphics Card
80 GB Seagate A/V HD for OS *

* Additional hard drive space should be added for video storage; amount of which required is completely dependant upon the application and recording specifications. See the Calculate Your Storage Needs section.