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sexydadee

Storage for Live Viewing for IP System

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So I just got a quote from an AXIS supplier and they quoted for us 2 types of drive arrays. One for recording and another for Live viewing, about 2000+ GB. Is this really necessary? I thought Live viewing are real time and come directly from one of the streams of the camera? Thanks in advance for your feedbacks.

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That is only 2 TB - its a good starting point, since it is easy to add or remove space with cloud storage.

If costs are an issue - post the prices you're quoted and I will give you a cost breakdown over doing it yourself with a network video recorder!

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It might just be 2TB but it costs 7000+$! Well, its a 15K DP 6G SAS drive after all, but still. I think its unnecessary.... Or am I wrong? Do I really need a "cache" storage for Live Viewing or can I forego this "security/reliability"?

 

Which now brings me to another dilemma. Milestone Software. Is it possible that the "cache" live view drives are a requirement for the Milestone Software? Because the client specified Milestone as the software but I dont have any experience with this. Again, thanks in advance for any feedback.

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no more feedback? I would really like to know if it is "overkill" to be "cacheing" live video or is it a justified security/reliability benefit? we are talking about 300+ cameras here. Why should your operator client get live video from a server when you can get it directly from the source/camera than is multistreaming?

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Milestone is a very good VMS. http://www.milestonesys.com/ Most other VMS's on the market are based of their design or ONSSI. Milestone does have an entry level option but it is limited to 16 cameras the last time I purchased it they call it Essentials. For a 300 camera system you need to be certified with them. Getting certified requires their approval and you need to send people to a week long training class that cost a couple thousand dollars each person when you include room and meals. They will only approve you if you can provide proof that you have the technical background in IT to complete an Enterprise class systems. The good news is if you get certified they will design a system of this size at no cost for you. One common mistake for people new to this size system is that you need a camera license per camera with this class VMS. Depending on your level with your vendor you will pay around $100.00 per license. 300 camera license at $100.00 each is $30,000 and this is how a lot of new guys lose money on IP systems.

You do not need storage for live view but you would need a window open for each camera and you would web brose into them. If you want multiple cameras to be viewed at the same time on one screen you need some type of control system. All new Axis cameras will hold up to a 32MB SD card. If you are under 16 cameras Axis has a free software that will allow you to control the cameras and store video locally. Axis also has a hook in their software that will allows a NAS for more storage on their free system.

http://www.axis.com/products/cam_companion_software/index.htm

 

I mean no harm in saying this but with a 300 IP camera system you might need some help. You will need a closed network, managed switches that allow muti-casting, servers, cat6 or fiber and everything will need to meet https://www.bicsi.org/Default.aspx standard. I have seen a few guys lose a ton of money jumping into a system like this without the proper support.

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"2 types of drive arrays"

 

Milestone/Onssi use 2 different storage pools for their solution. High speed first day storage that will archive to a larger storage array.

 

 

Milestone is very expensive with major hardware requirements, recurring software fees and they now charge for support phone calls. No saying Milestone is bad but there are better, easier to install and configure VMS's on the market that can handle 300+ cameras without issue.

 

 

 

 

Rock is correct you need to know what your don't to handle a project of this size. I would recommend partnering up with someone that has experience with a project this size or subbing it out.

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For a camera count that high, the Milestone software versions you would need would be Enterprise, at $1999 USD base license cost+ $269 per camera, or Corporate at about $3200 base+ $329 per channel, MSRP. If you want the Smart Wall option in Corporate, that's another $20,000 MSRP.

 

Plus about 18% system cost per year for software maintenance, if you want to keep up with updates.

 

At 300 cameras, you are looking at several servers, probably at least 4, depending on camera resolution and frame rate.

 

Avigilon would be worth a serious look for a project that size (no recurring yearly costs for updates is a big plus).

 

Plan on getting whatever software manufacturer you go with involved in the system design.

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there is so much to be said about this issue. we have several 300+ ang growing camera environments, and the issues you face are related to streams management in the chosen VMS. record streams are different from the view streams. The typical encoded video MPEg4, MjPeg, H264 are all encoded at the camera and sent via the LAN to the recorder. (recorded frames are typically higher bit rates, ips rates etc..) When you want to view a camera, another stream is opened from the camera, and these smaller streams are aggregated onto the client VMS device... I suspect, they buffer these smaller live feeds onto the disk storage so that only one view stream is opened at any given time and multiple viewers can pull that stream into the client...

I won't go too deep, but when recording many cameras, the issues you face ais simply getting the correct storage system that can handle the bit rates. A single 7200 RPM SATA 3 disk from Western Digital installed as a second spindle on a Windows 7, or Windows Server can handle about 60 to 80 Mbs video recording when recording a single large stream. recording more streams, will force more head movement and the overall rates will fall...

When you start watching recorded video, all bets are off on performance. this might explain why they would record the live view stream to another spindle keeping the recording video head motions limited..

 

VLAN's, QOS, are all secrets to make these systems work. We are in the Midwest but we do not do spec / bid projects... Hopefully this advise will help you better understand the proposals..

 

Cheers - Andrew

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