Vitamin D Video Reference Guide

How many cameras can run on one computer?

Important: The information below reflects significant performance improvements that were introduced in version 1.3 of Vitamin D Video. Select Check for Updates... from the Help menu to upgrade from an earlier version.

Video recognition requires intensive processing by your computer. A fast quad-core computer can potentially run up to sixteen cameras, but an older computer may struggle running one camera. The main factors determining how many cameras can run on a given computer are:

Speed and number of cores of your computer. Vitamin D Video requires at minimum a 2.0 GHz processor, but this number alone doesn't necessarily specify how fast your computer runs programs. More important is the number of "cores" on your computer. A multi-core processor contains more than one independent processor on the same chip. A dual-core processor is like having two computers in one box (and a quad-core is like four). You can Google your computer's model number if you are not sure. Netbooks and the most inexpensive computers typically have the slowest processors (e.g., Intel Atom), and may have difficulty running one camera.
Resolution at which you are saving video. The default resolution for saving video is QVGA (320 x 240). Saving at the highest resolution (1280 x 1024) requires processing seventeen times the number of pixels. This places a much heavier load on your computer.
Activity in the scene being recorded. The more motion in a video, the more processing is required to analyze what is going on. A camera pointed outside at a busy street will required considerably more processing than an indoor camera in a room with no people, or an empty backyard or parking lot. Note that very dark scenes could generate video image artifacts and noise that make them equivalent in complexity to "busy" scenes.
Other applications. The more you need to use your processor for other applications, including automated programs like virus scanners, the fewer cameras you can run on Vitamin D Video.

In general, you should be able to run two to four cameras per core on a dedicated machine (a little less if you are also using the machine for other applications). For example, a fast dedicated quad-core machine would be expected to perform as follows:

QVGA video, low to moderate activity: up to 16 cameras
VGA video, moderate activity: 10-12 cameras
1280 x 1024 video, moderate activity: 4-6 cameras
1280 x 1024 video, heavy activity: less than 4 cameras

For more tips on optimizing performance, see additional performance tips here.