What kind of monitoring to choose this question is asked by many people interested in a video surveillance system. More and more companies and homeowners decide to install a local cctv monitoring system. Due to low prices of individual elements of the system, the most popular are still analog systems, using cctv cameras and digital video recorders. Are these systems worse than IP systems? There is no single answer that would answer all the so called pros and cons. Both analog and digital systems have their advantages and disadvantages as well. Of course, if we think only about the aspect of resolution and image quality and the possibility of direct connection to a computer, IP systems dominate over ordinary analog cameras. However, their connection and configuration may be more difficult.

 

Differences between IP Cameras and Analog Cameras

Analog cameras and IP cameras

Generally, cameras used in CCTV systems can be divided into two types: IP cameras and analog cameras. Generally, in terms of brightness, IP cameras outperform analog cameras in practically every area.  There are, however, some special applications, in which the use of analog cameras is recommended, e.g. working with very little light. IP Cameras stands for Internet Protocol. It describes a digital video camera that sends and receives data through a computer network, either via Wi-Fi or through an Ethernet cable as opposed to sending a feed to a Digital Video Recorder (DVR). This offers various great advantages:

Picture – the best analog camera still can’t touch the worst IP camera out there when it comes to resolution. Additionally, IP cameras capture a much wider field of view than comparable analog cameras ever could so therefore an IP camera can replace three or four traditional analog models. The basic criterion for comparing IP and analog cameras is image quality. Here you can see the superiority of digital cameras (IP). The standard resolution of analog cameras (D1) is 720×480 pixels (points), i.e. about 0.35Mpix (megapixels). Medium-range IP camera has resolution from 1280×960 – 1.3Mpix to 2560×1920 – 5Mpix.

Analytics – Set your network up to flag “events” that occur in the cameras’ field of view. Think along those lines of motion detection or missing objects or tampering with the camera. Instead of poring over hours of footage, your network can send notifications and alerts to your smart phone so you can watch the life footage to check up on your house.

Wireless Connection – In a traditional analog DVR set-up, each camera must be connected directly to the DVR. That equals lots of cables running all over the place! IP cameras can circumvent this through bundling cameras in close proximity to be connected to a single switch, which then runs a single wire to the NVR (Network Video Recorder). Should you use a wireless network as your connection you can forego cables completely, depending on your set up.

Before purchasing video surveillance system, it is important to make a wide research and select one that answer your needs. Once you decide between analog or Ip camera, you should also compare different models and choose the one that answer your needs. If we are not the experts in this area, the choice can be very difficult, but to make the process easier, it is recommended to check either analog cameras or  IP Cameras test. Such tests are made by specialists and points out, compare and describe features of selected cameras.