analog or IP cameras?

There is a huge amount of different camera types from many different manufacturers are available.
But to choose the right camera for your application among these manufacturers is not the only decision you will have to take if have a camera surveillance application. Nowadays you also will have to choose if you use analog cameras or IP based camera systems. The difference between this two technologies is how the video signal is delivered, with analog cameras the signal is transmitted in a way that it can be received by monitors, televisions, receivers or DVRs. IP based cameras are digitozing the signal through an encoder to the network. Therefore the camera becomes a network device. IP cameras are available in different codecs, e.g. MPEG2, MPEG4, MJPEG, H.262...In general analog cameras are less expensive and more different types and designs are available.
Up to now analog cameras are compatible with a larger amount of systems. A big disadvantage of these analog cameras is that they are not encrypted. Also the wiring is in general very bulky because you need to make a special cabling, while today you can find everywhere network cables.

But one thing becomes more and more important, which is the compatibility of analog and IP systems, because for exisiting installations where additional cameras will be installed, this will be in general IP ones. That means that there will be a mix of the two types of cameras, therefore the related systems must be able to accept both type of signals.