System requirements for three video sources

[Pecisk]

There will be 24/7 hour video survilance for shop with three cameras, there will be three sources (three capture cards) and everything will be recorded and kept for 24 hours, then archived.

Question is - how much CPU and memory resources such system should have? Is there any possible bottlenecks, problems, solutions, etc?

[Ruler]

I have an AMD Barton 2600+ with a gig of RAM and 3x250 gig HDs in a RAID array recording 16 cameras 24x7. I'm not going to get anywhere near the 2 weeks of video we want on these drives, but the CPU is still ~20% idle when recording all of the cameras. With only 3 cameras, I wouldn't think you'd need much in the way of a system to handle them.

[bikerfreak]

Curious, I'm looking for a similar setup as the top poster. Ruler, what's the fps and resolution with your 16 cameras? I don't think I have that much RAM to throw at the box so was wondering if I might be able to get away with just 512MB and a 1.3GHz chip.

I have an AMD Barton 2600+ with a gig of RAM and 3x250 gig HDs in a RAID array recording 16 cameras 24x7. I'm not going to get anywhere near the 2 weeks of video we want on these drives, but the CPU is still ~20% idle when recording all of the cameras. With only 3 cameras, I wouldn't think you'd need much in the way of a system to handle them.

[zoneminder]

RAM is mainly used to scale up the ring buffers. You can reduce the ring buffer size to reduce the RAM requirement. It does mean you'll get less flexibility in dealing with variable capture rate or load situations but most of the time you should be ok. 512Mb should be fine for 3 cameras.

Phil,

[Ruler]

I'm capturing at 5fps with each camera. As I added more cameras, the frame rate dropped automatically. The card I have is supposed to have 120fps total (120/8 = 15 fps each), but it's sufficient for the monitoring system I have. (Space requirements for all the data are killing me the way it is!) I'm currently exploring possibilities to reduce the amount of space taken by the video.

I'm currently not doing any motion detection either, just straight recording.

Phil, what do you mean by 'scale up the ring buffers'? Using top, I see that pretty much all the RAM is used and was thinking of bumping it up to either 1.5 or 2 gig.

[thelight]

Im in the middle of setting up a 3 camera system. I have a pentium 4 2.0ghz with 640mb ram. Ive found it really depends on the resolution you want to record at. At 352x288 using motion detect each camera takes between 3 and 6% cpu and about 5% memory each. Viewing adds about the same for each camera (in montage). The system seems to handle this fine, running at 10fps normally and recording at 25fps. If i knock the resultion up any higher, such as 640x480 or higher the system practically dies, each cam taking about 30% cpu when idling,and if any motion is detected the disks start to swap for some time. So for now im going to continue running at the lower resolution until i can afford to upgrade the system as it seems i would need a much beefier system to handle 3 cameras at full res satisfactorly.

[zoneminder]

The ring buffers are where images are stored that have been captured but not necessarily processed. The default is 100 so there will be 100 uncompressed (so WxHxD) bytes. This is the bulk of the memory requirements for ZM. You can usually knock this down to 50 easily and probably much less unless you have a high frame rate.

If you are just monitoring then it could possibly be very low. However if you are doing motion detection then the analysis daemon will keep up with capturing perhaps until an event happens when suddenly the frame rate might go up, there are additional analysis steps and one or more images to be written. This can cause it to drop behind and the buffer helps manage this.

Phil,

[amit]

I have installed zoneminder now to see the output can anyone tell me what are the most essential hardware requirement....

i am looking for a camera...but not able to locate can you provide me the details for me to buy one...

also do i need any additional card as mentioned in the support page for zoneminder

please tell me at the earliest...
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Plymouth Belmont