First of all, let’s start with the word, bit. A bit is an acronym for “binary digit,” the smallest possible unit in digital computing and networking. Bit rate is the number of bits that pass a given point in a telecommunication network in a given amount of time, usually a second. 8 bits make one byte. 1024 bytes make 1MB. 1024MB make 1GB, 1024GB make 1TB. You should probably be familiar with the TB now, because all our CCTV, and IP camera solutions are based on multiple TB harddisk capacity.
A bit rate is usually measured in multiple bits per second . For example, kilobits, or thousands of bits per second (Kbps). So what is bit rate in camera or CCTV and IP cameras? it can refer to the number of bits transferred per second for the combination of video and audio streams, again, usually in Kbps.
Different from analog surveillance system, IP camera system requires user to have sufficient network bandwidth for video file transmission. The data rate for a video file is the bitrate. So a data rate specification for video content that runs at 1 megabyte per second would be given as a bitrate of 8 megabits per second (8 mbps). Generally, higher bitrate means higher image quality, but since there is limitation for available network bandwidth and storage capacity for IP surveillance camera, a careful selection of bitrate and file zie is required for a balance between video quality and network bandwidth, as well as storage capacity.
Constant bit rate (CBR) and variable bit rate (VBR) are the main types of bit rate encoding.