DVR Security System Review

The Axis 241S video server serves the purpose of converting the signal of surveillance cameras from analog to digital, this is the blade version of the device and so it can be attached to the Axis video server rack.  The blade versions of the Axis video server (and the video server rack) are designed to accommodate large analog surveillance cameras installations.  The Axis 241S only has one surveillance camera input, cameras are attached to the video server through its single BNC input.

The video server is compatible with both PAL and NTSC video signals, in NTSC its maximum pixel resolution is 704*480, This can be increased to 704*576 when using a PAL video signal.  The video server also has a variety of CIF resolutions you can select and it uses both motion JPEG and MPEG-4 video compression.  The video server has a maximum frame rate of 30 frames per second and this decreases when using a PAL video signal to 25 frames per second.

Images routed through the device can be rotated and you have the option of displaying video in both black and white and color.  Several levels of compression can be used on images and video routed through the video server, the level of compression you select will have an impact on the image quality and devices attached to your surveillance system that store video and still images.  You can adjust the bandwidth usage of the video server and lowering this may help if the network the device is connected to has significant constraints.

You can connect the video server to either a local area network or to the Internet, once networked you can monitor and control cameras attached to it remotely. You can also connect and control numerous models of security cameras with pan, tilt and zoom functions with the device.  The video server has 4 alarm inputs, 4 alarm outputs, an RS-485/422 half duplex port and a D-Sub for RS-232 port.

As with all models in the Axis video server range the 241S is bundled with software for installing on Windows based PC’s.  The software gives you the option of setting a PC up as a monitoring point for surveillance cameras and you can use the PC to store and distribute video footage.  The video server has an ETRAX 100LX CPU, 64 megabytes of RAM and 8 megabytes of supplementary flash RAM.

Check the latest price on the Axis 241S Video Server Blade Version