How Much Storage Do You Need - TANDBERG Compliance Appliance Deployment Manual

The recordings from these TCAs are also stored in different external storage locations. Viewing the
recordings of the boardroom and New York endpoints requires access to the storage in Tokyo, while
viewing all the other recordings requires access to the London storage.

4.3 How much storage do you need?

The decisive factors affecting storage requirements are:
the number of calls you are recording
the resolution in which you choose to store the video
how long you need to store it.
This will equate to a dollar figure per megabyte, per year.
The TCA records calls exactly as they are transmitted, but it provides unencrypted video (and audio) to
the external storage. This process is called 'transcoding' and the TCA does it continuously as it is
recording, then deletes the recording from its internal storage. This clears the disk storage in the TCA
to make room for new recordings.
4.3.1 Choosing a transcoding bit rate
In the transcoding process, the TCA can convert any higher definition file to a lower definition file that
requires less storage space. By choosing the transcoding resolution you can control how much disk space
you need and how quickly the TCA transcodes each call.
For example, if you choose to store high-definition files as they are, you will need a lot more storage
than if you decide to transcode them into a smaller file format such as CIF. The transcoding process will
also take longer, as there is more information to transcode.
You set the transcoding resolution in the Administration Application when you configure TCA. Bear in
mind that the bit rate you choose needs to match the resolution – choosing a high resolution and a low
bit rate will causes issues such as lost frames and slow transcoding.
Transcoding resolution is a global setting for each TCA. If an organization wants to store
recordings from different endpoints at different resolutions it will need a separate TCA for
those endpoints.
4.3.2 Consider the content
Another aspect to consider when choosing this setting is the content in the recordings. If you choose a
very small transcoding resolution to save storage space, you may not be able to see everything in the
recording clearly. This is especially important if you expect users to include content such as PowerPoint
presentations – at low resolutions these can become too small to read.
4 Storage
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