Application: simple remote viewing, intelligent surveillance system with advanced event management, input/output triggers, audio component?

• Axis network video products offer a wide range of network video products with features to suit virtually any requirements. All the network cameras provide the best image quality in its class.

Viewing and recording needs: Determine when and how often you need to view and record: day, night and/or weekends? Schedule the needs for every scene.

• Many Axis network cameras provide two video compression formats, Motion JPEG and MPEG-4, simultaneously to allow your system to optimize for image quality and bandwidth. With limited bandwidth, you may want to view at full frame rate or 25/30 frames per second (fps) with MPEG-4 and record with the best quality using Motion JPEG, perhaps at a lower frame rate.
• Different scenes may require different monitoring schedule, use of triggers and different viewing and recording frame rate. Be realistic about when you want to view and record and at how many frames per second. Keep in mind that you will probably not want to record uninteresting video 24 hours a day. Axis network cameras also allow you to schedule the recording based on schedule, video motion detection or alarm triggers.
• Event-triggered frame rate: full frame rate on all cameras at all times is more than what is required for most applications. With the configuration capabilities and built-in intelligence of the network camera/video server, frame rates under normal conditions can be set lower, e.g. 1 to 3 fps, to dramatically decrease bandwidth consumption. In the event of an alarm, i.e. if motion detection is triggered, the recording frame rate speed can be automatically increased to a higher frame rate.
• Applications: if you want to simply capture the identity of a person at an entrance, you do not need the camera to continually send video. You can set it up so that only when the door opens, is the camera triggered to capture and send the necessary image frames. However, if you want to monitor behavior patterns, you may want to view and record at a higher frame rate. 
• Determining your monitoring schedule will also help you assess the level of network use and whether you'll have to install additional bandwidth capacity on your network or whether you can make use of the same network as for general business activities. Network traffic is generally lower during nighttimes and weekends, which may coincide with when you want the network cameras to operate. Hence, you can take advantage of the already available bandwidth without any additional network installation.

Calculate storage requirements:

• Image size X frames per second  X 3600s = KB per hour / 1,000 = MB per hour
• MB per hour X hours of operation per day = MB per 24h
• MB per 24h X requested period of storage = Storage need
• (The size of an average image is about 15 KB.)
• More details about storage as well as calculation examples.

Calculate bandwidth requirements:

• Image size X no. of frames per second X 8 Kbit/s = bandwidth use of one camera in Kbit/s.
• AXIS Design Tool - helps you determine the required bandwidth and storage capacity.

NEXT:  Determine your network needs