Video streams, bandwidth and storage sizing
What sets a camera's bitrate and how to size a recorder honestly: H.264 and H.265, I-frames and GOP length, bitrate control modes and their trade-offs, main streams and substreams, motion recording, RAID usable capacity, recorder throughput and remote viewing bandwidth.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- About 65 minutes
- Contents
- 3 lessons · 1 video · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 3 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Explain how codec, GOP length, resolution, frame rate and scene content affect bitrate
- Compare variable, maximum, constant and average bitrate control and choose one for a requirement
- Assign main streams and substreams to recording, live viewing and remote viewing
- Calculate storage for mixed continuous and motion recording, and usable capacity for RAID 5 and RAID 6
- Check a design against recorder incoming bandwidth and site upload limits
Course outline
- 1.Video streams, bandwidth and storage sizingVideo · 2 min
- 2.Codecs, frames and what drives bitrateLesson · 20 min
- 3.Bitrate control and streamsLesson · 20 min
- 4.Sizing storage, RAID and throughputLesson · 25 min
- 5.Video streams, bandwidth and storage sizing: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 21 questions
- 6.Final exam10 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- High Efficiency Video Coding (H.265/HEVC): 25% to 50% better compression than H.264/AVC at the same quality
- Group of pictures (I, P and B frames; GOP length)
- Axis Communications white paper: Bitrate control for IP video (VBR, MBR, CBR, average bitrate, GOP length, night noise)
- Standard RAID levels (RAID 1, 5, 6 and 10 usable capacity and fault tolerance)
- UK Home Office / Dstl: UK Police Requirements for CCTV Systems (quality, storage, export, playback) (UK example)
- ONVIF Profile T (H.264/H.265, imaging settings, motion and tampering events, metadata, HTTPS streaming)
See it with your own jobs and topics
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