DVR Security System Review

Axis has developed another means to avoid replacing your analog cameras in the form of the Axis 243SA video server. The video server works by allowing you to integrate analog cameras into an IP based surveillance system, instead of shelling out on digital surveillance cameras you can route your existing analog cameras through the video server. The video server works by converting the video signal from analog cameras into a digital one allowing you to save video to digital video recorders and other modern storage devices.

The 243SA uses Motion JPEG and MPEG4 compression and is compatible with both PAL and NTSC video signals, it is capable of delivering video at high resolution (up to 4CIF). In NTSC mode the device can deliver video resolutions up to 704*480, in PAL mode the maximum resolution setting is 704*576. The video server is capable of streaming video that plays back smoothly; the maximum frame rate of the device is 30 frames per second.

The video server is compatible with numerous network protocols such as HTTP, DDNS and many others, it is fitted with an RJ-45 Ethernet port for connecting it to a network. You can control the frame rate and bandwidth used by the video server, lowering the bandwidth usage of the device may have a negative impact on video streams but this should help if network usage needs to be kept to a minimum. This particular model has one BNC input to accommodate your surveillance cameras and one BNC output.

You can set up a two-way audio system with the device for the purpose of communicating with people in the vicinity of your surveillance cameras; the system uses PCM audio compression and has mono input and output sockets. You can use external alarms to activate video recording as the video server is fitted with four alarm inputs, it also has four alarm outputs to alert you about camera activities. The 243SA supports pan tilt and zoom security cameras and has a D-sub for an RS 232 port.

Software management tools are included on CD with all Axis video servers as standard, you can install the software on Windows based PC’s, installing the software allows you to use the PC as a monitoring stations for your surveillance cameras. The Axis 243SA has an ETRAX 100 LX cpu, 32 megabytes of RAM and a supplementary 8 megabytes of flash memory.

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