ipman

Robert, it looks like the trick is in arecont "% Motion Detection Activity" parameter. On your arecont screenshot you have option "50% motion activity" selected. But in the IP Video Tool you have 100% recording. You can just specify "50%" recording activity and get almost the same result - BW: 33.9 MBit (32) HDD:2.5TB (2.4)

It would be an offtopic here, but I have made a test of BW calculation with Arecont and Axis calc: Bandwidth, MBit/s (2MegaPixel, 6 FPS, Parking Lot): Compression | Arecont | JVSG 5.3 | AXIS --------------------------------------------------------------------- Low Compression (MJPG-10 HighQuality) | 13 | 13.6 | 12 Medium Compression (MJPG-50 LowQuality) | 7 | 7.4 | 6.3 Hi Compression (MJPG-70 Poor Quality) | 5 | 5.85 | 5.3 HDD storage space (30 days, 100% recording): Compression | JVSG 5.3 | Arecont | AXIS --------------------------------------------------------------------- Low Compression (MJPG-10 HighQuality) | 4.3 | 4 | 3.6 Medium Compression (MJPG-50 LowQuality) | 2.4 | 2.4 | 1.9 Hi Compression (MJPG-70 Poor Quality) | 1.79 | 1.75 | 1.6 I would say BW&HDD space estimations are surprisingly accurate

Well, Robert I am not agree. I would say the View Designer is too basic. It even calculates horizontal projection wrongly. Lets make a small test: Camera Installation Height = 6.5 m Sensor Size = 1/3" Lens focal length = 4 mm Distance = 10 m Object size = 1.8 m, like here Let's see horizontal projection in "IP Video System Design Tool 5.3", "Video Cad6" and "View Designer 1.0". Additionally imagine you put a 1.8m tall man at 4m distance from camera and 3.3m on the right (orange man - in JVSG at mouse cursor position). As you can see man at (4m; 3.3m) is visible but View Designer shows the max right position at 4.5m/2 = 2.25 m. But it is not correct. Please download JVSG tool and compare results yourself.

Thanks thewireguys, I will give it a try

I have tried plenty megapixel cameras from AXIS and ArecontVision. 1.3 MPixel is a great resolution. It really gives visible advantages in compare with 4CIF or 640x480. IMHO camera images with 2 and 3 Megapixel resolution doesn't look more detailed in compare with 1 MP.

Previous answer is correct, but strictly speaking you should also consider camera installation height. For example, if you put camera on 25 meters pole you will get 18 mm for 1/4" camera and 12 mm for 1/4" It is very easy to calculate lens and FOV using CCTV Design Tool

The post above shows it is not easy to select lens. I recommend software utility ver. 5.3 from http://www.jvsg.com - you see what you get because of 3D-preview. - you have exact calulations of focal length, field of view, angles and other staff. It does make sense to have a look.

Hi Mark, Actually the software is not bad. But their support is ... BTW coupon code I found: ACTW-WJ3K-HAPR

I have run 9 arecont cameras (3 MP -AV3100) with Luxriot Pro on Intel Core Quad processor 2.4 GHZ. And it works.

Tony, in my opinion you don't need vario lens, because of such short distance. For 18 ft and typical 1/4" IP camera you need lens with focal length not more than 4 mm. See picture for 3.3 mm lens bellow: I don't know what is the best camera height, so you can play yourself with paper calculator or lens calculation software. But, probably it is better to put camera on second floor.

I use the same PaintShopPro as you (ver 4.0 from 1996).

Actually there is no formula for it, because the compression is not a linear process, but there are many software bandwidth calculators: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ip+camera+calculator&btnG=Google+Search Just enter your resolution, compression, FPS, number of cameras and get the result.

Apart from already mentioned software thiere is a top 20 HOME surveillance software list. But it is mostly for home usage and it looks the main criteria is price/features.

At first I would find a best FPS/compression/bandwith proportion for your cameras. You can do it with any IP camera calculator. Practical bandwith of 1Gbit LAN is about 500 mbits. So for 200 cameras you shold have a camera bandwith of 2.5 mbits. Than you can figure out your compression/FPS.

But personally I would use network cameras only.

In addition to that there is a visual calculator for focal length (30 days trial). I found it very useful during planning of my video surveillance projects.

Sometimes, you have to figure out the lens focal-length before location is acessible - like second floor of a building in process of contraction.

Sure you can google many different field of view calculators. Some of them go in 3D. If you have time can give a try to "CCTV Design Tool" See video tutorials

I would advise prior the installation to use IP Camera Calculator to see what the storage space and network traffic is required for your 16 cameras

I was trying to download it, but it is written on their website: "Windows Version. Requires Reseller password." How you bypassed the problem?

I tried to run some video surveillance software from work on Vista with no success. Actually it is pain just to install software under vista.

Exactly. Like if you take AXIS 206M - 1 megapixel camera - the picture looks exactly the same as AXIS 206 640x480 if you just zoom in photoshop. It is not the only one example. Once I took the Mobotix M10 1MPix camera, that camera costs about 1000 EUR, and the picture was really the same as 640x480. Optical resolution of the lens is a problem for megapixel cameras. I havn't found any zoom or variofocal lens yet.

Thats right! 1. For example 3 mpixel camera can give a single frame from 150 to 600 Kb and with 25 FPS can use whole 100 MBit Ethernet just for one camera. Personally I think you have to play with a bandwidth calculator for a twenty minutes before to get a impression what the megapixel cameras are consuming. 2. The second problem with a megapixel camera is a proper lens for it. A typical CCTV lens has optical resolution about 0.6 MPix. Initially I didn't found any proper lens, and was in panic but later I found couple of them from Tamron and Pentax. Actually there are some mpixel lens, but I found only fixed ones. So it will be nice to check the lens before!