About: Alta camera bandwidth usage, video quality, and video storage

Last modified: Wednesday May 15, 2024.

Bandwidth usage

The bandwidth consumed by an Alta camera varies based on its usage, configuration, and scene activity.

Idle bandwidth consumption: low-activity scene

An Alta camera viewing a low-activity scene (low numbers of people and vehicles) is typically only passing and receiving small amounts of metadata (such as timeline information or object counts), status checks, or configuration updates. Intermittently, additional bandwidth is used to pass camera metrics and video thumbnails. The bandwidth consumed varies depending on the model. The Avigilon Ava Dome, Compact Dome, and Bullet use approximately 7 kbps of bandwidth, whereas the Avigilon Ava Quad uses approximately 13 kbps.

Idle bandwidth consumption: high-activity scene

A camera viewing a high-activity scene (large numbers of people and vehicles) will typically use more bandwidth due to increased video analytics metadata. On average, the bandwidth consumption doubles, but this might be higher or lower depending on the frequency of the activity. For a consistently busy scene that fills the entire camera view, the bandwidth might be triple that used for a quiet location.

LPR and idle bandwidth consumption

License plate recognition (LPR) increases the amount of bandwidth consumed. Video analytics on an LPR-enabled camera identify a potential license plate and upload that part of a video frame to the cloud for character recognition. The number of vehicles viewed by an LPR camera increases bandwidth consumption.

Video backup bandwidth consumption

By default, an Alta camera records interesting video (typically people and vehicles) in high quality and uploads them to the cloud according to its backup schedule. The bandwidth consumed by these backups varies depending on the number of recordings, the video quality, and the backup frequency.

• Increasing the quality of interesting recordings or the backup frequency increases the bandwidth used.
• Lowering the quality of interesting recordings or the backup frequency decreases the bandwidth used.

For more information about recording quality, see Video resolution and bitrates. To set the recording quality and backup frequency, see How to: Create Configuration profiles for your devices.

Live camera feeds and bandwidth consumption

Viewing a live camera feed increases bandwidth consumption based on the camera model, streaming settings, and viewing resolution.

• The camera model determines the available resolutions and video bitrates, as shown in Table 1.
• The maximum streaming quality of the configuration profile applied to the camera can limit the available resolutions. To learn more about setting camera streaming options, see How to: Create Configuration profiles for your devices.
• Aware selects the closest permitted camera resolution that matches the viewing resolution. For example, a camera feed thumbnail might stream in low resolution, but the same feed viewed in full screen might stream in high resolution.
  • You can see the Requested resolution and Rendered resolution by right-clicking on a camera feed in the Video view tool and selecting Show video stats overlay. Changing the view size will alter the Rendered resolution as determined by the camera model and camera configuration profile.

Video resolution and bitrates

For recorded video, the resolution (number of pixels) and bitrate (amount of data) determine its overall visual quality. High-resolution video with a low bitrate loses detail. Low-resolution video with a high bitrate creates large files containing unnecessary data. Alta cameras automatically balance these settings based on the camera model and its configuration settings.

Setting the quality of streamed or recorded video on an Alta camera determines the video resolution and bitrate used, as shown in the following table. To learn more about setting camera streaming and recording quality, see How to: Create Configuration profiles for your devices.

* Avigilon Ava Quad Cloud cameras only provide three resolutions: low, medium, and maximum. When selecting high resolution, the camera defaults to using the medium settings.

Video storage and retention

Alta cameras have a stated retention period for recorded video, for example, 30, 60, or 120 days. The microSD card supplied with each camera provides the stated retention period when using the default configuration.

Each camera license includes 30 days of Alta Aware Cloud Storage. Installing a larger capacity microSD card does not increase the retention period.

Stored video quality and stated retention period

The stated retention period requires the use of the default recording settings. By default, Alta cameras record interesting video (typically people and vehicles) in high quality and uninteresting video in low quality. You can change the quality of either recording type in the camera configuration profile. Adjusting either of these settings impacts the camera retention period, as shown in Table 2.

* = Default configuration

Videos stored on the camera and marked as saved clips (for example, bookmarked videos and shared links) can also reduce the stated retention period. Aware shows a warning for any device using more than half its storage capacity for saved clips.

Stored video bitrates

If a camera views an unusually busy or quiet scene, it automatically adapts the bitrate to meet the expected retention period. The bitrate varies based on the amount of interesting video recorded, so the average bitrate is kept constant.

• Cameras viewing busy scenes reduce the bitrates for both interesting and uninteresting videos.
• Cameras viewing quiet scenes increase the bitrates for both interesting and uninteresting videos.