Even if it is just for peace of mind some form of security system is critical whether at home or work. Almost all banks, casinos, and museums are hosts to wireless surveillance cameras. Of course there are companies who will install security systems and monitor alarms and the video footage notifying you of any suspicious activity. These companies generally charge hundreds of dollars per month for their services, which may not be in the budget of a small business owner or home owner. Online resources provide a plethora of information for the do it yourselfer to make an informed decision on what cameras to purchase based on their needs. Installing wireless surveillance cameras is as easy as mounting the cameras and transmitter. Once the cameras are setup all that is left is to determine how you will store security camera footage. The most common methods of storing security camera footage are a time-lapse VCR, writable CD or DVD, hard drive on a personal computer, or a digital video recorder (DVR).

The most common way to record and store footage from security cameras has been via a time-lapse VCR. This method of video storage requires the security camera or video transmitter to be connected to the VCR for recording. Most cameras now have a motion sensor that alerts the VCR to begin recording to eliminate hours of useless footage. The footage is then recorded onto VHS tapes and is available for viewing at a later time. The drawback of storing footage this way is that the whole tape has to be viewed in order to find relevant footage and VCR recordings tend to have low quality resolution and appear grainy when viewing.

With a PC video images are spooled on to the PC's hard drive. For 24 hour surveillance the computer would need to be on at all times. The footage would be available for viewing from the PC and would be easily accessible as a search can be done of the recordings to find a specific time. This method of storage has the potential to take up a lot of hard drive space depending on camera resolution. The user would need to frequently dump old footage to keep storage space available or have a large backup drive to transfer data to. A few drawbacks of this method are the potential for a computer crash and important footage may be lost or critical recording times could be missed. If burglars do break into a home they would, in all likelihood, steal the computer.

Another way of storing footage onto a hard drive would be through a digital video recorder (DVR). Recording with a DVR provides a higher quality picture than VHS and would save recorded files onto an internal hard drive. For additional storage capacity the DVR can be connected to an external hard drive. DVRs are a more discreet method of recording footage, since they are about the size of an individual DVD player and can be stored in a closet or out of sight from prowling burglars. DVRs are not connected to the internet and cannot be hacked into and unlike a PC they will not crash.

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