IP-Based Video Surveillance
Halfway there…
The “Middle Of The Road” of Video Surveillance is Upgrading Video Surveillance by utilizing a Digital Video Recorder (DVR).
A DVR system is not really fully IP-based, but is step toward the more advanced IP technology. In actuality, a DVR system uses the same camera and structures for cabling as the older CCTV analog systems, but the old VCRs have been replaced with DVR for storage of the data. The data is converted to digital so that it can be stored on hard disks, but the quality of the images captured remains analog since this is how it originated.
When shopping for a video surveillance system, be sure to ask if the system is digital based on the recording (DVR) or on the camera, since many manufacturers consider a system digital by virtue of the DVR storage system even if the camera recording the images is still analog.
Going all the way
Some people will move to the hybrid models of a CCTV/DVR system when they first move beyond an analog system because it seems like the next practical evolutionary step in video surveillance.
However, shifting to this method largely ignores how IP-based video surveillance works. With CCTV/DVR surveillance you have actually simply delayed the inevitable by adding on a relatively new technology (hard disk, digital storage) to an old technology (analog video over coaxial transmission lines). Rather than moving forward into something new, you have prolonged the demise of the old.