How Can a Digital CCTV Camera System Benefit You?

by Steve Dale

As we leave the days of analog systems behind us, it can only be expected that we experience an explosive growth in digital surveillance cameras and systems.

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 it works

By installing a video capture card in your PC or Mac, you turn your computer into a DVR (digital video recorder). This gives you high quality digital video compression straight onto your computer’s hard disk. The digital video output from your surveillance camera provides an impressive array of 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.

Disadvantages of Digital CCTV

Digital surveillance systems, however, are not totally completely without drawbacks. The files generated by computer security cameras can fill up hard disk drive space very quickly. That, however, is where you’ll find the ability to program your cameras to stop recording in certain situations comes in handy (time-lapsed recording). By avoiding recording the vast majority of time (when there is nothing worth recording!), you’ll find that you save a 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.

About the Author:

Visit Security Camera Review for guides on all types of security cameras, including guides to home security.