SD vs. DVR vs. cloud storage?

[stanw 0]

I was originally looking at getting a Foscam that would record directly to an SD card, though after my other post here, I received a lot of info that now has me thinking of buying into a set of connected cameras and a DVR.

 

Curious to hear your thoughts on recording to SD cards vs. DVR vs. cloud storage?

 

Is it always a good idea to have your own DVR vs. recording directly to an SD card or a computer? Obviously if someone takes the camera you lose the SD card or if the camera is located in a unaccessible spot it will be difficult to remove the SD card, though I'm curious to hear other thoughts on this. What about a separate DVR vs. recording to a computer?

 

Thanks for and advice/suggestions.

[Kawboy12R 0]

If you're serious about splitting your video records how about edge storage? Record one set of video to an SD card in the cam, another set to a NAS hidden somewhere in the house, another on your NVR (computer or standalone), and have a cheapo "bait" DVR hooked up to a cheap cam or two by the front door. Odds are they'll steal or trash the cheapo obvious DVR if they break in and not look farther. What're the odds they'll trash the cams, steal the analog DVR, plus the NVR solution, plus find the NAS stuck somewhere hidden in the house? Add an alarm clock or smoke detector cam in the house somewhere that records to SD card for intruders and they're busted unless they nuke you from orbit. Add cloud storage somewhere if you don't mind the bandwidth costs and nukes from orbit won't help them.

[cctv_down_under 0]

IMHO - SD Cards are usefull, but mainly used as edge storage - the main reason they are used is some systems can (when the network goes down) record locally to the camera and when the network comes back, they will then re-replicate this data to the recorder...its actually pretty cool and kind of inception like - think about it...Imagine a camera looking at a cable that it relies on, you cut the cable - recording stops at the DVR/NVR but continues at the camera, then when the DVR is back on the line it re - replicates - so I will let you think about what you actually see ---- trippy as.

 

 

But anyhow I Digress - SD has limited storage - well it used to, so unless you are recording low res or slow video - you wont store long, also if it is standalone, does it have wifi access - ie if you want to look at video, do you have to climb a ladder, also if you swap out a card (while you are looking) the chain of evidence is changed, its not all one one disk now.

 

 

Its the future but its not quite here yet, lets face it - if it were not for the need of power we could all just double sided tape a wireless sd camera to the corner of every room with a nice 3MP fish eye lense and cropping the image we want....sadly though we still need power and thats rarte to find a GPO at the ceiling - well not one that its legal to use

[buellwinkle 0]

We use SD storage for cameras at remote locations where we have low traffic and poor access to store the video otherwise. It's invaluable in those situations and we use Mobotix that provides the NVR solution in camera.

 

Take an inexpensive camera with an SD where it's hard to manage searching and extracting recorded video and it's not as viable a solution. Some cameras like Axis provide CMS software for viewing the recorded video from a PC.

 

You can get a Dropcam, 720P video stored in cloud but then you have to pay about $100/yr for each camera to store your recordings. I like the concept, just not sure if it's feasible, say you have 4-8 cameras, it can quickly add up and then you have the network costs, can't just use a cheap DSL line. Axis has a partner solution with their Edge storage and a cloud provider that's more of a commercial solution. The question is are you ready for that much of an expense and if you are using Foscams, my guess is not.

 

As for an NVR or a PC with NVR software, that's the way to go for most homes. This way you can view all your cameras at once, you can save the recordings to cheap internal HDD, and have decent search capabilities.

[Peter_ 2]

Plus, if you use a DVR/NAS they often include additional features like home media server capabilities, VPN, and DDNS.