Large-Scale Video Archiving?

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?"

Comments

The question is why

[Captain Pedantic]

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.

Re:The question is why

[Captain Pedantic]

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.

Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

As if recent events (attacks on the World Trade Centres, Anthrax Attacks) raising our collective conciousness into a state of terror wasn't bad enough, Hallowe'en is just around the corner. Soon, a new terror, a spooky terror, will unfold as the souls of thousands of innocent civilians who died raise from the dead on All Hallow's Eve to terrorise yawl's neighborhood. And you people have the gall to be discussing video archiving???? My *god*, people, GET SOME PRIORITIES!

The angry souls of the recent dead could give a good god damn about video archiving, instead preferring to wander the areas where they met their untimely ends, seeking out unwitting victims for retribution. By all means, on the evening of Hallowe'en, try to avoid the area around Ground Zero of the WTC, the area near the Pentagon, and the crash site in Pennsylvania unless you don't mind becoming a victim of terror (a very spooky terror indeed), yourself.

You have been warned!

Surveillance Company Plan

[shut_up_man]

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

You're asking us?

[ryanvm]

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.

DON'T CLICK THAT LINK!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

God, I thought I had seen the worst with goatse.cx. Now I am going to have to go wash off my monitor with windex. I seriously want to scratch out my eyes with a fork.

Taco is right. This trolling is getting way out of hand.