IP Camera Remote Recording

An installation partner recently contacted us with the following question regarding remote IP camera recording:

We have a client that wants to install 2 surveillance systems using IP cameras. This is a car repair shop. They are looking for a system that will provide coverage for the following:

1 Outdoor Camera to cover parking lot

1 Indoor Camera for the office

4 indoor cameras for

We want the ability to expand to additional cameras in the future.

Features to include:

full time recording during business hours

motion recording during non business hours.

alerts if motion is detected during off hours.

Cabling distances can exceed 300’. We will most likely power the cameras at their location.

This client has a second location. Is it possible to install an IP based system that allows the 2nd location to just have the IP cameras and have them connect over the internet to the main system? There will be a an estimated 4 cameras at the 2nd location.

CCTV Camera Pros response:

The challenge for remote recording of IP cameras is the limitation of available bandwidth. The typical DSL Internet connection has an has an upload speed of between 256KB and 512KB per second upload speed. The typical cable Internet connection upload speed is between 512KB and 2MB per second. It takes about 1MB per second upload speed to transmit an IP camera at 12 frames per second using 640 x 480 VGA resolution. As you can see it is just not realistic from a bandwidth speed standpoint unless the customer wants to record at a very slow frame rate and/or smaller resolution.

The second issue is reliability. If the Internet connection goes down on either end, so does the recording.

Al that being said, CCTV Camera Pros does not recommend recording IP cameras remotely over the Internet unless there is a very reliable and very fast Internet connection available on both the camera location and recorder location.

Please let me know if you want to discuss further or need anything else.