How Can a Digital Security Camera Benefit You?

April 29, 2008 – 1:47 pm
by Steve Dale

As home and business security moves into the next generation, it can only be expected that the growth of digital CCTV camera systems would explode.

Digital CCTV cameras basically do the same job that their old analog counterparts did from the 1960s onwards. When placed in vulnerable locations, they enable the business or home owner to monitor areas of their property that would otherwise be targets for criminals and vandals.

Their digital nature, however, makes many things possible that analog cameras never could do. Digital security cameras and digital security camera systems offer perhaps the most powerful combination of abilities available in any type of home or business security system.

How Digital CCTV works

By installing a video capture card in your PC, you turn your computer into an advance digital video recording system, otherwise known as a DVR. This enables you to record super-high quality digital video direct to the hard drive of your computer. The video output from your digital CCTV camera is referred to as a digitized recording that gives you an impressive array of features and benefits.

Benefits

Perhaps the most popular feature is the ability to view live and recorded video remotely from any computer or 3rd generation cell phone anywhere in the world. All you need to do is log in to your secure, private system and view what’s going on right from your computer or phone.

Another great feature of your digital surveillance system is the ability to easily search your recorded video data. Rather than the long and boring process of rewinding and fast forwarding through a VCR tape to find a specific date and time, you can navigate right to that point in the recording with digital video.

With computer software you can program your digital CCTV camera to include or exclude certain movement or images. For example, you can program it to stop recording when no movement is captured after a set period of time, or to excluded movement with part of a camera’s field of vision. When movement is detected you could program your system to send you an text or email. This would be great, for example, if a camera detects movement inside your garage or home when you are away.

With multi-camera systems, you can even program your digital security cameras so that one camera alerts another camera to pan over to its area for another view of some unusual activity that the first one has detected. And you can also control all these actions of your cameras manually, in real time, while viewing the video feed from your computer, as well.

Drawbacks of Digital Security Cameras

Digital surveillance systems are not completely without their drawbacks. The files generated onto your computer’s hard disk by your security cameras can quickly fill up a hard drive. However, hard disk storage these days are very cheap, so it is wise to install the biggest hard disk you can afford. Also, the ability to program your cameras to stop recording when no movement is detected will save you huge amounts of hard disk space.

So is a digital CCTV camera right for your home or business?

Digital security cameras certainly offer you unparalleled flexibility and powerful features. And they offer these things with the convenience of being able to monitor your digital CCTV system from anywhere in the world. If you’re looking for a truly professional-grade system to protect your home or business, a digital security camera system is definitely one to consider.

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