VHS to DVR Savings question

[ChrisOSJL]

Good Morning All,
I work for a 100 store retail company in the North East, embarrassingly enough we are still using VHS!!...The good news is that we are currently in the process of switching over to DVR (speaking with different vendors etc), our LP dept has put together a preliminary ROI.
My question is, has anyone, or does anyone know of a study which measure the power consumption of VHS vs DVR? I do not know to much about the energy costs of the units, but I do believe that there are potential savings in that area as well.
If anyone has any ideas or has done any research in regards to this, your input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Christopher.

[SIW Editor]

Chris, if there were such studies, I bet they would have been done 10 years ago or more...

Here's where you should focus on your ROI claims:

The time it will take you to investigate and find video on time lapse VHS compared to a DVR. This is where every security manager has told me they found the biggest improvement in switching from VHS to DVR. So, a video investigation that might have taken weeks to accomplish can be done in a matter of hours.

Quality of video: Unless you are very regularly swapping out your tapes, you will experience degradation of the video quality because the tape is degrading. A DVR hard drive doesn't worsen in that way. So you're saving the recurring costs of buying tapes.

It's getting harder and harder to find time lapse VCRs and the high-end VCR makers have left the business, leaving the low-cost providers.

With a DVR, and thanks to the continued drop in cost of storage, you will be able to increase your video frame rate from what you are using with your time lapse VCR format. This means more information and better video for prosecuting losses and thefts.

I'm sure others will give tell you more benefits of upgrading from VCR to DVR.

-Geoff

[ChrisOSJL]

The increase in investigators efficiency and the quality of video are definitely two of our main driving points from an LP side, and they we can also piggyback some other depts on which ever line we choose to use.

Geoff, your response leads me to another question; Currently our largest problem we are facing is being able to send live streams from our locations to the home office (this would not be used for LP, would be more for the marketing / virtual DM realm), Our owner does not want to give it the go until we find out how to fully optimize our line and get the best possible FPS / Quality.
Does, anyone have any experience with video compression software, and admin hardware(admin hardware meaning, hardware used to remotely control a PTZ)?

Thanks,
Christopher.

[LPCap]

Tons of companies use this technology. DMs can remotely control the camers from their laptops its neat.

[SIW Editor]

The increase in investigators efficiency and the quality of video are definitely two of our main driving points from an LP side, and they we can also piggyback some other depts on which ever line we choose to use.

Geoff, your response leads me to another question; Currently our largest problem we are facing is being able to send live streams from our locations to the home office (this would not be used for LP, would be more for the marketing / virtual DM realm), Our owner does not want to give it the go until we find out how to fully optimize our line and get the best possible FPS / Quality.
Does, anyone have any experience with video compression software, and admin hardware(admin hardware meaning, hardware used to remotely control a PTZ)?

Thanks,
Christopher.

Paging Integrator97 and CameraMan. Please wake up from your turkey-induced comas and come lay down the tech for this thread!

Chris -- I'm not a techie like some of our members who will undoubtedly share info for you, but like LPCap noted, remote access is another of the big benefits of DVRs. Some of them can set up permissions as to who gets to look (remotely) at which cameras. You might be able to reuse some of your PTZ control equipment, and certainly I don't see why you couldn't use the same video matrix stuff you have.

You might consider bringing in a good security integrator at this point to give you demonstrations (and to your marketing team if you think you could co-opt with them). You have a lot of stores, and any good integration firm should be willing to show you the technology you can use here and how you can get marketing their access so you help to make the case for an upgrade to digital video recorders. They should be willing to do this for free.


Geoff

[ChrisOSJL]

Appreciate all of your input, if anyone else does read this and has any examples / first hand knowledge of good software to integrate with a DVR system, feel free to post. :)
Otherwise I will keep my fingers to the keyboard and my eyes to the google search!
Again, Geoff / LPCap...your input is appreciated.

Thanks,
Christopher.

[LPCap]

Make sure when you do switch to dvr, you don't fall into the cycle most security departments do...don't use them as a vcr. They are powerful tools that can assist you and make your job insanely easy.

Dvrs have motion alerts, remote access, long storage capabilities etc.

Take intellex for example it is a powerful tool that is in 95% of retail stores. Most collect dust, are not maintained and used improperly. When you get a system, set alerts, review alarms and use it to its full capability.

[bbertola]

I've found that DVR's are much more effective when it comes to indexing events. most dvr's include software to do this sort of indexing and it makes searching through video really easy. Not to mention that you can configure event alarms, so if you needed to see anytime someone passes through your front door, then you could set a motion detection recording there very easily.

[MetzLyov]

As Geoff mentioned, you should focus on ROI of DVR technology change and not power consumption figures.

I remember of a study that we did while back for a customer who was thinking of the same rather than the actual benefits for such conversion.. My recollection confirms that average VCR uses roughly 25W to 30W vs. average DVR using from 100W to 250W dependent on storage that such DVR is using (higher storage consumes more power).

However, as LPCap also mentions, Intellex systems are very widely used for retail industry and for a very good reasons - easy to use, easy to investigate, easy to extract evidence for courts, etc. Dependent on how many days of recording needed, it comes with various storage and capabilities. Using their Remote Client allows complete control of system locally and remotely and reduces labor requirements for any investigative task.

Having just a DVR alone is part of the overall solution - there are many options available to tie up your POS systems with such DVRs allowing to target video clips with POS transactions allowing to shorten your investigative tasks even lower. Assignment of real time POS exceptions that will trigger real time video recording is a very desirable feature allowing not only to serve security, but also for operations departments.

One such product that works with Intellex Systems is Intelleview - transaction monitoring system that integrates seamlessly with Intellex Systems. This product was derived by customer's request and in many cases, their personal involvement that triggered design and implementation of this software.

[mrlocks]

Make sure when you do switch to dvr, you don't fall into the cycle most security departments do...don't use them as a vcr. They are powerful tools that can assist you and make your job insanely easy.

Dvrs have motion alerts, remote access, long storage capabilities etc.

Take intellex for example it is a powerful tool that is in 95% of retail stores. Most collect dust, are not maintained and used improperly. When you get a system, set alerts, review alarms and use it to its full capability.

I think you are right, It makes the work more easy with all the advanced features.

[ONLP]

I think you are right, It makes the work more easy with all the advanced features.

I started reading this thread and got all excited when I saw LPcap was back, then I relized how old this thread is.

Can someone deal with this spammer?