A Brief History of Surveillance Camera Systems


In an effort to increase efficiency of security personnel as well as to provide information and documentation to capture and prosecute people engaged in nefarious activity, video surveillance cameras have been actively deployed throughout the world for years. The first closed circuit television (CCTV) system was offered in the United States in 1949 Until recently, the typical CCTV system consisted of analog cameras sending an analog transmission over co-axial cable to a recording device (such as a VCR or DVR).

Shortcomings of CCTV Systems

  1. It is very difficult and expensive to archive and retrieve recorded video

Typically CCTV systems are proprietary and non-interoperable meaning once you went with a vendor, you were stuck with that vendor

CCTV are stand alone systems and not well suited for integration into other security/access control systems nor other data network systems

Intelligent processing of the video is difficult or impossible

CCTV systems end up being very expensive to operate