How to choose Home or Business Video Surveillance System?

There are various kinds of Security Systems with kinds of functions in the online stores, however, which one is best for you? Before your decision, ask yourself for several questions.

For Camera:

1. Where are you going to mount the camera?

Then the answer can help you decide to choose how many home dome cameras and how many outdoor bullet &weatherproof cameras.

2. How long is the visible and night vision distance?

 Usually, the visible distance of cameras can be up to 50', 80', 135', etc. Take a look the IR Night Vision as 1/3" CCD for an instance:

1)      1/3" CCD & 3.6mm lens camera ( 15m IR night vision)
2)      1/3" CCD & 6mm lens camera ( 20m IR night vision)
3)      1/3" CCD & 8mm lens camera ( 25m-30m IR night vision)
4)      1/3" CCD & 12mm lens camera ( 40m-60m IR night vision)
5)      1/3" CCD & 25mm lens camera ( 100m-120m IR night vision)

3. How much the viewing angle?

Most video surveillance camera are installed in one location permanently. For this case, fixed-focus lenses are the most cost-effective. If you want to be able to move your camera, variable focus lenses are adjustable, letting you change your field of view when you adjust the camera. If you want to be able to move the camera remotely, you'll need a pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) camera. On the other side, the price is much higher than the standard ones.

4.How much details of the camera image?

Of cos, the resolutions of the cameras are very important too. Generally speaking, 380TVL is low-end, 420TVL/480TVL is good for security work, 540TVL is very high quality. If you're going to want to see detail, upgrading to a higher resolution is a good choice.

For Digital Video Recorder:

1. How many locations do you want to watch?

This also helps you to decide how many cameras and what kind of cameras will you choose. There are usually 4 channel, 8 channel, 16 channel, and 32 channel.

2. Does remote access need or just for local monitoring?

The MPEG4 & H.264 are the two mainly popular video compression formats for digital video recorders. However, you need to make clear the difference of these two formats: MPEG4 (good for local storage) V.S. H.264 (Network transmission, remote access needed). However, personally, I recommend on H.264, which is widely used with remote access control.

3. How long do you need to save your recordings for?

500GB and 1 TB are hard drives are usually installed in the DVRs. Generally speaking, 500GB HDD is enough for your home and small business for more than 30 days at H.264 compression of 4 channel.