Frame Rate

Frame Rate is a term normally associated with recording rates on a DVR.

In the field of video surveillance, fps means the number of frames a DVR is able to capture per second. There are three steps required to create a recording on a DVR: video capture, compression, and storage. Each step affects a DVR’s true fps number.

A DVR will have a maximum number of frames it can process for all recording cameras. The higher the fps the more storage will be required. A DVR will not usually be able to record at 30 fps at the highest resolution available. As an example a 16 channel DVR with a max frame rate of 240 fps can record all cameras at 15 fps using the lowest resolution of CIF (352x240). If you change the fps to 7.5 per camera you could increase the resolution to 2CIF (704x240). That is half the frames but twice the resolution.

An analog security camera will capture images at 30 fps using an interlaced method. That means it takes two fields and interlaces the lines to complete the full frame of the image.

A movie at the theater is shown at 24 fps. Video at 15 fps is still considered to be full motion video. You can still capture the images you need in most cases even at 7.5 frames per second or less. In IP cameras the fps is usually set at the camera instead of at the recording device in order to help with bandwidth issues as well as storage issues.

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