Spy Review

As you all probably know, closed-circuit television (CCTV) is the use of video cameras to monitor areas that need security. Typically CCTV cameras are typically employed in areas where maintaining a high level of security is essential or where an area is often the location of anti-social behaviour.

In the computer age, it’s becoming increasingly common to use PC-based systems for digitally recording the CCTV video footage rather than using the old analogue VCR. The advantages for digitally recording video footage are numerous, and include:

• Archiving to writable DVDs takes up far less physical space than the VHS video counter-parts, and so you can store archives in much less space. For banking establishments, this is a significant issue.
• Digital video footage is easily catalogued with any decent software, therefore retrieving footage at a later date is considerably quicker than fast-forwarding a VHS tape!
• Computer files do not degrade with age, but VHS tapes degrade in as little as 5 years. This means video footage on a VHS tape will become noisy over time, losing detail from the footage.

Geovision Digital Video Recorder (DVR) cards are ranked in the top tier for computer-based CCTV surveillance. Geovision provide a whole suite of PC cards (i.e. a board of electronics used to upgrade a PC to provide additional functionality) for multiple camera recording, with software and accessories to tailor the system to the requirements for a site.

There’s no doubt that cheaper DVR cards exist, but then you lose a great deal in the quality of the recorded image and you only achieve a low recorded frame rate (how many still pictures are recorded per second). Geovision DVR cards are professional quality kits, and used by numerous financial institutions, casinos, government buildings, and large corporate businesses too.

Here’s a few of the DVR cards available and what they can do. The Geovision GV-1480 DVR card supports 16 individual CCTV cameras, recording 30 frames per second (fps) for each camera, which is an incredible feat for a single bit of electronics!

Geovision GV-1240 DVR card supports either 8 or 16 cameras, but comes with hardware compression for MPEG2 and MPEG4. This means the video footage is compressed into the smallest space possible, but the actual compression is achieved by the DVR card, leaving your PC to process other things instead. When you have many CCTV cameras, then compression will save you a few pennies when you have to buy hard drive storage.

Geovision GV-1120 DVR cards and the Geovision GV-800 DVR cards are the little brothers of the previously mentioned cards. They offer slightly less in the recorded frame rate but provide support for just 4 cameras. These versions of the cards are perfect for home installations, since its unlikely you’ll be able to find a location for 16 CCTV cameras!

So if you’re looking to design a professional CCTV system for your home or business, then consider using the Geovision equipment. You’ll benefit from sophisticated video management software, exceptionally high video frame rates, and the ability to manage several cameras on a single computer!