Category Archives: Digital Recording

The new 200 series IP camera range from Bosch

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The perfect IP solution.

The perfect all in one new 200 series IP camera range from  Bosch has been designed to take on Axis in the market place that uses on board camera recording rather than a DVR or a CCTV software recording solution.

Straight out the box.

The package comes as an all in one solution straight out the box. It is designed to be fitted into reception areas and other isolated locations within a building that may involve lone workers or staff who have exposure to the public that may potentially escalate into a violent or dangerous situation.

Audio alarm.

On board audio alarm means that a normal working sound level can be set that when exceed, perhaps because of shouting or a cry for help, the CCTV software will generate an alarm in order to alert a third party.

In addition.

Add to this built in motion detection to enable the 16 gigabyte SD card to capture only the required events and we have a very powerful IP camera.

More for your money.

Finally we have the benefits of POE but most importantly the quality of the image produced from this camera. As expected it is very good as with most Bosch products and with a lack of competition in this particular IP camera type, Bosch must expect some strong sales.

DVR CCTV recording v CCTV software recording solutions

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 Digital recorders are they a thing of the past?

 Digital recorders have been a huge step forward for the CCTV industry. When they first appeared to the mass market seven years or so ago they were hailed as the ultimate recording solution. To some degree this is true however they do have limitations and the black box is slowly but surely about to give way to VMS CCTV software as the primary way of recording CCTV images.

In the beginning.

At first the DVR’s that hit the market place were small 4 or 9 way boxes with what would now be considered  ludicrously small hard drives around 40 – 80 gig. They tended to be unstable and fail with relative frequency something that gave Security installers quite a headache in the early days. Things however moved fast. Soon remote connectivity became a must have feature as broadband begun to become more wide spread and IT managers got less and less concerned about streaming the data across their internal networks.

Front end CCTV software.

 CCTV software for DVR’s began to look and behave in a more user friendly way and once the central stations moved to remotely monitor some of the DVRs out there, it seemed that this technology would be here to stay.

Things change so fast.

Things however have suddenly shifted to a different level . This is being driven by IP camera solutions especially HD CCTV and Megapixel IP cameras. CCTV software in the form of VMS is quietly becoming the preferred way forward for those who appreciate the benefits of IP cameras and know how IP solutions are shortly going to dominate the market place. The flexibility and the way that software becomes cheaper the more cameras a system has is going to drive sales but most importantly the picture quality that is quite simply stunning will persuade customers to invest in the IP way forward.

Is it the end for DVR CCTV recording solutions?

So is it shortly going to be the end for the black box DVR , well quite simply no. The DVR is still a relatively cheap purchase and many smaller installations simply do not require the sophistication and larger costs of Megapixel IP security cameras and the accompanying CCTV software. So we are are a long way from seeing the discontinuation of the DVR CCTV solution but the amount of investment and development from manufacturers will start to fall away in favour of  various CCTV software products.

Video sphere VMS software

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Why VMS ?

There are many benefits being touted about Video sphere VMS software.The main one we can see is the ability to support so many applications and be so flexible when trying to design a hybrid CCTV system.

The framework to have a scalable IP CCTV solution.

Video sphere can support small, medium and large applications that need IP CCTV solutions but need to consider legacy analogue devices . By using codecs all analogue camera equipment can be converted to IP CCTV cameras and integrated into the VMS framework. Video streaming of high frame rates up to 256 IP or converted analogue cameras per server. Ultimately by correctly configuring the network servers VMS can support thousands of cameras across a company group.

MPEG4 and H.264.

Both the above video compression formats are supported by VMS as is multiple PTZ IP cameras and video sphere HD IP solutions. As we mentioned before codecs in the form of Edge encoders are used to introduce analogue cameras in to the overall solution and this then enables existing equipment to run analytics that make these cameras intelligent this has to be considered a valuable upgrade benefit.

Alarm switching.

An important part of all IP solutions is the ability to support alarm switching to follow analytic generated alarms. VMS does this and can also be integrated to data sources such as ATM and POS transactions.

Conclusion.

VMS is a powerful piece of software , designed to be future proofed and has many features and benefits that will suit designers of IP camera solutions and integrated CCTV. It does need a robust server to work in unison with it that can back up recorded images effectively and this does add to the cost. However VMS does offer the maximum flexibility and has many benefits over black box solutions that ultimately will become a thing of the past over time.