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What you have to know about DVR and NVR!

2019/12/20      view:

What you have to know about DVR and NVR!

The dispute between analog and digital networks in the monitoring field has a long history. In recent years, the momentum of analog monitoring has not diminished, and the digital network monitoring market is in full swing, almost becoming a raging fire. As an important part of the two monitoring systems, the comparison and competition between DVR and NVR is also an unavoidable topic in the industry. What are the differences between these two similar DVRs? What will happen to the future? Let's take a look at it together._DSD

Introduction to DVR


DVR (DigitalVideoRecorder), which is a digital video recorder. The front-end device uses an analog camera and the back-end uses digital recording technology. The DVR combines functions such as a video recorder, screen splitter , PTZ lens control, and alarm control, making it easy to form a small surveillance system. For building a small monitoring system, its cost is the lowest. DVRs are generally divided into PC-type hard disk recorders, embedded hard disk recorders and so on.


However, due to the limitations of its own technical architecture, digital hard disk video recorders cannot solve the problems of transmission and multi-channel simultaneous monitoring, highly integrated centralized monitoring, etc. in a network remote monitoring environment. The main reason is that the DVR system is transmitted in analog mode from the monitoring point to the monitoring center. There are many defects. This system is not suitable for new monitoring systems that are ready to be upgraded and systems that require remote video transmission (more than 1-2 kilometers).


DVR market development constraints

From the current market status, the situation of DVR is relatively severe, and its market development is currently restricted by two aspects. First of all, there are many manufacturers in the DVR market, and the homogeneity of each product is relatively serious, which makes the internal competition in the DVR market extremely fierce. Second, with the development of high-definition network cameras and lower prices, DVR products are facing challenges from NVRs. Even many people in the industry even preached from earlier years that IPC + NVR will replace analog + DVR.

DVR market development trend-there is still market space

With the development of digitalization and networkization of the security surveillance market, users' acceptance of IPC + NVR is getting higher and higher, and the voice of fading analog surveillance + DVR is very loud. Coupled with the addition of telecommunications operators and IT system integrators, the popularity and application of network monitoring systems has been promoted, and the basic problems of the development of IPC have been gradually solved, and the market position of NVR is even more powerful.

However, this does not mean that analog surveillance and DVR are dead. For a product, as long as there is demand, there must be a market. From the perspective of the market, monitoring equipment is a system. DVR is not just an independent product. It is an important part of analog monitoring system. It can be said that the development trend of DVR and the development trend of analog monitoring are almost integrated. In the field of monitoring, different users will choose the appropriate monitoring system according to their own needs. Whether to choose to switch from the analog monitoring system to the IP monitoring system, and when to switch in, all require the customer to make a choice between various market factors such as monitoring results and monitoring costs, and then decide.

In daily applications, if the requirements for video clarity are not very high (not higher than 1080P) and the transmission distance is not long in small surveillance scenes, it is likely to use an analog solution, that is, "analog camera + DVR + display + PC (customer Side) "architecture. The monitoring scale of these small systems is not large, and applications are mostly concentrated in local operation and management. There is not much demand for monitoring across regions. For example, general store monitoring, community monitoring, and other application scenarios. The requirements for high definition in such scenarios are not so high, and there is no need for network transmission. The application of these scenarios will be the key to the development of DVR in the future.

From a historical perspective, after many years of application and development of analog monitoring systems, DVRs have undergone long-term tests in the market and continuous improvement of technology. The technology has been quite mature and occupied most of the original market. Stimulated by the growing demand in the security market, it has not yet reached a state of perfection, especially in small and medium-sized projects. Users and engineers pay great attention to the cost-effectiveness, simple operation and practicality of the products. Nowadays, DVRs on the market are cheap, simple to operate, and have low technical requirements for users. This is also the DVR that will still be favored by the market in the future main reason.

According to the IMS survey report, the average growth rate of the analog market from 2011 to 2015 also reached 18.4%, and the proportion of the analog monitoring market in 2015 was still greater than 50%. Through the above analysis, analog cameras will also occupy a certain market space and coexist with IP cameras. Therefore, DVR may continue to change its application mode, but as long as traditional analog surveillance does not die, DVR will not die out. DVR only needs to pinpoint the market demand and choose the appropriate industry user group to gain market share.

NVR Introduction

In recent years, with the continuous development of network technology, security monitoring has begun to enter the networked era. With the increasing popularity of surveillance network, as an important part of network surveillance, NVR has achieved rapid development.

NVR (NetworkVideoRecorder) is a network video recorder. Its core feature is its network function. The main function of NVR is to be able to receive the digital video stream transmitted by IPC (network camera) through the network, and store and manage it, so as to realize the distributed architecture advantages brought by the network. In image processing, image storage, retrieval, backup , And network transmission, remote control, etc. are superior to analog monitoring systems. In simple terms, through NVR, you can watch, browse, playback, manage, and store multiple network cameras at the same time._DSD

difference between the NVR and DVR

We carefully observe the interfaces on the back of the two devices. We can find that there is a big difference between the two. The DVR has a video interface on the back. The interface is a BNC connector. Each interface can connect an analog surveillance camera. The NVR has no video on the back. Interface, if you want to achieve the access of multiple surveillance cameras, you need a switch to cooperate.

From the above analysis, we can see that the main difference between NVR and DVR is that the front end is different. The front end of the DVR product is an analog camera. The DVR can be regarded as a digital encoding storage device for analog video, while the front end of the NVR product is a network camera, video Servers, DVRs, etc., are very rich in device types.

NVR and DVR are not an iterative relationship

Many people in the industry regard NVR as a replacement for DVR and regard "terminator of DVR" as the goal of NVR. However, such a view undoubtedly ignores the fact that DVR and NVR are products that are suitable for different needs. They have different design goals, different problems to solve, and different development trajectories, so they can actually coexist in the market To meet multi-level market needs. Perhaps to a certain extent, NVRs will seize some of the DVR markets. These markets are concentrated on the demand for network connectivity, but in the digital age, they have to retreat to the next choice of DVR systems. If NVR is positioned as the terminator of DVR, then the true value of NVR is ignored. From the current point of view, several large manufacturers are still developing new analog products, which shows that analog monitoring has a long way to go. The relationship between NVR and DVR is not the relationship between substitution and replacement. Many of the main technologies of NVR come directly from DVR, such as digital encoding and compression, storage management, on-demand, network transmission technology and so on.

Development constraints of NVR

Although NVR has achieved rapid development in recent years, in fact, its development has not been smooth. Various reasons have affected the development of NVR systems.

Limitations on network bandwidth and transmission capabilities

Because the NVR system must communicate through the network, the normal work of the NVR system must depend on a good network environment. The NVR system can work better only in an environment with abundant bandwidth resources, and applications will be greatly restricted in scenarios where bandwidth resources are tight and the transmission environment is complex.

At present, although with the efforts of the three major operators, China's public network environment has greatly improved; the types of networks have also become richer in development, but it is still difficult to use the existing public network environment. Supporting the transmission of huge video information has become a major obstacle to the development of NVRs in the current environment.

compatibility issues

The use of NVR needs to be used in conjunction with IPC in order to give full play to the advantages of network video surveillance. However, today's network products involve many standard protocols and many function points. The protocols used by IPC manufacturers are inconsistent, which directly causes system access difficulties Or unable to access.

Inadequate cost

Restriction of investment cost is also one of the issues that need attention in the development of NVR. Although the network video surveillance system and NVR system can greatly save the costs of wiring, installation, commissioning and maintenance, compared with the current network cameras, NVR systems and analog cameras, DVR systems, due to the relationship between research and development costs and production costs, Looks high. In addition, there are also market constraints, user demand trends, and other issues that restrict the development of NVR systems.

7Development Trends of NVR

The development of NVR and the development of front-end network cameras are inseparable. Before 2010, the front-end products of domestic video surveillance systems were almost dominated by analog cameras, and the proportion of IPC was only about 10%. Since 2011, the market share of IPC has grown rapidly. With the expansion of video surveillance technology applications and the growth of demand for intelligent applications, the advantages of IP-based video surveillance systems continue to expand.

Any kind of product is born out of demand and develops because of demand. In recent years, the field of video surveillance has put great demands on IPC. With its natural standards and open features, IP networks have become the main carrier of the new generation of video surveillance technology. Network cameras and NVRs have developed under this wave and gradually matured.

From the market level, due to the pursuit of high-definition and network in the surveillance market, NVRs have a wider market space than DVRs. The target markets of NVRs can be divided into the following two aspects: One is the application of small and medium business scenarios; Mainly include chain stores, enterprise factories, hospitals, schools, communities, libraries, office buildings and so on. The characteristics of this type of application market are that the monitoring points are more concentrated, the scale of individual construction is larger, and the requirements for video recording are higher. The other is the application of large-scale government or commercial projects; mainly including large-scale networked institutions such as government agencies, finance, and the military; such markets have relatively high requirements for image quality, video duration, and equipment reliability, and often have cascading networking groups Network, industry application system integration and other needs.

The above two types of scenarios will be the main market growth points for NVR in the future. In recent years, major domestic operators have invested heavily in basic network construction, which has rapidly promoted the application of network cameras in various fields. According to the survey, the sales volume of many domestic well-known brand IP cameras has been growing at a rate of about 100% for several years. With the continuous advancement of major national projects such as the “National Emergency Response System”, “Safe City”, “Safe Construction”, and “Science and Technology Strong Police”, the domestic network video surveillance market has a bright future._DSD