"Dave C." wrote in message
thlink.net...

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

OK-that makes sense. My district has a habit of using antiquated equipment
until it falls apart. I do have to wonder why you'd be monitoring a school
remotely-I can't imagine that someone actually sits there and watches the
cameras daily. I know in mine, they aren't even looked at unless there was a
break in or vandalism-just archived and collect dust until the date passes.
It's mostly the deterrent of seeing the cameras. And my district has an
intranet, so if something was being monitored off site, it would go through
the intranet, not the internet.

The only reason I could see having such a system in a school hooked to the
internet would be for parents to be able to monitor what is going on in the
classrooms, like some day care centers have-which might not be a bad idea,
come to think of it.