NVR vs. DVR Security Cameras: What’s the Difference?

NVRs vs DVRs offer depend­able video sur­veil­lance, allow­ing you to cap­ture what’s hap­pen­ing inside and out­side your busi­ness. How­ev­er, there are essen­tial dif­fer­ences between the two sys­tems, espe­cial­ly in terms of how video footage is stored—and how it’s viewed.

Choos­ing the right sys­tem for your busi­ness is crit­i­cal because you want to be sure you have the most accu­rate view of your premis­es, whether in real-time or via record­ed clips.

Here’s what you need to know.

The main difference between NVRs and DVRs

The pri­ma­ry dif­fer­ence between NVR  and DVR sys­tems is that NVR sys­tems process video footage at the cam­era, where­as DVR sys­tems process it at the recorder.

What does that mean?

It all boils down to how the sys­tems process raw video data for stor­age and view­ing. NVR – which stands for net­work video recorder – is pur­pose-built for dig­i­tal video data. Most of today’s “IP cam­eras” and Wi-Fi cam­eras are NVR because the footage is processed at the cam­era, allow­ing for more acces­si­ble stor­age and stream­ing over the Inter­net. The raw video data is processed before it’s trans­mit­ted to the recorder (i.e. a disk dri­ve, SD card, USB flash dri­ve, etc.).

In con­trast, for dig­i­tal video recorders, DVR starts with ana­logue video data and then con­verts it to a dig­i­tal for­mat at the recorder.

Why it matters

How your secu­ri­ty footage is processed and stored affects how eas­i­ly you can access it. That includes real-time video and record­ed clips.

Tra­di­tion­al DVR secu­ri­ty cam­eras are designed more for on-premise stor­age than stream­ing video over the Inter­net. DVR is some­times referred to as CCTV (closed-cir­cuit tele­vi­sion). In the­o­ry, the video footage stays on the local stor­age device. (How­ev­er, some DVR recorders can be con­fig­ured for remote­ly access­ing the stored video footage.)

Since NVR secu­ri­ty sys­tems process video data at the cam­era, this data is imme­di­ate­ly ready to be trans­mit­ted over the Inter­net and to stor­age devices.

Which is better, NVR vs DVR?

Choos­ing NVR or DRV secu­ri­ty cam­eras will depend on your unique secu­ri­ty goals and needs. Both have advan­tages and can be deployed in any com­mer­cial envi­ron­ment, indoor or out­door.

That said, NVR sys­tems are typ­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered more robust because of how they process video at the cam­eras. Advanced com­pres­sion and pro­cess­ing capa­bil­i­ties allow for numer­ous types of video enhance­ment and instant stream­ing.

NVR cam­eras from PROTECTION PLUS, the sys­tem can auto­mat­i­cal­ly sta­bi­lize dig­i­tal images to remove motion blur caused by wind or vibra­tion. Plus, it can use mul­ti­ple simul­ta­ne­ous frame cap­tures at dif­fer­ent expo­sure lev­els and low-light enhance­ments. This pro­duces a supe­ri­or video qual­i­ty auto­mat­i­cal­ly. Advanced sys­tems also allow for intel­li­gent video ana­lyt­ics, such as facial recog­ni­tion tech­nol­o­gy. NVRs also detect var­i­ous types of audio, such as explo­sions, glass break­age, gun­shots or a per­son scream­ing.

Of course, not every busi­ness will require these capa­bil­i­ties. The deci­sion between NVR and DVR secu­ri­ty cam­eras ulti­mate­ly depends on your spe­cif­ic needs.

Let our experts help you decide

Request a no-oblig­a­tion secu­ri­ty sys­tem con­sul­ta­tion from PROTECTION PLUS to learn more about your options. Our experts will go over your options in greater detail. They will pro­vide busi­ness-spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tions to help you choose the right secu­ri­ty cam­era sys­tem for your needs.