3 Ways Matrix Video Surveillance Reduces Storage Cost up to 50%

Security threats are growing day by day and so is the video surveillance industry. With the advancement of technology, the image quality of cameras has seen a drastic improvement in the last five years. With each passing day, companies are coming up with higher resolution cameras, so much so that 12K cameras are now available in the market. Even the customers, who are in a way ‘spoilt’ by smartphone makers that offer up to 40MP resolution, now find low-resolution cameras below par. The thing that we fail to realize is that higher the resolution, higher is the storage requirement, higher are the storage costs. Since the early days of video surveillance industry, cost of cameras and devices has reduced drastically, leading to more affordable solutions. However, storage cost is the only cost that has not decreased, in fact, has increased over the years. It is therefore, necessary to opt for a solution that optimizes storage, keeping your costs to the minimum. Here are the three features you should look for in a video surveillance solution that will help you keep storage costs in check.

1. Adaptive Recording

For a layman, watching a video is all about smooth movements and clear image quality. But in reality, it’s not so smooth. A video is just a series of pictures flipped at a very high speed, usually 25 frames per second. So your camera generates 25 frames per second for you to see a smooth video. Now imagine a non-activity period, for e.g. office premises after working hours, when there’s no change in scene but still your camera captures 25 frames per second. This results in criminal wastage of storage. Furthermore, this wastage cannot be avoided as government compliances for certain industries require 24x7 recording. You need smart recorders that automatically lower the frame rate during no activity period. This can save up to 50% of your storage, without any compromise in image quality and no change in resolution.

2. Flexibility of Camera-wise Recording Retention Days

Most recorders don’t allow storage bifurcation, thus assigning equal storage days for each camera. But your storage requirements for each camera are never the same. For example, consider a production facility, one would like to record important cameras like those at entry/exit, reception and production line for a higher number of days, say 60 days. While for low priority cameras, like canteen or recreation room, recordings for a fortnight should be sufficient. Without camera-wise recording flexibility, to record production line camera for 60 days, you need to record even canteen and recreation room camera for 60 days, resulting in very high storage costs. However, some smart recorders are also available in the market that offers camera-wise recording flexibility, thus allowing the user to define storage days for the individual camera, thus saving high on storage costs.

3. Two Level Data Compression and Archiving

Government norms nowadays, mandate some industries to store their CCTV cameras recordings for a minimum of 60 to 90 days, especially hospitality and banking industries. Now, the problem is both these industries have a very high number of cameras, resulting in an exponential increase in storage costs. Some solutions present in the market offers two level data compression,.i.e. you can remove audio in the first level of compression and p-frames in the second level of compression, thus saving your storage up to 60%. Moreover, the flexibility is offered camera-wise, i.e., for each camera you can define a number of days for the first and second level of compression. This helps meet all regulations without spending more on storage.

>

Matrix is a leader in Security and Telecom solutions for businesses and enterprises. Its solutions provide preventive security and hence, can be the best fit for modern enterprises.

Various features of Matrix NVR help save storage and bandwidth and reduce the costs by up to 45-50%. Matrix bullet, dome and PTZ cameras also have an exceptional feature that helps optimize the storage and bandwidth even more - the H.265 compression technique. In this, one pixel of the image compares itself to its adjacent pixels, and if the information is the same it does not record and hence, saves a lot of storage space by doing so.

The ones having similar information gets bundled up as one pixel and occupy as much space as a single pixel would occupy. Hence, this is like having a room for more information to be stored without buying an extra storage device.