What is IP CCTV?

Traditional analogue surveillance technology – Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) has been used for over 20 years and is now increasingly being replaced by the more efficient Internet Protocol (IP) technology surveillance solutions.

IP surveillance systems technology is founded on a well-proven yet innovative communication technology. It creates digitised video streams, which are transferred over a computer network, thus enabling remote monitoring from anywhere within the reach of the network and also viewing/monitoring from any remote location via the Internet.

The Advantages of IP CCTV Systems Include:-

• High Quality Images - Using digital cameras, processing, and storage ensures that picture quality is always high, as there is no degradation of image quality as with analogue equipment.
  
  
• Simplified User Interface - The playback and search capabilities are far superior to those of analogue systems, enabling immediate search and archive by events. Pictures of alarm events can also be scheduled and instantly sent by email for playback.
  
  
• Remote Accessibility - The improved access over an intranet or Internet, provides quicker access to digital quality images. The images can also be stored at remote locations (i.e. the Internet Camera Solutions Server) for added security and convenience.
  
  
• Lower Costs - Since digital video is stored on hard disk, the repair and service costs of analogue tape drive systems are removed. Additional savings include reduced travel costs to and from a monitored remote site.
  
  
• Future Proof Investment - Any investment in IP-Surveillance is for the long term, since it uses a technology, which is quickly gaining recognition in the security industry and employs open standard protocols and networks for communication, which allows equipment from several manufacturers to be used in the same system. It also makes it easy to expand your IP CCTV system in the future.
  
  
• Cost Effective - IP-Surveillance systems can function with an existing analogue one, since it can be configured to receive the same video and alarm signalling as the resident analogue system. Since both systems are capable of independent operation, there is no need to dispose of existing equipment until you are ready to expand the IP CCTV system, thus saving on initial installation and equipment costs.
  
  
• Integration - IP Surveillance technology can easily be integrated into other functions and services as the system is developed, since the digital video feeds are simply distributed into other networked systems, e.g. access control, company intranets, alarm systems, etc.