Digital Video Surveillance

Digital Video Surveillance

     The days of VHS tapes piled all over an office are slowly coming to an end.  With digital video surveillance becoming cheaper, many businesses and homes can afford to make the change away from old tape based systems.  Digital video surveillance has many distinct advantages over older analog and tape systems.  There are no tapes to change, the quality of the recordings doesn't diminish over time, and the quality of the recordings can be very high.  You can even use your home computer to run all of your digital video surveillance equipment with the addition of an inexpensive PC card.      Digital video surveillance uses a similar setup as analog and tape systems.  You will need to figure out what areas you would like to record and set up your cameras so they provide maximum coverage of those areas.  The cameras record at the times you specify and all the video is sent to a large digital box similar to a DVR.  A DVR basically lets you record and save whatever you like to an internal hard drive.  You can then watch or erase it at your leisure.       The big problem with older analog and tape surveillance systems was quality.  VHS tapes just didn't offer a high quality recording, especially when one tape recorded 24 hours worth of video.  It just wasn't cost efficient to record for 24 hours straight as you would get very jerky movement as it would only record about once every few seconds to save tape.  Also having to fast forward and rewind through days of tape to find one incident was very time consuming.  With digital video surveillance, you can instantly choose what time and what day you would like to watch.  No skipping around, it takes you right where you want it.
    
     Digital video surveillance has many extra features you may consider with a new system.  There are larger hard drives, extra high definition cameras, audio recording, and many other extras.  Depending on your use, you may consider a package that includes everything you could possibly need.  Many retailers offer special packages at reduced prices so it is beneficial to check around before purchasing any digital video surveillance systems.