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Large-Scale Video Archiving?

Posted by Cliff on from the now-that's-a-lotta-data dept.

BondHeadGuy asks: "Ok, say you have 1000+ cameras emitting 30 frames/second worth of 640x480 grayscale video...and you have to store it indefinitely. What do you do? This is a real question, believe it or not. 30 frames/s * 300 KB/frame = 9 MB/s per camera. 100:1 video compression brings that down to ~90 KB/s. But 90 KB/s * 1000 cameras = 90 MB/s, or ~8 terabytes/day. Retrieval, though, can be essentially arbitrarily slow. Reliability should be good enough to not be annoying long term. Is there a solution that: has 8 TB/day storage capacity, can handle the 90 MB/s write speed, and lets you save some bucks on the (slow) read side?"

4 of 494 comments (clear)

  1. The question is why by Captain+Pedantic · · Score: 1, Troll

    If you are planning to steal all the television in the world, remember you still have to have time to watch it, and for each day you need to dedicate 3 years, and even here on slashdot there can't be that many people with so little social life.

    But I fear that the real reason for doing this is to record all the citizens of a city and keep it and all your personal habits indefinitely, and so I suggest that nobody here answers the question - you may find it bites you later.

    --

    None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
    1. Re:The question is why by Captain+Pedantic · · Score: 0, Troll

      I know that I'm going to get modded down again for asking, but do you have a web cam? Will you please post its address. In the case that you don't have one, why don't you tell us where you were last night, between the hours of 6.00pm and 4.00am. Please include details of anyone you spoke to, in case they are known drug dealers/terrorist/etc. Thank you. Oh, you might like to register a nick, or uncheck your post anonymously option because I'm sure you haven't done anything wrong.

      --

      None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
  2. Surveillance Company Plan by shut_up_man · · Score: 0, Troll

    1) Watch WTC terrorism events and repercussions on TV
    2) Realise there'll be big money in the video surveillance market
    3) Create video surveillance company, but don't have any products
    4) Post an Ask Slashdot for free technical advice
    5) Create surveillance product
    6) Make serious bank!

    shut up man

  3. You're asking us? by ryanvm · · Score: 1, Troll
    Not to insult the /. crowd too much, but the costs associated with storing this much data long term would be absolutely stratospheric.

    I find it hard to believe that any company would say, "Hey Herbert, we need $10 million per year of storage. Why don't you go check Slashdot and see what they think?"

    This would be the kind of project that most consultants have wet dreams about.