Quite awhile ago, I installed my first security video camera in my home.
This was long before the notion of digital or IP based security video systems so I created a system that took the analog camera signal and placed it on a UHF channel that was then broadcast through my home cable which I had wired myself. Since then, I added an additional 7 cameras.
These cameras do offer a bit of security but I installed them as much for a technical hobby as anything.
Now as technology as changed, I still have this system in place and I wonder if I need to modify the system. Unfortunately, I’ve looked at some of the devices that would allow me to do it and MAN ARE THEY EXPENSIVE!
Obviously, I could swap all my cameras out for IP based cameras. The cost of this option would be about $800 and the limit is that I would only be able to access the video via IP based systems (computers) and not TV based systems.
There are boxes that can take analog video and convert it to IP video. Some of these boxes even have pass through so this would allow to have the video to be viewable by both IP based systems and TV based systems so that would be great. The problem is that while $800 is already expensive, these boxes cost about $500 for a single camera and go up from there ($2000 for 4). This puts a conversion at about $4000 and that doesn’t even include a security DVR (though there were some that did but those didn’t have pass through).
Since this is primarily a hobby, I’ve always tried to keep the costs minimal and doing this kind of conversion just isn’t.
I’m really stuck at what to do. If there are any ideas out there, I’d love to hear about them!