Follow Us:
-
How to Troubleshoot a Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) Camera
17-07-2017
PTZ stands for Pan Tilt Zoom. The ability to move the camera lens in the horizontal and vertical axes makes this CCTV camera a favourite among users. However, despite the advantage of having a camera that is not limited to one specific location and position, its effectiveness depends on its proper installation and consequent troubleshooting in the event of any functioning problems. Here are some of the common solutions to troubleshoot a PTZ CCTV camera. 1. Check the power supply. PTZ CCTV cameras come in various models and forms. It is important to use the power supply that comes with the particular camera being i
Read More -
Normal Hard Drive Vs. Surveillance Hard Drive
10-07-2017
To the layman, all hard drives are the same, but this assumption is wrong. A normal hard drive is not usually best suited to fulfill the needs of a surveillance system, and thus they can not be interchangeably used without incurring certain limitations. For example; a normal hard drive is designed to operate for a period of say 8 hours daily for a 5 or 6 day week, thus it has low to moderate performance capabilities. This makes them vulnerable to a low average time usage and time lapse between failures. On the other hand, a surveillance hard drive has greater system compatibility and is designed to op
Read More -
How to Choose the Best Network Switch for CCTV Surveillance
03-07-2017
Today, majority organizations and government agencies are adopting CCTV camera surveillance and thus there is a need to ensure high quality network equipment is employed so that security can be provided in a seamless and unhindered manner. There are numerous network peripheral devices in the market, which raise the question: how do we choose the best network peripherals to ensure optimum performance of the surveillance system and efficiency, the most important being a network switch. A network switch, also known as a switching hub, is a computer networking device that performs the task of connecting various network segm
Read More -
How to Decide the Best Backup Option (Part III)
26-06-2017
In our two previous articles, we have discussed various backup options available to you, their advantages and disadvantages. If you haven’t read the articles, here are the links. (Part I), (Part II) When deciding which backup option to purchase for your CCTV camera surveillance system, it is very important to consider what type of backup is best suited to the needs of your organization in particular. Here are a few questions that you should brainstorm prior to making your purchase decision. What is the recovery time according to your SLA (Service Level Agreements)? What does your business continuity pl
Read More -
5 Reasons to Buy Surveillance Hard Disk Drives
12-06-2017
There are numerous storage drives available for various purposes in the market. Consequently, users find it difficult to choose which to opt. It is the engineering of the drive of the makes all the difference when making a decision. In surveillance, the normal hard drives are preferred. Surveillance HDD is especially designed for CCTVs. While it looks similar to other drives, it is a superior choice with optimizations and features that are developed especially for surveillance. Further, it can easily be connected like other HDDs in the DVR of any surveillance setup. Advantages of Surveillance Drives 1. They are desig
Read More -
.jpg)
Backup Your CCTV Camera Footage (Part II)
05-06-2017
After understanding the various kinds of backup in our previous article (Part I),it is important to know the various ways available to you for backing up your data. There are many alternatives to backup your CCTV camera footage, the most popular of which are discussed below. 1. Online Backup. An online backup is also known as cloud backup. This service allows us to store our data at an offsite location. The data is uploaded using the internet to a remote computer system with a host. Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon Web Services are some of the examples of popular online backup service providers. Usually, you have the
Read More -
.jpg)
Backup Your CCTV Camera Footage (Part I)
29-05-2017
In a world of technology, data is the most valuable resource. One of such meta datas is your CCTV security surveillance recordings. You can protect this data with backup. There are three basic types of backups; full, incremental and differential. Full backup A full backup is a full copy of the entire data set. Full backups provide the best protection; however, due to its time consuming nature and large storage requirement, most organizations use this type of backup on a periodic basis. This leaves the organization susceptible to data loss between two backups. Incremental backup Incremental backups were intro
Read More -
Importance of Ingress Protection (IP) Rating in CCTV Cameras
17-04-2017
We’ve all seen IP66 or IP 68 in the product manuals of our CCTV cameras, laptops and even mobile phones. But what does this mean? In today’s post, we’ll shed light on the subject of IP ratings. IP stands for Ingress Protection. This is a standard security rating affixed to electronic gadgets to define the levels of sealing effectiveness of electrical enclosures against intrusion from foreign bodies (tools, dirt etc) and moisture. It is important to enhance the durability of any electronic gadget especially to protect it from dust and water. Manufacturers create enclosures with higher IP ratings so that
Read More -
Are CCTV Cameras Effective?
10-04-2017
A very valid question that comes to mind when installing CCTV Cameras is ‘Are CCTV Cameras Effective?’ With a plethora of views out there, we’ll look at the effect of CCTV cameras in relation to crime to help us answer this question; supported by Gill and Sprigs scientific research on the same. Caught in action: By increasing the likelihood of criminals of being caught on camera, there is a general deterrent with a fear of punishment. This stops or reduces the criminal activity. Evidence: With the possibility of being captured on CCTV, comes the hard evidence needed to pro
Read More -
How to configure an IP camera on a network.
06-04-2017
When setting up a high definition IP camera system, you will require the following equipment: IP Cameras Network Video Recorder (NVR) CAT5e or CAT6 Network Cabling Computer Monitor or TV Network Switch 1. Discovering IP Cameras The first step is to discover the IP address of your IP camera using the IP camera manufacturer's discovery/finder tool. Alternatively, you can also use the tools built into CMS/VMS systems. However, the manufacturer's own tool is the best option. 2. Pinging IP Cameras Once you discover the IP address of your camera (e.g. 19
Read More
