There are great number of benefits provided by IP cameras compared to analog cameras in terms of installation and usage. We can list such benefits as follows;

- Cabling and labour costs are less for IP Cameras than analog ones. Video transmission in analog cameras is carried out via coaxial cables, and it’s required to install a separate video cable from center to camera for each camera. For IP cameras, however, the cable and cabling costs are less as the videos of more than one camera could be transmitted via the same ethernet cable. Single infrastructure can be used for IT & CCTV systems. Also unit price of Ethernet cable is less than the unit price of coaxial cable.

- It’s quite easy to integrate a new camera for the systems using IP cameras. It's enough to insert camera from any point of network line to the system, and the number of the cameras can be increased as many as required. For analog cameras, however, it’s highly difficult to expand the system. A separate cable is required to be installed from center to camera for each camera, and as the distance of cable increases, video quality decreases.

- Video quality of IP cameras is higher than the analog cameras. The quality of the image transmitted at IP cameras is not impaired due to the distance and not affected by noise. For analog cameras, however, video quality decreases as the distance increases.

- It’s enough to give only one IP address to the camera while installing IP cameras. The video of the camera incorporated into a network by giving an IP address to it can be displayed and adjusted anywhere. This provides ease of remote service. For analog cameras, it’s not possible to make a remote adjustment. Due to the obligation for on-site adjustment, there is no possibility of remote service.

Key Features of Bosch IP CCTV;

Unique video quality
DSP technology
MPEG-4
Two different format support
Enhanced Video Content Analysis (VCA)
Multicasting
Recording on encoder
ANR™
Audio & PoE Options
High channel intensity

IP cameras are especially preferred for structures such as campuses that are dispersed to more than one point, multi-storey buildings, or buildings spreading on a large area, due to its facilities listed above. For example; airports, subway stations, urban monitor systems, historical buildings, multistory buildings, etc.

The most significant selection criteria of IP cameras;

Selection criteria for both IP cameras and analog cameras are basically similar. First of all, it’s required to identify the features of the place and environment where camera will be used, and the intended use of the camera. Details on whether the environment is internal or external, or intra-day light change value are critical. Resolution value information of the camera must be selected basing on the intended purpose of the image obtained from the monitored environment. It will be proper to choose cameras having Poe feature that will be used with Poe switches for the application in order to provide advantage for cabling. Thus, there will be no need to install separate feed lines for cameras, and the costs of cables, cabling, and labour will decrease. Image compression technology of cameras is also a significant criterion for camera selection. With a camera using MPEG-4 or H264 compressing technology, the bandwidth required for video transfer and the hard disc capacity required for recording will decrease. The ability of IP cameras to record directly on iSCSI will eliminate the necessity for network video recorder (NVR), and decrease the cost of system.

Factors to be taken into account in order to get maximum output while using;

It’s all about knowing the network technology to be able to install IP camera system and connect to the network. The fact that how many IP cameras you could connect without making any reinforcement on the existing network, configuration of the computer to be prepared for administration, and the capacity of the software to be used for monitoring, recording and administration are all critical factors. You can connect 4-10 IP cameras at most for megabyte networks, and control any IP camera you want easily by connecting it from different PCs without experiencing any speed loss. Therefore, the burden imposed by the image transfer on the network will be quite low. However, when your camera number starts to be over than 10, it's required to renew your current network as Gigabyte. In this context, the configuration of the PC you will control should also be designed in accordance with the Gigabyte structure when the number is 20-3-40 and over. If you want to perform monitoring and recording for security purposes with more than 10 IP cameras, you had better use a different PC for records and a different one for monitoring and administration in terms of getting healthy results. The greatest reason of this is to ensure that records will be in maximum safe, and to prevent them being damaged within the system. The software for any kind of IP cameras is available in the market in order to be able to perform monitoring and recording, and to control cameras according to different functions. Such software will help you control your system efficiently through 16 cameras that are generally delivered to the user freely up to 16 cameras. IP cameras have a quite flexible structure that you can control from anywhere around the world any time you wish by connecting via internet.

With the developing IP camera technology there are now Megapixel IP cameras that have recently started coming to the forefront, a technology on which highly focused, and manufacturers producing high quality cameras in this field. However, it’s possible to see that some manufacturers produce some products hastily and in an ordinary way. At this point, we highly recommend the organizations to make investment to examine the details. If possible, they need to test and examine different products. Because it’s important to take not only the resolution of the camera, but also the parameters such as the number of picture it could transmit, H.264 support, the coding support that will ensure effective use of bandwidth such as G.726 or G.729 if it will transmit sound, the lux value (as it will not be possible for users to measure lux value, we must trust the name and market share of the manufacturer at this point), the integration facilities with 3rd party devices, etc.

Technological developments in recent years have offered more advantageous solutions also for IP based video systems. For example; while only basic functions such as monitoring and recording could be provided through IP cameras and encoders due to their 1 or maximum 2 stream(s) previously, now it has become possible to obtain 5-6 streams from one camera at the same time (therefore it has been ensured to perform monitoring, recording, camera images on mobile phones, and image transfer with low speed and low resolution over internet). Previously, there was quite busy network traffic with the need for 8-10 Mbytes bandwidth per camera, but now more effective network use has been provided with the need for 1.5-2Mbytes bandwidth. Today it’s possible to meet the needs with the far less record capacity of 8-10Kbytes, while there was a need for high record capacity per frame such as 20-30Kbytes.

Most recent developments in IP Camera technologies

In the today's digital era, the video quality has made a fast progress like digital cameras. Within the world of CCTV, the IP cameras and encoders have the quality of live broadcast, and they provide high image quality by using quite powerful MPEG-2 and much more efficient MPEG-4 compression algorithms. Security is the most significant factor separating an IP solution from another one. If you lose your connection (infrastructure) while moving your video images on the network, what you need is a device next to the camera that could record until the connection is re-activated: an encoder. In this way, you can reach the stuff you have missed again as if there was no disconnection on the network. This simple but unique and strong concept is presented you by Bosch. (Patented technology)

It’s possible to obtain 13-fold more quality image than CIF format via the megapixel image quality that is only possible with IP camera technology. So this means that we could have more details and image quality from the records. For IP cameras, the image becomes digital for once and only on the camera. So they provide such a quality image that the colours of which cannot be compared with the analog.

For IP cameras, the image is not formed by the combination of two successive different frames as it is for analog cameras; this is called ”progressive scan”. Such feature means that the whole image frame is scanned within one frame, and this allows for getting a high quality that cannot be compared with analog cameras, especially in motion settings. Such feature also increases the efficiency of the smart software developed for applications such as face recognition, plate recognition, etc.

IP cameras must always use the most recent compression technologies and video software. Processors in IP cameras can be easily programmed remotely. This means that IP cameras will always stay up-to-date especially for last technology software and properties.