Do you currently have Video Surveillance at your company?
|
Types of Surveillance Systems
There are many different types of surveillance systems, but chances are, when you think of anything having to do with surveillance, your mind immediately goes to things involving video surveillance and security cameras. That's OK, though - they're by far the most popular type of surveillance system.
Originally, a surveillance system that relied on security cameras consisted of a network of analog cameras connected by coaxial cable over a short range. Analog cameras transmitted their footage via this cable back to a central area, where footage was recorded onto cassette tapes, watched on a monitoring system, or both. These types of systems came about in the 1960s and have been used consistently ever since. Also known as CCTV (Closed Circuit Television, referring to the system's inability to transmit footage out of the recording network), these surveillance systems currently hold the lion's share of the video surveillance market due to their reliability, low cost, quality, and effective track record. However, recent developments have made another type of surveillance system a competitor.
IP cameras and digital video surveillance has been a relatively small part of the surveillance system market for the past 10 years, but have recently become more and more prevalent as technological advances have made them easier and less expensive. Unlike CCTV systems, IP video systems transmit video footage over networks (either internal or external) to a computer or digital recorder, where they are stored. Surveillance systems that are fully digital stand to take advantage of several critical developments, including wireless transmission of surveillance footage and video analytics. These two features, especially video analytics' incredible ability to independently analyze footage, are predicted to bring about huge and beneficial changes in the security industry and revolutionize surveillance systems as we know them.
While IP camera and digital surveillance systems are thought by many to be the future of video surveillance, many (if not most) video surveillance systems still use CCTV and analog technology as their primary surveillance system. Some businesses, however, have begun to digitize some parts of their surveillance program while still retaining some analog aspects. These systems, usually called hybrid surveillance systems, are becoming more and more popular as IP video becomes more prevalent. A hybrid system, however, is not the same thing as an IP surveillance system. Hybrid systems, while having some digital elements (say, a recorder or an encoder) still have at least one analog (non-digital) element, most likely the camera. Hybrid systems are popular at the moment as they recreate some of the handy features of digital surveillance systems without the high cost of conversion. However, hybrid systems cannot recreate some of the most outstanding features of IP video surveillance, including video analytics and wireless networking - meaning that the transition to completely digital systems is inevitable.
|
Telephone: 888-257-4210 · 
Fax: 503-684-1590