Your hardworking PC can take on another hat. You can convert it to a small scale surveillance system without breaking the bank. With a starter package that includes DVR security cameras and a corresponding video capture card, your PC becomes a surveillance system. But is it worth all the trouble?
Start A Security System from Your PC
The price of setting up a comprehensive surveillance system is beyond your budget, a valid reason for delaying the installation of a home surveillance system. But if you have a PC, you can have hard working surveillance system. With a few hundred dollars you can install a security system complete with DVR security cameras – all by yourself.
If you already have DVR security cameras, all you’ll need is your PC, a DVR software, and a video capture card. But if you’re starting out with your reliable PC, you’ll need to invest in a starter kit that includes the video capture card, cameras, cables, AC power adapters, and the connection dongle. All these come with a warranty and free lifetime technical support.
Starting a security system using your PC is a practical solution if budget is the issue. Talk this over with your mate and your children so you can finalize your plans about the system and decide where to mount the security cameras. By including all family members in the decision-making, everybody gets involved and learn to value the purpose of the home security system.
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Explain though to everyone that the PC in the living room will have to become the official nerve center of the home security scheme. Once you have gotten the popular vote, get a starter kit with two or more cameras. You can upgrade later to 48 more cameras if you relish the idea.
Your PC and the DVR Security Cameras
Whatever you call the cameras, they are there to record people and their activities. From the kitchen you can watch the baby in the nursery and children in the den. You can also view the nanny with your toddler even when you’re in your office cubicle. All these gives you peace of mind and control over your family’s safety.
You PC monitor shows everything that is going on in your home. Your wall or dome mounted cameras capture images once it detects motion and these are instantly sent to the PC’s hard disk drive. You can choose cameras that pans, zooms and tilts, colored cameras or black and white cameras, and night vision cameras.
The system unscrambles the signal to make the images that appear on the computer screen make sense. The speed with which the images travel is so fast you can watch what is going on in real-time. You also have the option playback the files at your convenience. These files are archived according to date and time, which makes it easier for you to search for particular files you want to view.
The Sense of Security
Working couples with young children or teenagers have all the reasons in the world to install a home security system; with today’s rising crime rate anything can happen when you don’t know who is at the door. You and your kids will feel safe knowing they have the advantage of DVR security cameras working as your PC’s spy eyes. Surely this is worth all the trouble.
What Is a DVR Camera?
A DVR camera is a security system which links one or more cameras to a digital video recorder. It's main advantage is that it can record for much longer periods without the need to change tapes. The technology also means it is possible to review footage immediately while continuing to record.
If you've ever seen a device such as a TiVo®, you'll be able to get a good idea how a DVR camera works. The input video is recorded to a hard drive rather than a video tape. Instead of connecting a cable or satellite box to the DVR, the user simply hooks up one or more cameras and records the feed.
Using a DVR camera overcomes one of the biggest limitations of a cassette-based recording system. Usually even the largest video tape recording at the slowest speed will be limited to eight hours recording time. This means that it's impossible to use the system for extended periods without somebody being on hand to change the tapes.
It's much easier to run a multi-camera system with a DVR camera. With video tapes, you either need a separate recorder for each screen, or must use a split-screen system which means the picture recorded from each camera is smaller and thus less detailed. A DVR can process full-screen feeds from multiple cameras simultaneously.
Because a DVR camera records digitally, it's much easier to archive recordings in case you need to refer back to them later on, for example when providing evidence in a criminal investigation. The size and relatively low capacity of video cassettes means a week's worth of recordings can easily fill an entire shelf. Many users are thus forced to reuse tapes and only keep a limited amount of footage. Footage from a DVR camera can be stored on DVDs, meaning an easily portable 240-disc carry case could contain archives from two full years of recordings. The discs are much more portable than cassettes, meaning they can be moved off-site for extra security.
Another major advantage of a DVR camera system is that you can play and record at the same time. With a cassette system you could not watch recent footage, such as checking on a report of an attempted break-in, without either waiting until the tape was full, or switching tapes. A DVR camera allow you to rewind and watch footage from any point from a second ago to as far back as the hard drive recording covers.
There are also some security advantages in the way a DVR camera is powered by a computer. You can set password protection so that anyone stealing the hard drive would be unable to view the footage. Some models can even be connected to the internet and set up so that if an alarm is triggered, the footage recorded just before the alert is automatically e-mailed to another computer such as your home PC or even to the police.
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