Technological Emergence of Security Cameras

As per the today’s changing environments security cameras are the need of every household, office, building and society. With the emergence of technology, security cameras have also traversed a long distance while adopting various technologies.

Let's know everything about Security cameras to clarify the basics.

Security cameras are either analogue or digital - which means they work on the basis of sending analogue or digital signals to a storage device such as a video tape recorder or desktop computer or laptop.

Analogue Cameras/DVR

Analogue Cameras basically allows to record straight to a videotape recorder which is able to record analogue signals as pictures. Analogue signals can be converted to digital signals to enable the recording to be stored in PC as digital recordings. In that case the analogue camera must be directly plugged in to a video capture card in the computer, and the card then converts the analogue signal to digital. These cards are relatively cheap, but inevitably resulting digital signals compressed 5:1 (MPEG Compression) in order for the video recordings to be saved on a continuous basis.

Another way to store recordings on a non-analogue media is through the use of a digital video recorder (DVR). Such a device is similar in functionality to a PC with a capture card and appropriate video recording software. Unlike PCs, most DVRs designed for CCTV are embedded devices that require less maintenance and simpler set up than a PC based solutions, for a medium to a large number of analogue cameras.

Some DVRs also follow digital broadcasting of the video signal, thus acting like a network camera. If a device does allow broadcasting of the video but does not record it, then it’s called a video server. These devices effectively turn any analogue camera into a network TV.

Digital Cameras