More Footage – How to Increase days.

TechVision USA is a wholesale dealer of CCTV equipment, and today we want to help you answer the question: “How to get more footage or days”. Many clients require a minimum amount of “days” of footage to pass compliance requirements. Many more simply desire to have more time available to look back through. Sometimes this is due to not being available to regularly poll footage for backup.  Modern recorders are designed to continuously record data to the hard disk until its limit, and then start copying over that existing data. When this occurs the overwritten data is lost forever- there is no way to recover it. Several factors contribute to how much footage you can record before this happens.

In order to achieve more footage, one must first consider the factors that consume data and reduce footage time. The parameters you can most often control are quality settings, hardware, and recording settings. It’s important to note that it is impossible to recover something that’s already been overwritten- once it’s gone it’s gone. The way these systems are designed, they will record until the disks available are full, at which point the oldest recorded footage is then overwritten. There’s no magic button or catch-all that will answer the question “how to get more footage on my recorder” in a single shot. This is because rather than a singular setting, several factors play a role in saving footage. These factors must be considered when your goal is getting more time recorded:

1. Hard Disk Size – Hard drives are rated for their data capacity in “bytes”. In today’s time, hard drives have billions and billions of bytes of available data and are now rated in Terrabytes. CCTV hard drives are functionally the same as PC hard drives except they are built to withstand constant writing and reading. The smallest CCTV drives Today come in sizes as low as 1 Terabyte, while the largest go up to 8 or even 10 terabytes.  The larger the hard disk, the more data it can hold before overwriting. Consider adding more Hard disks or larger ones.
2. Number of Cameras – Since the number of cameras on site is often needed by the client, this isn’t a factor that can often be controlled, its simply something to be aware of when planning for HDD space. Each camera channelled to your recorder is a separate data stream and is all inherently equal. To simplify let’s assume all cameras connected to a recorder are the same quality and settings. This means that the amount of data consumed is directly correlated to how many cameras are recording. Adding 1 camera, to a 1 camera system for a total of 2 will effectively double the amount of data being used.  Add a third, and this is triple from the one camera setup. More cameras directly equate to less recording time.
3. Image Quality – As mentioned in our last article resolution plays an incredible factor in hard disk usage. The higher the resolution, the more data it will take to record this image accurately and in good quality. 3 Cameras recording at 4k can potentially consume more data than 4 or 5 cameras recording at 1080p. This is because 4k is nearly four times as much data as 1080p, and the effect stacks across cameras. If your customers are not concerned with absolute maximum image sharpness, show them other resolutions and framerate options lower than what is set. if this is acceptable, a reduction in these parameters can greatly save space. Make sure to always use the best compression available- usually this is H265.
4. Duration – By default cameras are recording 24/7. The more often they record, the more data is used. Consider setting cameras to record on event only, or at scheduled times if the client’s situation allows for this.

thanks for reading up on how to get more footage/days for your CCTv system. For more info on these or any other products check out the links below- or call us to talk to a sales Pro at-
561-288-1541

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