There's a pretty high probability that the group which came in and
installed
the cameras (and probably selected the locations) works out of the central
district office and has never looked at a single feed from the cameras
since
testing to make sure they worked. Usually maintenance is controlled at the
district level, not the school, unless we're talking a one school
district,
in which case they probably hired someone.

I can't understand why there would be a need to have the record accessible
via the internet, though. Our security cameras store to tape, and are
reused
after a few months.


The major CCTV (closed circuit television) manufacturers have stopped
producing the kind of VCR (time lapse) that is used to record video from
video cameras. You might find one or two still available for sale, but it
would be like shopping for a vinyl record player. If you asked for one, the
person you are buying from would likely ask you why you want it. Now video
cameras are hooked up to digital hard disk recorders. These are similar to
TIVO and the like, but they are the professional version. They store gobs
of video in digital format on a hard disk drive. Many of these hard disk
recorders are based on a personal computer of some type. Many of THOSE are
networked, so that the owners or renters of the CCTV equipment can monitor
video cameras or even review video remotely, over their own network or even
the Internet.

It makes the most sense when you are monitoring many buildings located in
many different locations. If you have an "incident" to review, you don't
need to travel to where the incident happened, or wait for someone to send
you a copy of the tape. Just log onto your local area network, or even the
Internet in some cases, and review the video and/or copy it to your local
computer.

On a side note, take VERY good care of your time lapse video recorders. If
they break, they will be very costly to repair, and replacing them would be
.. . . . well, you don't want to know. -Dave