Bandwidth Considerations

Bandwidth is an important consideration when using motion recording or especially continuous recording. You will require sufficient upload bandwidth to ensure a constant stream of video data can be transferred from the camera to our cloud servers.

It's important to know the amount of Upload Bandwidth available to you on your camera's network. If you don't have enough bandwidth you will have issues uploading your stream.

There is a way to determine your current amount - you'll need to go to speedtest.net and run the test.

Pay attention to your upload bandwidth specifically. If you don't have enough bandwidth for your camera requirements you can try reducing the resolution and most importantly the bitrate.

The amount of bandwidth that you require will depend on the camera you use and the resolution setting that you choose. If you've setup one of our plug and play supported camera types (or open standard cameras), then you can change the amount of bandwidth you are using by raising and lowering the "Resolution" settings in the "Edit" camera properties.

In addition to the Resolution setting, you have a settings cog next to it. This allows you to set bitrate, framerate and smart codec (Axis and Hanwha cameras only).

Please note that reducing these values too low may cause inconsistencies with the camera stream, such as setting frame rate to 1 or 2 may cause constant black screen in cloud streaming. If you experience this try to adjust the rates slightly higher in small increments and see if you can find a stable spot that works for your purposes.

When it comes to budgeting how much bandwidth you need we typically use the simple rule that 1 Mbps per camera is plenty. Therefore the math is quite simple for an example of 5 cameras:

5 cameras X 1 Mbps = 5 Mbps minimum upload bandwidth required.

In practice it's actually a lot less than 5 Mbps. By default we will setup the camera with "variable bitrate" (VBR) which allows them to minimize bandwidth usage when the picture is not too busy.

If bandwidth is a serious concern you can dial down the values. A decent quality picture can be had at:

720p
384 kbps
10 fps

A more common value would be (and the default we typically use):

1080p
768 kbps
10 fps

If you have a Generic brand camera added to the cloud, you can't change the settings. You need to do that in the camera UI. Keep in mind that you probably want to choose a value that is below the maximums. See maximums below.

Maximum resolutions for the cloud

Keep in mind there are maximums associated with certain resolutions. See table below:

Resolution	4MP	1080p	720p	480p	320p
Max Bitrate	1280 kbps	1280 kbps	768 kbps	512 kbps	256 kbps
Max Framerate	15 fps	15 fps	15 fps	15 fps	15 fps

Hanwha cameras typically use a higher bitrate. For example at 720p they have a default of 1536 kbps.

Select Hanwha and Axis cameras use smart codec technology that reduces the bandwidth even further.

One important setting is CBR vs VBR. Constant bitrate is almost never what you want. Make sure you are using VBR. By default plug and play cameras on our system will be set to VBR but in the case of Generic cameras make sure to change that in the camera UI.

Need higher resolution? You can also use our Ultra HD addon to get up to 4K resolution, 2560 kbps bitrate and 20 fps.

What are you looking for?

Bandwidth Considerations

Maximum resolutions for the cloud