Forget cat 5, Coax becomes the new buzz word!

For many years now the CCTV industry has been gearing up for change. Coax infrastructure that has been in place for years was looking like it had served its purpose and manufacturers and installers everywhere started to gear up towards CAT5 and IP. The reasons were simple, IP CCTV offered unlimited flexibility and HD images . This is what our industry has been hoping for for years but the process of upgrade to IP has been slow. Recession and lack of commitment to training by CCTV installers meant that IP has been held back it seems that analogue CCTV has made a miraculously strong showing over the the last 3 years against a technology that seemed to be the only answer out there and the future of all CCTV systems.

Now IP CCTV has its place and it will continue to give end users the choice especially where larger systems across multiple sites are concerned. However end users who have an existing analogue CCTV system in place can now upgrade and get HD over coax thanks to a new technology called HD SDI CCTV..Effectively high definition images are no longer the domain of IP. HD SDI CCTV is coming to IFSEC this year from many manufacturers across the world and coax will be the buzz word this year. So Don’t throw away your coax just yet.

HD SDI over coax

The HD CCTV alliance is working very hard behind the scenes to get a common protocol for HD SDI products and as more manufacturers jump on board it strengthens the credibility of this technology . In addition prices that looked way too high just over a year ago have fallen to levels that mean even smaller businesses can upgrade to HD SDI CCTV without breaking the bank so at IFSEC 2012 HD SDI  CCTV products will be getting most of the headlines. Now its just a case of who can give the best value from their HD SDI DVR to the end user…that we will have to wait and see.