Recommended!

• Categories

  • Apartment Security
  • Burglar Alarms
  • Home Security Monitoring
  • Home Security Systems
  • Home Security Lighting
  • Physical Home Security
  • Security Cameras
  • Wireless Burglar Alarms

CCTV Security Systems

CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) systems are now becoming a widely accepted medium for security monitoring and surveillance for businesses, city streets and neighborhoods and now becoming very popular for home security and monitoring of private residences.

Wireless CCTV systems have all the benefits of wired cameras but with the convenience of quick and easy installation which can be carried by most DIY’ers.

The original CCTV systems actually originate back to the 1950s but the 1970s gave rise to the first analog recording systems. As there were no wireless CCTV systems back then, all CCTV cameras were connected via cables to a device called a multiplexer. This simply allows multiple cameras to be connected to one central system and the signals from the multiplexer would be fed to a recording device such as a VCR. Although a breakthrough at the time, there were many disadvantages of this system. The central monitoring system was a single point of failure and the magnetic tapes that were used were susceptible to magnetic interference. A lot of human operation is needed to run these systems successfully (e.g. changing backup tapes).

The next generation of CCTV systems implemented UTP enabled cameras which were IP addressable, although a multiplexer was still necessary to network these devices together. The popular RJ45 network connector is used, similar to the one found on every computer. Existing cameras which use the original coaxial cabling could still be connected to this system via a converter adaptor.

The modern generation of CCTV monitoring and recording systems utilize digital technology using hardware such as DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) with IP based cameras and monitors. IP addressable cameras can be placed anywhere on an existing IP network infrastructure thus reducing cost and eliminating the need for separate cabling systems. There are numerous benefits over the older systems. Images are stored digitally onto computers or dedicated stand alone disk systems and backups can be scheduled automatically so human intervention is no longer necessary. Multiple disk systems can be implemented, thus reducing the single point of failure. One of the greatest advantages of digital systems is that images can not only be viewed locally to the surveyed area, but they can be viewed anywhere in the world, via the internet.