Video Retention

Overview

If you have a lot of MV cameras to configure, consider using Quality and retention profiles and APIs to configure your settings.

MV Cloud Archive is an additional option available to license to extend and back-up video footage.

Determining estimated retention time

To check the estimated retention time of a specific camera, please follow these steps:

From the Meraki Dashboard, navigate to Cameras > Monitor > Cameras. Select a camera
Go to the Settings tab and navigate to Quality and Retention.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the estimated retention time.

Along with the estimated retention time, suggestions for improving the retention time of your video are also listed. Cloud Archive is available to enhance your retention time up to 365 days.

Video Retention Expectations

For video retention estimations, various factors come into play like video resolution, video quality, motion-based retention, and cloud archive, to name a few. However, the below table provides details on the minimum achievable retention per setting for different MV models.

These are the minimum expected retention per camera based on different resolution & quality settings, and the retention will be further improved with the help of Smart Codec, and additional features like Cloud Archive, Motion-Based Retention, etc.

Resolution	Video Quality	Frame Rate	Bit Rate	MV12WE	MV12W/N	MV22	MV22X	MV72	MV72X	MV52
Resolution	Video Quality	Frame Rate	Bit Rate	128GB	256GB	256GB	512GB	256GB	512GB	1TB
720p	Standard	8 fps	500 Kbps	22	45	45	90	45	90	180+
720p	Enhanced	15 fps	765 Kbps	14	29	29	61	29	61	90+
1080p	Standard	8 fps	1024 Kbps	11	22	22	45	22	45	90+
	Enhanced	15 fps	1562 Kbps	7	14	14	30	14	30	59
	High	24 fps	3138 Kbps	4	7	7	15	7	15	30
4MP	Standard	8 fps	3096 Kbps	-	-	-	15	-	15	30
4MP	Enhanced	15 fps	8192 Kbps	-	-	-	6	-	6	11
4K (8MP)	Standard	8 fps	5000 Kbps	-	-	-	-	-	-	19
4K (8MP)	Enhanced	15 fps	8000 Kbps	-	-	-	-	-	-	12
Resolution	Video Quality	Frame Rate	Bit Rate	MV32
Resolution	Video Quality	Frame Rate	Bit Rate	256GB
1080 x 1080	Standard	8 fps	1024 Kbps	22
1080 x 1080	Enhanced	8 fps	2048 Kbps	11
2058 x 2058	Standard	8 fps	1024 Kbps	22
	Enhanced	8 fps	3096 Kbps	7
	High	15 fps	5120 Kbps	4

Smart Codec

For cameras running MV4.15 and newer, Smart Codec will help enable up to 2x the retention by implementing a more efficient and dynamic codec for video recording. Read this knowledge base article for the list of support cameras and more details on Smart Codec.

Motion-based retention

By default, a Meraki security camera will record footage continuously 24/7. In some situations, only motion events are required to be recorded and stored for review. Motion-based retention covers this requirement and improves the video retention capabilities of the camera. You can toggle between different Motion Detector versions. Read more here.

How motion-based retention works

The industry-standard motion-based recording is never considered 100% effective, and some missed events are expected. To combat this, when motion-based retention is enabled, the footage will continue to be recorded on a 24/7 basis. This provides a three-day buffer period to review any events containing limited motion (e.g. <5% total scene coverage), events in low light conditions (e.g. at night time), or events with far-away objects for significant events. After this three-day safety net, the camera trims footage based on its index of motion events.

Enabling motion-based retention

Go to Camera > Monitor > Cameras: Select a camera.
Go to the Settings tab and select the Quality and Retention tab
From here, select Enable for Motion-based retention
If you want to exclude certain areas and only record motion on select areas of interest, select Enabled for Areas of interest
Draw the areas in which you want to record motion. You can get specific with areas of interest by drawing a Polygon. As shown below, example 1 covers motion only for the door while example 2 covers motion around the two coffee machines. [Supported on all MV's]

Previously made areas of interest using the rectangular tool will be preserved, however, you will not be able to edit them anymore. To change previous areas, you will have to redraw them with the polygon tool. Screen Shot 2021-03-05 at 11.24.15 AM.png

*The new tool is not available for motion alerts, motion search features today

6. Once motion-based retention is selected, a graph will display the hours of motion per day for the camera over the previous week. An estimated retention period will be displayed as well. If your camera is plugged in for the first time, the estimate will be based on averages from all active Meraki cameras.

Motion-based retention in low-light conditions

To optimize the performance of motion-based retention in poor lighting conditions, it is highly recommended that customers use an external, high power IR source. This provides more excellent illumination of the scene and allows for the more precise identification of motion events. Cisco Meraki can recommend RayTec, a wide range of PoE IR lighting for almost all deployments.

Video quality

we can alter the video quality of footage to increase the estimated video retention time. The MV12, MV22 and MV72 all have three modes for video quality which are as follows:

Standard - 1024 kbps at eight fps
Enhanced - 1562 kbps at 15 fps
High - 3138 kbps at 24 fps

There are two video quality modes for MV21 and MV71, Standard Quality and Enhanced Quality. Standard Quality will capture 720p videos at 535 kbps/8 fps. Enhanced Quality will capture 720p videos at 765 kbps/15fps. The recording modes available are continuous, scheduled and motion-based retention. When the video quality is increased, the maximum retention time will decrease.

Setting a maximum retention time.

It is possible to set a maximum retention period for each camera. To do this, please complete the following steps:

Go to Camera > Monitor > Cameras. Select a camera.
Go to the Settings tab and select the Quality and Retention tab
From here, select the dropdown menu under Footage Deletion > When the footage is older than <option>

Footage will be recorded and deleted in the same way as before, on a first-in-first-out basis, until the maximum retention time.
Screen Shot 2021-03-04 at 6.38.35 PM.png

Disabling video retention (live video only)

In specific scenarios, recording any historical footage is disallowed. To enable "live video only" mode, apply a recording schedule that disables recording 24/7.

This will disable the creation of motion metadata. Motion heatmaps will not generate for live video only cameras.

Deleting a video from the camera

When the camera nears the full capacity of the internal storage, it will start deleting the oldest video stored. To delete all footage, remove the camera from its network. We can do this by selecting the camera checkbox under camera> Monitor > Cameras and clicking the move or remove option.

Screen Shot 2021-03-05 at 11.28.05 AM.png

Note: When changing Quality and retention settings, there is a brief interruption in the recorded video due to the cameras internal recording services applying the new settings.