What settings do you use for your security cameras?

[pinkoos]

Bought a couple of Amcrest cameras and am playing around with the different settings. Specifically, 

Resolution

H.264 vs H.265

Framerate

VBR vs CBR

Encoding quality

These don't necessarily need to be settings that will work with my C4 system as I rarely access my cameras via C4 (I use the Mac-based NVR software Security Spy instead)

As for the resolution, the options available for the Amcrest cams are:

2592x1944
2688x1520
2048x1536 (3M)
2304x1296
1920x1080 (1080P)
1280x960 (1.3M)
1280x720 (720P)

I had set my resolution to 1080P, but noticed that the feed and recorded videos were a bit 'smooshed'. So, last night, I set them to the full resolution (2592x1944) but that eventually crashed the cams after several hours (ie, they lost connection to the POE switch...I needed to reboot them to get them back online). So, I"ve changed the resolution back to 1080P for the time being.

Thanks in advance

[msgreenf]

H265 is not supported by c4. If you want c4 integration must use h264

[eggzlot]

Lots of those settings will make the file larger or smaller.  Your NVR has a hard drive to record the cameras.  Do you want to store a day worth of video footage or 1 month?  are these cameras recording 24x7 or only on motion?

To me, I keep the resolution around 1080p and the FPS to about 10.  I have 12 cameras and 8 record 24x7 and I can get almost 3 weeks of video on my 6 TB hard drive.  Sure the higher FPS will look smoother as will better resolution but I am not watching this on a 65'' TV for entertainment, its security footage in case something happens.  My cameras are at decent height/distance where at 1080p I can make out a car, face, etc.  That's what's needed, not to count pimples on their face

[pinkoos]

Thanks @eggzlot

They're set to record only on motion and save 90 days worth of footage (everything is saved on a small SSD attached to my Mac)

I'm totally fine keeping the resolution lower, but having trouble finding the right one that doesn't 'smoosh' the video/image

As for FPS, is that only relevant for live viewing or recorded video as well?

I'm not sure what the difference is between VBR and CBR, though my old Lilin cameras are set to CBR

Encoding quality seems to be on a scale of 1 to 6

[eggzlot]

1 hour ago, pinkoos said:

Thanks @eggzlot

They're set to record only on motion and save 90 days worth of footage (everything is saved on a small SSD attached to my Mac)

I'm totally fine keeping the resolution lower, but having trouble finding the right one that doesn't 'smoosh' the video/image

As for FPS, is that only relevant for live viewing or recorded video as well?

I'm not sure what the difference is between VBR and CBR, though my old Lilin cameras are set to CBR

Encoding quality seems to be on a scale of 1 to 6

https://www.lifewire.com/difference-between-cbr-and-vbr-encoding-2438423

not sure why things look smooshed but its likely a mix of the resolution plus the screen size/type you are viewing, etc.  Its very easy to play around and see what looks good.  That said if you are only recording on motion you can certainly "afford" to use higher resolutions, frames per second, etc

FPS is frames per second, its for live viewing or recording

https://www.techsmith.com/blog/frame-rate-beginners-guide/

look at the 15/30/60 example mid way through the page.  60 is way smoother, but the file size is way bigger.  in security you don't need "smooth" per say, the car is the car, the person is the person.  for a movie on an imax screen you want the best/highest refresh rate as possible.  Ever watch Dateline or 20/20 and you see the security footage?  Its usually a bit jumpy as security footage is usually recorded on a lower frame rate just to save storage space because a high frame rate is typically not needed

[pinkoos]

Thanks for the links, I checked them out

That first one discusses more about audio, I found this one helpful:

https://ipvm.com/reports/vbr-vs-cbr-surveillance-streaming