Is It Worth Installing Cat 6 Ethernet Cable For Ultra HD 4K Cameras?

Luke Maslen

Last week at ISC West in Las Vegas, a number of vendors were showing off their first Ultra HD 4K resolution IP cameras. This week in Las Vegas, the NAB Show is full of Ultra HD 4K products for the film and video industries.

In the IP camera course, it was emphasized that high resolution IP cameras have poor low light performance so one is often much better off with 720p or 1080p cameras which also have much lower bandwidth requirements. On the other hand, it seems likely that the low light capabilities of high resolution cameras will be improved over the next few years as this is what the industry wants.

Knowing there are now Ultra HD 4K resolution IP cameras, should one consider installing Cat 6 Ethernet cable for IP cameras so as to future-proof an installation, or will Cat 5e suffice even for 4K?

My own feeling is that Cat 5e will be all that is needed for the next 5 years but I'd be interested to hear what others think. Thank you for your comments.

Show oldest first Show newest first

John Honovich

IPVM | 04/08/14 05:08am

Since even a 4K camera is unlikely to go over 100Mb/s, I do not see why you would need to upgrade cabling.

A 1080p HD camera at full frame rate, H.264 typically comes 2Mb/s to 10Mb/s. 4K is 4x the pixels of 1080p, so assuming a linear relationship that would mean 8Mb/s to 40Mb/s (and linear is conservative since bandwidth tends to increase at lower rate than pixels because of compression benefits across more pixels).

Luke Maslen

IPVMU Certified | In reply to John Honovich | 04/08/14 05:18am

Thanks John. I'm guessing that anyone using 4K might also be using multiple streams, eg so they can watch a few specific areas of the image perhaps at 1080p resolution. I think Cat 5e should still be OK but multiple streams could bring a worst case scenario very close to 70 Mb/s at which time one should seriously start considering using 1 GbE cabling and switches. Hence my reason for provoking some discussion on this topic.

John Honovich

IPVM | In reply to Luke Maslen | 04/08/14 05:31am

I think it it is highly unlikely that people will be using multiple 4K, full full frame rate streams at the same time. The typical multi-stream example is full resolution PLUS quarter or lower resolution, which would be substantially lower than 70Mb/s even in the worst case scenario.

Also, my understanding is that 4K cameras are still going to have 100Mb/s Ethernet interfaces only so even if theoretically you were streaming out 70+Mb/s, your #1 issue would be the camera's NIC before anything else.

Luke Maslen

IPVMU Certified | In reply to John Honovich | 04/08/14 05:37am

Ahh! That's very interesting information about the NIC John and certainly answers my question if that's what the camera manufacturers choose to use.

Ethan Ace

IPVM | 04/08/14 02:08pm

The highest bitrate I saw on the ISC show floor last week was about 40 Mb/s. That was much higher than others (which I already thought were running higher than they had to). Most people I talked to said they felt 10-15 Mb/s is probably what you'll see for a "decent" stream.

So even worst case, pulling a full res stream plus second or third lower resolution streams, it should be fine.

Mark McRae

Inaxsys Security Systems
04/08/14 02:10pm

The bandwidth specification for Cat 5e is 1000 Mb/s. 4K bandwidth requirements should be less than 40 Mb/s (and perhaps drastically less if H.265 ever shows up! :-) ). So I can't see any practical reason why you should use Cat 6 instead of Cat 5e.

Even regular Cat 5 @ 100 Mb/s should be fine for 4K

Discussion	Posts	Latest
Axis Started A Podcast - Good Or Bad Move? (6) Started by John Honovich	6	less than a minute by Undisclosed #2
Depending On Channel Partners Will Kill Your Business (7) Started by Undisclosed Manufacturer #1	7	less than a minute by Undisclosed Integrator #2
Gate Access: Integrated Track Cleaning Brush (1) Started by Brian Rhodes	1	3 minutes by Brian Rhodes
Burglars Steal 4G Camera, ~$8,000 In Tools, Camera Is Still Transmitting Video From Burglars Home. (4) Started by Jermaine Wilson	4	less than a minute by Ryan King
Court Ordered Rebates Of Unlawful Alarm Industry Fines/Fees.. IMPACT On RMR Market $Value (5) Started by Lee Jones	5	less than a minute by Lee Jones

Discussion

Posts

Latest

Axis Started A Podcast - Good Or Bad Move? (6)

Started by John Honovich

less than a minute by Undisclosed #2

Depending On Channel Partners Will Kill Your Business (7)

Started by Undisclosed Manufacturer #1

less than a minute by Undisclosed Integrator #2

Gate Access: Integrated Track Cleaning Brush (1)

Started by Brian Rhodes

3 minutes by Brian Rhodes