Here at Executive Design & Engineering, we have a lot of experience helping clients make good decisions. Selecting the most appropriate corporate security system requires careful review of current needs and future needs.
Although IP has been around many years, there are still plenty of analog systems out there. There are very detailed articles explaining the differences in de
pth, but we want to summarize these for the purposes of this post.
Analog Camera Overview. As with any imaging device, the analog CCTV camera has a sensor which captures the video image. The resolution of the sensor varies but it is limited to 720×575. This is 720 pixels across the screen (horizontal resolution) and 575 up and down (vertical resolution).
To get the video out of the CCTV camera into a recording and display device, a single coax cable is used. To maintain compatibility with analog televisions, the signal that comes out of the camera complies with broadcast television standards.
IP Camera Overview. An IP camera has an image sensor much like the analog camera. However, once it has captured its image, it transmits it as “data” over a network connection. That data is in the form of compressed video frames sent over standardized networking protocol used for computer applications which is where it gets its name. IP is simply “ Internet Protocol,” which is the language used to transmit data between computers and the Internet. What is important that we are no longer bound by the broadcast standard. In theory, we could now have any resolution we wanted.
There are many articles also suggesting several reasons to switch from analog to IP, including ease of installation, scalability, and access to expanding capabilities.
But for many c
ompanies, abandoning their analog systems in favor of IP isn’t feasible. An article posted by SecurityInfoWatch describes them best as “the business owners who have invested perhaps thousands of dollars on an analog infrastructure that has miles of expensive cabling running through the walls of a facility. They can be the small business owners who have five cameras keeping an eye on their retail shop or the mid-sized business entrepreneurs that have 16 cameras safeguarding a corporate building.”
Our experts routinely help our clients through this decision-making process and can help make sense out of all the factors they face. Do you need help with your corporate security systems? Wondering if analog or IP is best? Contact us today to start the conversation!
