DVR Storage Calculator

How much space does a DVR consume to record video? How big a hard drive is required to store video for at least a  certain number of days? To answer these questions, the following factors have to be considered:

 

  • Compression - the better the compression, the smaller the video stored. The most recent DVRs have H.264 compression.
  • Resolution - analog video from cameras are converted to digital format. The size or resolution of the video stored can be set. Higher resolution provide more detail at the expense of higher space consumption.
  • Number of cameras - More cameras mean more video will be recorded and more space will be used.
  • Frames per second - to record motion, a DVR takes several pictures in a second and detects areas of the picture that changed. The more pictures or frames in a second it takes, the smoother the video but again this is at the expense of requiring more space.
  • Number of hours recording - video is expressed in time units (seconds, minutes or hours ). The more time recorded, the higher the space used. The amount of time recorded can be reduced by setting the DVR to record only when motion is detected.

 

To make it easier to estimate the amount of space needed/used by a DVR, we have created the following DVR storage calculator.

 







Compute


0 Gigabytes

 

Please note that the space computed is only an estimate. Actual disk usage may be higher or lower.