How Many GB's Are Needed For 24 Hour CCTV Footage?

Hi,

I was thinking on getting a basic CCTV camera of ebay to use, again strickly for basic monitoring. Nothing HD or fancy. My question is, and THIS is the question, so please keep anything else you have to say to yourself.

How many GB's would be needed to record around 24 hours of footage onto a laptop? I just took out my old laptop and wanted to put it to use, it has an 80GB HDD, which I can set up to upload to FTP automaticly every so often to free up the space, etc.

To give an example, and for the sake of argument, lets say this is the one I wanted to buy:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-PINHOLE-WIRED-COLOR-SPY-CCTV-CCD-CAMCORDER-CAM-Sil-/270585934641?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Gadgets&hash=item3f002db331

Recording at around 15-20FPS, how much space would it need to record 24 hours of footage?

Thanks!

Reply 1

Mad Vlad

19

RandomFellas

Hi,

I was thinking on getting a basic CCTV camera of ebay to use, again strickly for basic monitoring. Nothing HD or fancy. My question is, and THIS is the question, so please keep anything else you have to say to yourself.

How many GB's would be needed to record around 24 hours of footage onto a laptop? I just took out my old laptop and wanted to put it to use, it has an 80GB HDD, which I can set up to upload to FTP automaticly every so often to free up the space, etc.

To give an example, and for the sake of argument, lets say this is the one I wanted to buy:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-PINHOLE-WIRED-COLOR-SPY-CCTV-CCD-CAMCORDER-CAM-Sil-/270585934641?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Gadgets&hash=item3f002db331

Recording at around 15-20FPS, how much space would it need to record 24 hours of footage?

Thanks!

I'd estimate between 15 and 20GB. It all depends on the video compression.

Why not have a look at something like Vitamin D - http://www.vitamindinc.com/ This is an excellent little solution that only records video when it detects movement :smile:

Reply 2

mfaxford

1

Depends very much on resolution, number of colours/greys, frame rate all of which will affect the raw data volume. You then choose a suitable video format and compression.

For CCTV you can probably manage with a lower framerate and potentially no colour. You can also further reduce the space needed by using motion detection etc.

It really all depends what you want to achieve and what you're monitoring. Depending on what you're interested in achieving there might be other things you need to consider. Both technically and non technically.

Reply 3

RandomFellas

OP

8

mfaxford

Depends very much on resolution, number of colours/greys, frame rate all of which will affect the raw data volume. You then choose a suitable video format and compression.

For CCTV you can probably manage with a lower framerate and potentially no colour. You can also further reduce the space needed by using motion detection etc.

It really all depends what you want to achieve and what you're monitoring. Depending on what you're interested in achieving there might be other things you need to consider. Both technically and non technically.

Thanks, ok just to reply:

1) Resolution is in the link given, and a few more techie stuff.
2) Lets say for the sake of argument, I wanted constant recording. (just to know how much space 24 hours of footage would need.)
3) Erm, colour for sure.
4) FPS? Hmm, probbally 10FPS, enough to give a clear view of whats going on, per second.
5) Format compression - not sure. Not that technical tbh, any advice on a good way to compress?

Reply 4

Dez

20

I would say 50 GB as an upper bound, assuming no video compression is used. Standard PAL video is around 4 GB/hour when written in MS DV AVI format, and that includes sound (embedded WAV). The camera is 320 lines instead of the usual 576, and the frame rate is 10/second instead of standard 25. So you can probably work out the maths yourself, but taking half the bandwidth as an upper bound is probably sensible, hence 2 GB/hour or around 50 GB for a day. It should take less space in practice though.

Reply 5

Mr Youngie

As a test why not just record one hour when you get the set up you want, multiply that file size by 24. I doubt it would be more than 40 at the most so you should be fine with what you have. Personally though i'd buy a separate HD to store the video on, buy one that has a higher disk speed than the lap top (which generally aren't anything special, i dont know what laptop you have), would be easier to access the video. But thats just my over complicating mind :biggrin:

How Many GB's Are Needed For 24 Hour CCTV Footage?

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