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bbogdann

branch office 8 cameras - WAn connection Bandwidth

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Hello everybody,

I'm new on this forum and also in surveillance camera world, so I will kindly ask your advice in the following matter

 

We have a remote location where we need to install 8 cameras for surveillance purpose.

We intend to record everything on a digital video recorder locally, in that place.

I was thinking of IP cameras, connected to a POE switch together with the video recorder.

But we need also to broadcast a live stream to a main HQ in a different location, so we can monitor the activity in that area.

What bandwidth is necessary for the internet connection for this? How can I calculate this?

 

Any advise, type of cameras, any idea or advise would be very much appreciated.

 

Best regards,

Bogdan

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you have two considerations: the *upstream* bandwidth speed required to get a smooth stream and image quality required... and the maximum amount of data the account allows per month. the latter factor is often overlooked. a steady 500kbit stream amounts to 90 megabytes per day, or 2.7 gigs per month.

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a steady 500kbit stream amounts to 90 megabytes per day, or 2.7 gigs per month.

 

Way off I think !!!

 

500 kbit/s equals 500 x 3600 x 24 x 31 = 1339200000 kbit/ month

 

Which is 1339200000 / 8 / 1000000 = 167 Gbytes/month

 

You are a factor of 62 out !!!

 

(Yes I know 1024, not 1000, but close enough and makes it simpler)

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I'll put it another way.....

 

500Kbps can transfer 225MB per hour. That would be 5.4GB per day.

In my area the typical DSL upload speed is from 300Kbps-700Kbps, so I think using 500Kbps is good for an example.

 

At 3000Kbps, or 3Mbps (typical upload speed with cable in my area), 1.35GB of data can be transferred in an hour, or 32.4GB per day.

 

Now, getting to the original questions......it all depends (really). Comes down to quality settings, fps settings & number of channels being streamed. It will also be affected by the number of users connecting to the dvr/cameras at the same time.

 

I have clients with multiple retail locations and I've configured video walls for a few. One particular client has video streaming from 20 locations with 20Mbps download, and the remote locations have from 300Kbps to 4Mbps upload.

 

In the locations with slower upload speed, remote live viewing can be very choppy (even with analog), especially if more than one channel is being monitored. But, if the quality & fps of the live stream is lowered then we'll get more fluid motion.

 

Different dvr's have different settings for recording & live viewing (streaming). You really need to play around with the settings to find acceptable live viewing quality with the available upload bandwidth at the remote location (and download bandwidth at the viewing location).

 

I'd attack the problem by first looking at how much upload bandwidth is available at the remote location and how much download bandwidth is available at the viewing location. You may find that you need 10Mbps upload to achieve what you want, but if the available upload speed is 1.5Mbps that changes everything. So, see what's available and work within those parameters. In my opinion, instead of asking "how much bandwidth do I need" ask "what can I accomlish with the bandwidth I have."

 

Just one guy's opinion.

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I am streaming multiple sites to our main office. I had to throttle the remote DVR outgoing stream to 128k to keep my bandwidth below 5gb per month. (using aircards) I am streaming multiple cameras and sites, and they are in a rotation. This results in a given site only having one camera up for 40 seconds out of every 160 seconds currently.

 

Still uses a ton of data, then if you have an event and have to look at the recording remotely there goes the rest of my 5gb pretty quick lol. As I add in more sites the length between displays is going up resulting in saving bandwidth so I hope to be able to go to 256k streams eventually.

 

Sites with cable or DSL I just leave unlimited and have never had issues. More upload a the remote site is better of course. I wish I could reverse the standard cable connection, I'd rather we have 20mb up and 2mb down lol, would work out much better as there is no one on these sites to even use the download stream!

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