CCTV Calc

What it does

Storage and bandwidth. Enter cameras by group — resolution up to 16 MP and multi-sensor, H.264 / H.265 / smart codecs, frame rate, continuous or motion recording — and get the terabytes for your retention, the drive count for any drive size with RAID 1 / 5 / 6 / 10, the incoming bandwidth and the remote-viewing bandwidth. Already have the NVR? Enter its capacity and get the days it will hold.

PoE budget. Each device's draw and cable length become the power the switch port must source, the voltage at the device, the loss in the cable, the IEEE 802.3af / at / bt class and the switch headroom — plus the maximum cable run for that device on Cat5e, Cat6 or CCA, and the UPS runtime for the NVR and switch.

Lens and coverage. From the datasheet field of view or the sensor and focal length: scene width, pixels per foot and per meter, and the DORI level (IEC 62676-4) at any distance — or work backwards to the focal length that delivers Identify at a given distance.

Jobs are saved on the device. Reports go out as text, PDF or CSV. Feet or meters, light or dark, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German or French.

Questions installers ask

Why is my storage number different from the camera vendor's calculator?

Vendor calculators use that vendor's bitrate tables. CCTV Calc estimates a typical bitrate from the resolution, codec, frame rate and scene, so the two can differ by 10–30% either way. For an exact match, open the camera's stream settings, read the configured bitrate, and enter it in the group's Configured bitrate field: the app then uses your number instead of the estimate.

Is the PoE result a guarantee the camera will power up?

It is a planning figure that follows the IEEE 802.3 limits and the DC loss in the cable. Two things can still bite on site: a switch whose real output is lower than its rating under load, and copper-clad aluminum cable, which has far more resistance than copper. Enter the switch's actual output voltage and pick CCA when that is what is in the wall, and the app will tell you. Leave 10% of headroom on the switch budget.

What do Detect, Observe, Recognize and Identify mean?

They are the DORI levels from IEC 62676-4: 25, 62.5, 125 and 250 pixels per meter of scene width (about 8, 19, 38 and 76 pixels per foot). Identify is enough to identify a stranger's face; Recognize, a known person; Observe, what someone is doing; Detect, that someone is there.

Feet or meters?

Jobs → Settings → Lengths. Everything re-displays; the results do not change.

Does it need an account or an internet connection?

No. Nothing leaves the device. There are no accounts, no analytics and no network calls. See Privacy.

Where are my jobs, and what happens if I delete the app?

Jobs live on the device. Deleting the app deletes them, so export the PDF or CSV of anything you need to keep.

Something is wrong or missing.

Write to the address below with the numbers you entered and the result you expected. Formula corrections get fixed in the next update; every formula is documented on How the math works.

Contact

Support: ljna2714@proton.me