PC Security Camera Surveillance

There are many ways you can set up a security system by attaching security cameras to a PC. It depends a lot on your budget and on your needs. You can choose a simple web PC security camera, standard analog video cameras, or go for an IP camera. Let's see what you should choose, and why.

IP Security Camera

By far the best setup involves using IP Cameras. They are easy to power, easy to setup and easy to use. And you can find them in a wide range of price and quality. You can get some cheap IP Cameras for as low as $100. Even these $100 cameras will surprise you, because they have pretty good image quality and some even have zoom/pan/tilt support. But by far the best feature is the way you connect them to your PC.

An IP PC security camera is in fact small embedded computers and include Ethernet adapters, so you can simply connect them to your standard network and use them via standard network protocols. The configuration interface and the video stream are easily accessible from your web browser. This ease of use isn't limiting in power though. You can integrate many IP Cameras in a high quality security system, using a standard computer with lots of storage space.

Analogical PC Security Camera

One nice thing you can do is upgrade your existing analog; VHS-tape based security system to a high-tech digital wonder. You have all those high quality analog cameras connected with standard coaxial cable to a central storage facility, and that will not go to waste. Simply buy a standard computer, stuff it with video capture cards, and connect the cameras.

You can find capture cards with 4 video capture chips, and if you use a round robin capture method, you can even use 8 cameras on a single card. Put two cards in the storage computer and you have 16 cameras. You can scale even more by buying a second computer.

Keep in mind that you need a lot of storage for this. Fortunately, nowadays hard disks are getting cheaper and cheaper, so that's not really an issue. For motion detection and general management you can find great software packages like Zoneminder that will turn a standard computer with a couple of capture cards in a high quality surveillance system.

Web Cams

If you only need to monitor your home or your small business, you might even be happy with a standard web camera, connected to a PC. Keep in mind that they provide low image quality and don't work very nice in poor light. It's true that you can find a web cam for $10, but depending on your reasons, most of the times you will find a PC Security Camera the better choice.

PC Security Camera surveillance is affordable, and easy to setup, and it is a good alternative to professional analogical setups.

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