IP Video vs. CCTV for Security
If you are a business owner you likely have some sort of security system in place to monitor access to your building.
According to IP Video Market Info (IPVM) a news and review trade publication covering the IP camera, DVR, NVR and video analytics sector, recent trend reports on the pros and cons over IP vs. CCTV have been released and Analogue cameras seem to holding their own over IP systems, for now, for several reasons.
IPVM states that the “overwhelming majority of people buying cameras today do not choose IP cameras. While most people see the move to be inevitable, serious debate exists on how long it will take to get there. Recently a number of analysts have even slid back projections for when IP camera sales will overtake analog.”
In its assessment on “what’s holding IP cameras back,” IPVM lists the top five things that business owners have pointed out as being problematic with IP cameras. The following is an encapsulated version of IPVM’s findings followed by a summary of each:
IP Cameras are too Expensive Compared to Analog Cameras
Storage for Megapixel cameras is too expensive
Smart Cameras are still in their infancy
DVRs offer limited support
Lack of Integrator Training
IPVM states that most people IP cameras cost more than analog cameras, but that the “real issues” have to do with flaws in upgrading from analogue to IP cameras and that most reports showing lower overall costs vs. ROI for IP are not “representative for the overwhelming majority of customers,” and that considering applications where IP has been most heavily adopted, it is the elimination of analog video fiber networks that has provided the ROI necessary to migrate to IP cameras.”
The motivating factor needed to convince business owners to switch from analogue to IP, according to IPVM, needs to be either “significantly cheaper or offer significant economic benefits that analog cannot offer. Megapixel cameras use less efficient codecs than those used for analog cameras, and are therefore much more expensive because of the higher cost of storage. “Almost all megapixel cameras in production today use MJPEG encoding which is 2x to 4x less efficient than the codecs used for analog cameras,” writes IPVM. “Combine this with the massive increase in resolution of megapixel cameras and the cost of storage per camera can be $500 – $1500 per camera up from $50 – $100 for analog cameras.
Many questions also linger about whether smart cameras will work and how well, particularly for imbedding video analytics, and meanwhile DVR manufacturers are putting analytics directly inside their units, further extending the life of analogue cameras, “making the case for smart cameras harder.”
Support is also a critical issue and, according to IPVM, “many DVRs offer limited or no support for IP cameras, which may be resolved down the road but currently present tough issues of economics.
IPVM also suggests that there are issues with security integrators, which “correctly see that IP is not ready for most of their customers. As such the motivation is weak. At the same time, security integrators are still doing well and growing. Again, once IP cameras solve their problems, security integrators will be forced to support or will be displaced.”
The article purports the following recommendations should be implemented in order to make the switch from DVR to IP cameras viably sound for most users:
Standard Definition IP Camera only costs $100 more than equivalent Analog Cameras
Megapixel cameras support H.264 and H.264 has no serious side effects on client or servers
Smart Cameras are widely available and the analytics work reliably
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