Electronic Systems Consultants LLC, a MBE certified company, offers more than just security and fire products, we offer service, and that includes answering your questions. The following query comes from one of our clients. If you have a question, please send it along and we'll have our experts provide the answers you need (Click Here).
We have a video surveillance system in our place of business that records to a time-lapse tape recorder that we purchased many years ago. The recorder works great and I’d like to keep it if possible, but I'd also like to view the cameras from my home as if I were there in the office. What do we have to do to make this happen?
There are several ways in which Electronic Systems Consultants LLC (ESC) can help make that happen. Probably the most simplest and sensible of all of them is to replace your old time-lapse tape recorder with a new DVR (Digital Video Recorder). Although your time-lapse tape recorder still works, the quality of the video usually is so poor that law enforcement is often unable to use it to identify a perpetrator(s), let alone get a conviction.
DVR’s offer the most for your money and they make it relatively easy to view your video cameras from afar. Using a DVR, we can plug it into your Internet router using Category 5e cable. If you are using a static IP address in your business, it’s then a simple matter of bookmarking the IP with submask address to your browser at home.
If you happen to be using a dynamic IP at your business, you can still make this work. There are services that allow you to glean any change in IP address that may take place at your facility. Some of them do not cost money while others do. As they say, you get what you pay for. Dynamic IPs do not change that often and so you also can send yourself an email everyday and check the header for the IP address where it came from. Using this address, you can gain access to your DVR.
John Larkin, Senior Partner
