Homemade Security Video Recorder

One Camera Recorder

• Standard security cameras transmit their signal over a coaxial cable; the signal is a one volt peak-to-peak signal. You can view this signal on a television using an inexpensive BNC (British Naval Connector) to RCA adaptor. Because the signal is a standard signal you can also record the signal with a regular VCR (video cassette recorder) or a DVR (digital video recorder). A VCR will be limited to recording for eight hours in the super long play mode and the DVR will be limited to the available disk space.

More Than One Camera

• If you would like to record more than one camera and you have a spare computer you can convert it to a digital security camera recorder. You can purchase a four channel (four camera) expansion card for about $100. You will need a computer that has an available PCI slot and meets the following minimum requirements: Pentium IV processor, Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP or Windows Vista Home Premium, optical drive, 512 MB RAM minimum, standalone video card with 64MB minimum and high speed Internet.

Interface Cards

• Cards are rated in video resolution and FPS (frames per second). A four channel 60 FPS card will capture one camera at a rate of 60 frames per second. If you are recording two cameras it will still capture 60 FPS but the frames will be divided between two cameras, so each camera will be captured at 30 FPS. The same card will record four cameras at a rate of 15 FPS per camera.

More Than Four Cameras

• You can use two or more cards in your computer up to the number of available PCI slots. However, you may have to upgrade your video card and RAM or you may experience sluggish response. You can record several days of video on a on a 100 gigabyte hard drive and several weeks of video on a one terabyte drive. If you have high speed Internet access you will be able to monitor your cameras and search back in time from anywhere in the world.