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Security Technology Executive
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Do the DVRevolution
As digital video recording systems has changed, so has the face of the security industryThe Latest from SIW
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By Paul Rothman
Managing Editor
The digital video recorder has revolutionized the entertainment industry – the average consumer has upgraded from antiquated, analog VCR systems to robust DVR systems capable of flying through recorded video at never-before-seen speeds. Now, DVR systems are being offered by all the major satellite and cable providers.
The security industry has seen the same revolution: As digital video surveillance has become more commonplace in the average installation, the need for a DVR system to sort through hours and hours of video became paramount.
Today, DVR systems can offer security end-users a quicker, more reliable way to search through all that video. The DVRs are also moving from standard to mobile environments, enabling users to record video on site, play it back on demand and store it for future use.
The Evolution
Over the past five years, the DVR industry has taken giant leaps forward in the technology's ease of use. According to Bill Durno, product manager for Honeywell, trends in the North American market for digital video recorders have clearly shown an increase in the following areas:
* Increased use of the Internet as a link to access the surveillance system;
* Improvement in video compression techniques resulting in more (often double) the storage time per GB for at least the same quality video;
* More use of audio combined with video;
* Less differentiation between the feature sets of PC-based and embedded DVRs;
* Higher ips (images per second) capture rates address the needs of more applications;
* Hybrid DVRs enabling connection to both analog and digital cameras; and
* Improvements in ease of use – for example, video clips are often saved with a viewer, thus eliminating the need to install viewer software on a computer to view the clip. This makes it much easier to hand over video evidence to the authorities.
In the early days of the DVR, one of the main issues was the source of the video data, and how the video was stored and transitioned to a digital format, says Mark Provinsal, vice president of marketing for Dedicated Micros.
