How Many Days of Recordings Your Stand-alone Camera Can Save
NOTE: This FAQ is mainly for Stand-alone cameras with expandable storage (uses micro SD cards) which you can check in this article. Those with built-in, non-expandable, storage only have limited amount of memory to store a few clips, which then gets uploaded to the Cloud. To expand the number of days the Cloud can store clips, check which Secure+ Plan subscription works for you.
Answer: A 2K camera with 64 GB (storage) and records a total of 5 hours a day (frequency), can store approximately 18 days of local recording; while a 4K camera can store half of that, which is approximately 9 days of local recording.
We can only estimate the answer since the cameras use variable bitrate and the frequency varies (along with the length of each recording) each day.
Factors Affecting File Size
Stand-alone camera doesn't have much of a settings that you can control to increase their quality or days of recording as this line of product is meant to be a set-and-forget type of system. Nevertheless, the following contribute to its file size: bitrate and frequency. Bitrate in stand-alone cameras varies (variable bitrate) while Frequency is the number of instances that your camera records and for how long.
DID YOU KNOW? Encoding Mode, Resolution, and Frame Rate (fps) doesn't affect the size of the file; it is the bitrate. However, having a higher resolution usually comes with a higher bitrate which is why many think that changing the resolution 'alone' affects its file size.
Using the calculator that will be mentioned below, notice that the result is still the same if you use the same bitrate value in the calculator to a different resolution.
Let's Calculate!
Using HiTools Designer: Storage and Bandwidth Calculator, click on Add then copy the values shown below and enter them in the calculator.
| Values | 2K cameras | 4K cameras |
|---|---|---|
| Number of channels | 1 | 1 |
| Video Standard | PAL/NTSC | PAL/NTSC |
| Encoding Mode | H.264 | H.265 |
| Resolution 1 | 4MP (2560×1440) | 8MP (3840×2160) |
| Frame rate (fps) 2 | 15 | 15 |
| Bitrate (Kbps) 2 | 1536 | 3072 |
| Set Disk Space as (GB) | 64 | 64 |
| Recording Time per Day (hrs) 2 | 5 | 5 |
1 - Actual resolution for 2K is not available in the calculator
2 - Estimated value
The above image shows the values for a 4K camera
DID YOU KNOW? A storage manufacturer claims 64 GB is shown as 59.6 GB (more or less) when checked on a computer. That's because a manufacturer's definition of 1 GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes (Decimal - Base 10) while a computer's 1 GB is 1,073,741,824 bytes (Binary - Base 2). Hence, a 64,000,000,000 bytes divided by 1,073,741,824 bytes is 59.6 GB shown on a computer.
Conclusion
When it comes to storing footage locally from your stand-alone security camera, understanding the factors that affect recording length is essential. However, since there are contributing factors that aren't adjustable, it is almost impossible to identify how long it can store clips. With that in mind, it is highly recommended to download the clip as soon as possible to ensure that you have the important clips that you might need in the future.