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Digital Recording CCTVs
Until just five years ago, CCTV systems were analogue. Such systems, traditionally built up from cameras, a multiplexer, a time-lapse video cam recorder (VCR) and a monitor, required a lot of coax cable wiring and stored video events on a videotape.
Digital Recording
Due to the high maintenance cost and problems with image quality from the VCR, many users today are installing digital video recorders (DVR's). In a DVR, a digital storage media, a computer-like hard drive is used for storing recordings. The most recent recording overwrites the oldest, allowing uninterrupted and continuous recording. Often, the video recordings can be transferred to a (digital data) tape for archiving purposes.
With a DVR, digital storage of video results in no quality loss (as opposed to video stored on traditional videotapes), and the required manual interaction has been reduced, thus resulting in a lower overall cost.
The Influence of the IT World
Today there are also sophisticated computer based DVR's on the market that take multi-camera inputs (thus eliminating the need for a multiplexer) and provide significant additional functionality to the user. Computer based DVR's often offer functionality such as alarm handling, activity detection, alarm notification (e.g. through an email or a cell phone message) and remote access, just to name some popular features. Video evidence can be found instantly by specifying date and time or through an activity search.
Video Cameras with Network Interfaces
During the last three years, video cameras with network interfaces (Ethernet) have become widely available on the market. These cameras can be directly attached to a data network, such as the local area network (LAN), an Intranet or the Internet. This means that the camera can be directly accessed (viewed) from a computer on the same network and therefore does not need to be connected via a coax cable. Also on the market are network video servers allowing traditional video cameras to be connected to a data network.
This technology allows you to access the camera locally/remotely via a computer.
Network Based CCTV
Computer software for network video surveillance is now available on the market. This software, along with network camera technology, makes it possible to offer "Network Based CCTV" - a complete and full featured video surveillance solution using only standard computers and network components. In this way cabling costs can be reduced considerably since network cabling or a wireless networking technology is used.
Since standard components from the IT industry are used, a good price/performance ratio is achieved. The components can easily be upgraded/replaced individually. A standard PC server can be turned into the heart of a video surveillance installation by running video surveillance software on it. If the system needs to be upgraded to improve performance, the user can replace the server PC with a newer one, and re-use the old one for other purposes.
There is virtually no limit to the scalability and overall performance of a network based CCTV system. A modern multi-processor server PC can record more than 250 images per second and can handle over 50 cameras.
The Future of CCTV
In the future we will see an increasing number of network camera products on the market. The security fairs clearly show this trend. Due to the advantages of the technology, network based CCTV will become commonly used.
Computer and network technologies will enable video surveillance to be used in completely new applications. Video will be more widely used as evidence, documentation in other computerised transaction or registration systems, such as in combination with access or passport control, customs, road tolls, various cash transactions etc. The possibilities are limitless!
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