NVR

Create Partition for Ubuntu and mounted to Exacq edvr Directory

It took me awhile to get to this as there website doesn’t load world wide, so I’m reposting here for those that may have the same issue I was having.

Recently, I have attempted to install Exacq Server on Ubuntu operating system. In this example, we will attempt to partition, format the partition, create mounting point, and finally map the drive to Exacq Server recording location. We will be using terminal commands to achieve all this.

Before you create partition, you will need to locate the hard drive location name in the Ubuntu OS.

1) Create Partition

View detected devices of class “DISK”

$ sudo lshw -C disk

2.View existing partition table(s)

$ sudo fdisk -l

make sure to select the correct partition

In this example, we will create imaginary hard drive location name. We will use sda.

$ sudo fdisk /dev/sda

Within FDISK, press:

Type ‘n’ and press enter key to create new partition. Remaining options, please leave default selections. When you get to the end, you will receive message stating partition was created.

Type w and press enter to write and finalize the partition creation.

2) Format Partition

MKFS is type of hard drive partition used to create a file system of Linux Operating system.

$ sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sda

3) Mounting point

By default, Exacq server choose the OS hard drive as first partition. Since computer, the numbers start at 0, we need to choose different number. We need to create a folder inside recording location, mnt/edvr/, of Exacq Server.

creating the mounting directory

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/edvr/1

After creating directory, you will need to point the formatted partition to the newly created edvr/1. We will mirror /dev/sda to /mnt/edvr/1

$ sudo nano /etc/fstab

$ sudo /dev/sda /mnt/edvr/1 ext4 defaults 0 0

4) restart mount:

$ sudo mount -a

5: restart edvr service, if unable to restart reboot Ubuntu OS

$ sudo service edvrservice restart

In case it fails to restart, simply restart the OS.

$ sudo reboot

Now if you go back and check the Storage, you will then see the new OS will show up.

What affects bandwidth and storage

Storage calculation is very important for CCTV projects. I bet you want to learn how to calculate bandwidth and storage for your IP cameras and recorder devices, so you can estimate how much hard drive is necessary to record your CCTV footage.

Resolution

The higher the camera resolution, the greater the need for bandwidth and storage space, some common IP camera resolutions are: QCIF, CIF, 2CIF, 4CIF, VGA, SVGA, HD, Full HD and 4K.

Frame Rate

30 FPS is considered real-time motion and shows smooth movement on the recorded video, but if you setup your camera with such frame rate, the use of bandwidth and storage will increase a lot. So for most CCTV projects 15 FPS is enough.

CODEC (compression algorithm)

The choice of the codec dramatically influences the amount of hard disk used for recording, so using modern algorithms like H.264, H.264 plus and H.265 can save more recording space when compared to the old CODEC such as MJPEG or MPEG-4 for example.

Scene activity

If the scene where the camera is installed is very complex, ie there is a lot of movement of people and objects, the need for more bandwidth and storage space will increase.

Continuous or event recording

When you set up a CCTV recorder, you can choose whether videos will be continuously stored even when there are no events in place, or whether the recording will start only when there is an event such as motion detection.

What is a NVR?

A network video recorder (NVR) is a specialized computer system that includes a software program that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other mass storage device. An NVR contains no dedicated video capture hardware. However, the software is typically run on a dedicated device, usually with an embedded operating system. Alternatively, to help support increased functionality and serviceability, standard operating systems are used with standard processors and video management software. An NVR is typically deployed in an IP video surveillance system.

A good NVR would allow you to issue your IP cameras there own IP address, as on my NVR my LAN/WAN address would be in the 192.168.x.x and my IP cameras could have there own addresses for instance 10.x.x.x or 172.x.x.x.