3 Myths About Investing In A Digital Video Surveillance System

The reality of digital video surveillance is exciting. But, likely doesn't quite match the picture you've built from how it is often portrayed. Think of your favorite crime television show, maybe Law & Order or Person of Interest ... it's important to know that what you see in shows like that, is dramatic, and a lot of fiction is built around video surveillance and its uses. Video surveillance systems today are more advanced, affordable and easier to use than most people think.

Let’s visit some of the myths that still persist around digital surveillance systems...

Myth # 1: Digital Video surveillance systems are expensive

At first glance, the expense of replacing existing cameras with state-of-the-art digital equipment can be daunting. If you are replacing analog video cameras, however, take into account these three factors:

• Digital cameras have better resolution and wider viewing angles, so you will need fewer cameras than you currently have.
• The cabling for digital cameras is more efficient and easier to install.
• The installation and maintenance costs will be lower with digital video systems.
  
  

Myth #2: Video Surveillance Systems are a lot of Work

There are four ways digital video surveillance can make your life easier. First, the video footage captured by the cameras is stored on DVR’s and that makes it much easier to search. In the old days, watching hours of analog video was the rule to find specific footage; now you can search using any number of variables and find the video footage you are looking for much more quickly.

The second way digital video surveillance can make your work life easier is because it no longer ties you to a room full of monitors. Because the digital video footage is on the same network as your other systems, IT directors and the employees responsible for security can access the video footage from home, from a smartphone - virtually anywhere in the world.

Third, maintaining digital cameras is much easier. Most of the adjustments you used to make to cameras involved getting a ladder and physically adjusting things like direction and focus. Now all of these adjustments can be made by simply logging into the camera and making the changes from your keyboard.

Finally, by using software with distributed intelligence, a digital video surveillance system can monitor video feeds and pick up events or activities automatically through movement recognition. That means your cameras can be smarter. You could never do that with analog cameras.
 

Myth #3: Video Surveillance Installation takes a long time

All of the information on the digital video surveillance systems built today run on one cable. Technically speaking, it’s a CAT-5 cable. That makes installation much easier than the old analog systems where the cables quickly multiplied and expanded. It also gives you more resolution.

If you really want to take a shortcut, you can also connect the video surveillance system into your existing network. On that point, be careful; video is very bandwidth-heavy, so if your network isn’t ready for it, it could slow everything down quite significantly. 

Finally, a digital video surveillance system gives one more thing you never got in the past: analytics. Through enhanced management software, you can get performance numbers on all your cameras. That gives you the ability to keep tabs on the effectiveness of your digital video surveillance system, and report on those analytics.