Purchase considerations:

Application?

What do you intend to use the security camera for?
(Example:  Retail, Home, Office building, night view)

Color or B&W?

Black and white cameras have greater sensitivity in low light levels and  are less expensive.  New Color low light IP cameras can view in color with low light but are more expensive.  Standard color cameras usually switch to black and white in low light conditions but still cost more than a fixed B&W camera.

Indoor or Outdoor?

Today’s outdoor cameras can be bullet style and also include heater/blower with IR (infrared) to view in total darkness.  Classic outdoor style with enclosure is still very effective with heater/blower but does not have built in IR.  When using the classic style you can add IR as a separate unit.  Check our gallery by clicking here.

Fixed lens, zoom lens, or PTZ?

Fixed-lens cameras cost less than zoom or PTZ.  Depending on the situation you may want the ability to manually adjust the lens to fine tune the target area with a zoom style camera.  If you require the ability to dynamically adjust the camera and move it remotely then you may need a PTZ (pan tilt zoom) camera. Note: One pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera can replace the job of several fixed mount, fixed lens security cameras.

Overt or Covert?

Some situations may require the camera to be hidden.  A covert camera can look like a smoke detector, motion detector, plant, cell phone, air cleaner or just about anything.  With today’s Pin-Hole camera technology these cameras can be as small as a thumb nail. 

Real-time or Recorded?

Digital video recording makes it easy to view in real-time or previously recorded images.  Monitoring a few cameras in real-time is a challenge.  Monitoring dozens in real-time is nearly impossible.  These days it's wise to always digitally record all cameras.  New software is currently in development to implement behavioral logic so that DVRs can alert a guard or communications center agent of specific activity and flag certain activity in previous recordings.  Long term digital archiving is now possible with affordable hard drives.  Hard drives can be rotated for very long term storage or if the budget allows you may consider implementing a RAID solution where many hard drives can be striped together to increase the hard drive collective capacity and at the same time add redundancy.

Local or remote viewing?

Our DVRs include network ready for remote view via the Internet.  The proprietary software for remote view comes with the unit.  You can also use a web browser to perform some of the remote view features but the client software allows you to administer the DVR.