What a better way to utilize your computer than as a computer security camera? Thanks to today’s modern technology you can utilize your computer to run an entire digital video camera security and surveillance system, and not just the camera.
One way to get a computer security camera is to use a Web cam. There is software available these days that will allow you to use your Web cam and computer as a security camera system. This might be useful as a Nanny cam or an unusual circumstance where only one camera is needed, but most of the time we find this impractical.
However, there are computer security camera packages out there that can handle more than one camera. The way this is done is by adding an included PCI card to your computer. The card functions by doing most of the work and using your computer’s CPU as little as possible. One of the most popular products for this use is called “GeoVision PC-DVR cards).
Depending on the type of GeoVision card you purchase, your computer can be turned into a 1, 4, 8, 16, or 32 camera system. Not only does GeoVision provide the means for making your computer security camera a system but it also has a wealth of accessories available too. Just some of the GeoVision accessories include:
- GeoVision remote control
- GeoVision special keyboard
- GeoVision POSDATA – this is a point of sale capture interface that allows you to compare your register checkout with your POSDATA because everytime a sale is made the program turns on the digital video camera to record it
However, there are several disadvantages in using your computer as a computer security camera. For one thing, digital video places a great strain on the system due to the nature of the video. Digital video is nothing more than many digital photographs taken in a very small time frame, such as 30 photographs in one second. This is what is known as a “Frame Rate” and instead of being expressed as photos per second is called “Frames” per second.
Let’s take a close look at this. One high quality digital photograph can be taken by a computer security camera and the file size that contains the data could easily be 1 MB in size. Now, 30 of these photographs are taken in one second so that is 30 MB for 1 second. Times 60 seconds in one minute would be 1800 MB or 1.8 GB. There are 60 minutes in 1 hour so that would be 1800 times 60 which would equal 108,000 MB or 108 GB for just one hour of video.
That places a tremendous workload on the computer to process all that information, especially live in case the user wants to monitor the cameras in real-time. In addition, that the amount of data for one camera many systems have 4 or more. So you can see how the computer could be overwhelmed at this rate.
Using your computer as a computer security camera system can result in unusually slow processing times for the computer to perform other tasks and that’s why there are PCI boards that may include processors and hard drives to alleviate some of the load on the computer.
Another way the computer security camera eases the workload for the computer is by using a CODEC to reduce the size of the file. A CODEC is an acronym for COmpression/DECompression. This utility uses specially written programming to reduce the file size tremendously while maintaining a high degree of quality.
All of this can be included in the computer security camera board, and much of it is depending on the manufacturer.
The best solution truly is a separate digital video security and surveillance system simply because the system is tailor designed for digital video use. The system’s DVR contains processor chips just like the CPU on a computer, but these chips a tailor designed specifically for handling digital video related tasks.
If you would like more information on the computer security camera, please contact one of our security experts and he/she will be glad to answer any of your questions. They can be reached by “Live Chat” or telephone at 866-573-8878 Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 6 PM EST.
