Recording Capacity

From EZWatch Wiki

Recording capacity varies by many factors. The following factors must be taken into account, as all will result in larger video files :

• Color videos are larger than Black and White videos. A black and white camera will produce video that is smaller than a color camera.
• The more motion that appears in front of a camera, the larger the video from that camera will be.
• The higher the resolution of the recording, the larger the video files will become.
• The higher the framerate of the recording, the larger the video files will become.
• The higher the 'quality setting' of the recording, the larger the video files will become.

What this means is that if you set all of your recording option within EZ Watch Pro 4.0 to maximum, then you will consume much more hard drive space (And thus be able to record less time on the same drive) than if you lower your recording options. The following steps can be done to reduce the video file sizes, and increase the amount of time the system can record for :

• Set the cameras to record only on Motion Detection. By not recording when nothing is on screen, you can reduce the amount of files being recorded and save considerable amounts of space.
• Reduce the resolution, framerate, and video quality of the camera. This is done from within your recording schedule; lowering these values may impact the video quality and reduce the detail that you can see by, but it will also reduce the file size.
• If you cannot reduce your quality or do not wish to reduce recordings by recording on motion, then you can simply increase the amount of hard drive space that is available to the recorder. The larger the hard drive, the more space is available, the longer the recorder can store video.

An approximation of recording times for EZ Watch Pro 4.0 is as follows :

Business Grade recording - MPEG4

Please note that with Business Grade recording, 30 FPS is only available if you have 1 camera, 15 is available if you have 2 cameras, 10 is available if you have 3 cameras, and 7.5 is available for all systems with 4 or more cameras.

The following table shows you how long it takes for a single camera to record 1 gigabyte of data. If you have four cameras, then this table shows how long it takes for the entire system to record 4 gigabytes of data. This table assumes constant, always-on recording and does not include any motion-detection.

	7.5 FPS	10 FPS	15 FPS	30 FPS
352x240 Res	24 Hours, 51 Minutes	18 Hours, 38 Minutes	12 Hours, 25 Minutes	6 Hours, 12 Minutes
704x240 Res	15 Hours, 32 Minutes	11 Hours, 39 Minutes	7 Hours, 46 Minutes	2 Hours, 4 Minutes
704x480 Res	8 Hours, 17 Minutes	6 Hours, 12 Minutes	4 Hours, 8 Minutes	2 Hours, 4 Minutes

Professional Grade recording - H.264

The following table shows you how long it takes for a single camera to record 1 gigabyte of data. If you have four cameras, then this table shows how long it takes for the entire system to record 4 gigabytes of data. This table assumes constant, always-on recording and does not include any motion-detection.

	2 FPS	5 FPS	10 FPS	15 FPS	20 FPS	30 FPS
176x120 Res	60 Hours, 35 Minutes	47 Hours, 7 Minutes	35 Hours, 20 Minutes	28 Hours, 16 Minutes	26 Hours, 30 Minutes	21 Hours, 12 Minutes
352x240 Res	30 Hours, 17 Minutes	23 Hours, 33 Minutes	17 Hours, 40 Minutes	14 Hours, 8 Minutes	13 Hours, 15 Minutes	10 Hours, 36 Minutes
528x320 Res	18 Hours, 56 Minutes	14 Hours, 43 Minutes	11 Hours, 2 Minutes	8 Hours, 50 Minutes	8 Hours, 17 Minutes	6 Hours, 37 Minutes
704x480 Res	9 Hours, 28 Minutes	7 Hours, 21 Minutes	5 Hours, 31 Minutes	4 Hours, 25 Minutes	4 Hours, 8 Minutes	3 Hours, 18 Minutes

How to use this Table

This table will show you, based on camera settings, how long it takes to record 1 Gigabyte of data. If you have four cameras, all with the same exact settings, then the table will show you how long it takes to record 4 gigabytes of data. Using this table, you can determine how long it takes to fill up any hard drive.

For example, If you have a four camera Business Grade system set to the highest resolution and framerate (7.5FPS and 704x480 Resolution), then Every 8 Hours, 17 Minutes it will use up four gigabytes of hard drive space. This means that a full 80 Gigabyte hard drive can store 165 Hours, 40 Minutes or 7 days of constant recording. By increasing the amount of storage you dedicate to the task of recording, you can increase this recording limit.

The formula for determining the recording time is the recording hard drive size, divided by the number of cameras, multiplied by the recording time. So for our current example, it is 80 (Hard Drive Size) divided by 4 (Number of Cameras), which results in 20. Then 20 multiplied by 8 hours, 17 minutes (The value from the table above) and we get 165 hours, 40 minutes.

If you are unsure of how much recording time you need, then you can always contact our support department directly at 1-866-241-3400, Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Mountain Time (10:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern). You can also e-mail support directly at support@ezwatchstore.com.