IP Cameras vs HD over Coax 2019 – 2020

HD over Coax vs IP Cameras in 2019 / 2020

A Comparison Guide for 2019-2020

Many “IP Cameras vs HD over Coax” comparisons that you see online more or less sway towards which ever technology the company sells that posted the article. Some may have been accurate at the time of their writing, but today can be misleading for people looking for information today.

You may hear that Coax is used only for older analog video technologies while Ethernet or IP is the only way to upgrade or install a new video system. But everybody ignores or forgets the capability of the coax cable that runs to your home and provides the 300+ HD channels AND high speed internet! If old coax cables can do that, why would it be bad for a camera video system? Coax itself may be old, but the technology that connects to it is just as up to date as any IP based system.

The introduction of new HD over Coax technologies over the last 5 years, we have been exposed to many new technologies and alternatives that make Coax video quality just as good as your standard Ethernet/IP camera. There are many pros and cons to using both, let’s go over the information for you to choose what is best for you.

What are IP Cameras?

IP cameras are also known as Ethernet Cameras, or Network Cameras. They are very versatile cameras that use your existing network to encode/compress video and send the information over the network to what is known as a Network Video Recorder (NVR) to be saved. They are available with many options as they can be installed with hardwire cat5e/cat6, or connected via WIFI signal for wireless transmission. IP cameras often offer impressive high resolutions like 4K or even 360 degree viewing cameras at 16 Megapixel.

Network / IP Cameras: Encodes/Compresses Video Data and sends via IP over the network to a NVR.
- Offers the highest megapixel performance available on the market.
- One very high megapixel camera can replace multiple lower resolution cameras.
- Small WIFI / Wireless installations can be finished in just minutes
- Requires some IT knowledge.
- Best used with Cat5e or Cat6 ethernet cable.

IP cameras also have Power-over-Ethernet (POE), which allows power/video and data to be transmitted over a single ethernet cable which can make wire installations simple and easy to install as you do not have to bother with traditional camera power supplies.

What are HD over Coax Cameras?

Unlike most IP cameras, HD over coax has many different available technologies. There are 2 main categories to remember when thinking about HD over Coax:

Analog HD: analog based high definition technologies like HD-TVI, HD-CVI, and AHD.
- These are most commonly used as a low cost easy way to upgrade existing installation that use old analog cameras. You use the same coax, same power and you can upgrade to 1080p up to 4K resolutions without changing any wires.
- Best used with RG59 or RG6 coax cable.
Digital HD: higher quality digital HD over coax known as HD-SDI, 3G-SDI and EX-SDI.
- These are high end Real-Time uncompressed signals for the best video quality, a standard taken directly from Television Broadcasting. When uncompressed quality is most important, this is the best there is.
- This type of signal is best when you need the cleanest video image for identification or image processing without compression artifacts as you have the ability to pull the raw camera feed before compression. (basically any fast moving applications where compression artifacts can be a problem).
- Best used with RG6 coax cable.

These latest technologies also offer 4K resolutions but video is transmitted from the camera through coax to a Digital Video Recorder (DVR), very similar to IP cameras and an NVR.

Here is a comparison table with pros and cons (lengthy I know, sorry)

Comparison

Image Resolution

HD Over Coax

Up to 4K resolution (8MP)

HD over Coax offers higher resolutions up to 4K with technology available today, which is more than enough for traditional installations.

You’ll find that many HD Coax and IP Cameras of the same resolution often share the same image sensor with just different ways to transport and record the video data.

Network / IP

Up to 4K most applications

IP Cameras have a huge advantage as far as resolution goes with the capability for much higher end solutions for 20MP to even 100MP for high digital zoom.

Higher megapixel applications usually run at a lower than real-time frame rate such as 15fps, 7fps, etc.

Image Quality

Both technologies are great in quality, but for different applications and reasons.

Digital HD over Coax (HD, 3G, EX-SDI) offer real-time uncompressed (or very slightly compressed) video data direct from camera to recorder. This offers the cleanest artifact free video you can find. Which is why it is a main standard for Television Broadcasting.

Analog HD over Coax (TVI, CVI and AHD) offers real-time analog transmission of high definition video over coax, and signal can degrade over long distances

IP Cameras can offer the highest resolutions and sharpest images by encoding and decoding the video data digitally over the network.

This does introduce a lag/latency to live video so it is not quite real-time but with the right configuration and setup, it can be close.

Cost

Analog HD over Coax is by far the cheapest solution.

Digital HD over Coax – a little more expensive but not by much.

IP Cameras come in all shapes and sizes, almost on par with Analog HD prices (but usually older model IP cameras). But pricing is dropping and becoming very competitive for any budget.

Analytics

Yes

You will find many of the same software analytic features in both Coax and IP installations as much of the available software can analyze both feeds. HD over Coax cameras often do not have analytics built into the camera but is often built into the DVR itself.

HD over Coax, more specifically the digital coax is most often used for analytics for production and quality control. This is best for these situations as it offers real-time uncompressed video for analytics vs compressed video latency that may contain artifacts from high speed moving objects.

Some examples that may need raw video feeds are:

Video Production
Post Processing Applications
2D Text/Symbol Identification
Barcode Identification
Flaw detection
Pattern Matching

Yes

IP excels in surveillance analytics offerings. You can easily find many models of IP Cameras that offer a variety of analytic options. Whether they are software based or originate as features built into the camera.

Both IP and HD over Coax share many of the same basic analytics features like:

Motion Detection
Intelligent Tracking
License Plate Reading
Fire Detection
Tamper Detection
Forensic/Smart Search

But your likely able to find other nice analytic features that are not so common in HD over Coax Technologies like:

Facial Recognition
Loitering Detection
People Counting
Dwell Time Monitoring
Perimeter Monitoring

Transmission Distance

Analog HD has a max distance with runs of up to 1600FT.

Digital HD – EX-SDI is becoming the new standard for Digitla HD over coax, with EX-SDI 2.0 reaching over 2000ft.

Digital HD – HD-SDI/3G-SDI has a limit of roughly 400FT over RG6, and requires a repeater to boost past 400ft. today many systems offer HD-SDI and EX-SDI selectable modes for the long distance benefits.

IP cameras with a single run is limited to roughly 300FT. Which is a ethernet data limitation. To run any lengths past 300ft, you need an inline repeater or switch to boost the signal further.

Power/Video and Data Transmission

Both Analog HD and Digital HD – offers POC and COC (Power over Coax, Control over Coax) over RG59 and RG6 respectively. This offers the same easy installation and benefits as POE but with much longer distances between repeaters.

With POE, you can send and receive video, data and power.

POE (Power over Ethernet) has been around for a long time, it is a very convenient way to send power to Ethernet devices. You can find many other devices (not just cameras) can be powered by POE. And also a very large market for available POE switches and repeaters.

Wireless Capability

Yes, but with some cost.

Wireless Video with HD over Coax requires dedicated transmitters and receivers, which usually only transmit 1-4 channels at a time, and could cost as much or more than the camera itself. This is because solutions like HD-SDI for wireless have to keep the video signal uncompressed on both ends to stay near real-time and high quality.

Yes.

Since Ethernet cameras come with WIFI, the first several cameras can be very fast and easy to setup. This offers ways to add cameras without running cable to those very odd spots and only having to worry about power. With some batteries combined with a solar panel, you can go completely wireless.

Once you get to the 8-16+ camera range, you have to make sure your WIFI network can handle all the extra bandwidth your camera system is taking up. If your WIFI system is not up to date, you could end up bogging down your WIFI network faster than you would expect.

Compression Codecs

H.264, H.264+ and H.265

H.264 and H.264+ both offer good compression and doesn’t require much as far as processing power to stream, decode and view.

H.265 offers better compression the higher you go from 2 Megapixel and up. At 8MP you will find yourself saving tons of storage space and bandwidth using H.265 vs H.264, but not so much as difference if at 1080p.

H.265 also requires much more processing power to encode and decode which is why it hasn’t completely replaced all H.264 devices.

With Digital HD over Coax, you have the option to pull camera feeds before compression which is best used for post processing or analytics for non surveillance applications.

H.264, H.264+ and H.265

IP offers the same codec offerings without the raw video options.

Comparison

Bandwidth Usage

HD Over Coax

Only during Live View and Playback on a Remote Client

Bandwidth usage is only used when a user request to view live video or playback video. Otherwise bandwidth usage is zero.

This is great for situations you need to monitor bandwidth usage, or just small installations in the home. Most often you can install a system without having to upgrade any network hardware.

Network / IP

Ethernet cameras by design will always use bandwidth on your network at all times.

This is because IP cameras compress and transmit the video from the camera, to the network video recorder to record, then also use more bandwidth to send video to the user for live and playback viewing.

Depending on how big your system is going to be, you want to make sure your network is up to the task. Especially if you are considering the use of WIFI cameras.

Remote Viewing

Yes for Live and Playback Views

All new DVRs today offer the same remote viewing options as NVRs. Standalone DVR systems tend to be faster in response as far as loading live and playback video when compared to IP cameras.

Yes for Live and Playback Views

Dollar for dollar, standalone systems (compared to DVRs) tend to be on the slower side for response, if you are transitioning from a DVR to NVR, you will probably notice it. If you never had any system before, then everything will seem normal.

Higher end PC based systems traditionally do not suffer from this and perform very very well.

Remote Backup

Yes.

In the past this was not possible, or at the least much more inconvenient to do so. But with our latest recorders, you can provide IP information of an onsite recorder, and pull the video information from any camera type connected and record a duplicate offsite for redundancy just like a NVR. It takes only 1 IP address for a group of 16 cameras vs individual IP addresses from multiple cameras on an standard IP solution.

Yes.

IP cameras have for a long time offered an easy way to have a secondary backup recorder on a remote site due to the inherent features of deploying IP over an existing network. This provided an easy redundant way to backup vital video data.

Installation

Difficulty: Easy – Medium

Analog HD – Require Coax like RG59 with a separate Power to run along side the coax, usually called RG59 Siamese cable. Camera video connects to the DVR, while camera power connects to a local power box near the DVRs installtion.

Digital HD – can be a traditional installation like the above, but newer systems (like ours) have Power over Coax and Control over Coax, so it’s just 1 simple Coax Cable that does everything, you plug in the coax to the camera and it immediately turns on and starts recording. Like Plug n Play.

Scalability – It’s just a matter of repeating the same installation steps over and over.

Difficulty: Easy – Hard

Direct POE Ports – Latest NVRs for IP cameras are available with direct POE ports for each camera in the back of the NVR, This makes NVR installations easy. With one caveat, you still have to run all new cable direct from the NVR to the IP Cameras, at this point, the install could have been either system, Coax or IP and have the same amount of work.

Existing Network – Connecting through an existing network saves time and cost from running direct cables from camera to NVR. But requires more IT knowledge as far as assigning IP addresses to each camera and saving that configuration in the NVR. Again, not hard, but requires more knowledge than just connecting 2 cables.

Scalability – This one gets tricky. Once your systems gets passed 16-32 camera mark, you may need to plan ahead with your network infrastructure. Your existing network may not be equipped to handle the continuous bandwidth consumption of 32+ cameras. The more cameras you have, the more bandwidth you will need to be able to handle on your network. (this does not apply to Direct POE Port installations)

Troubleshooting

Difficulty: Easy

Troubleshooting these installations are pretty simple. Assuming the problem is video loss on 1 camera. The problems are typically 1 of these 3 things: Camera, Cable, Recorder. Just test as a process of elimination. Having a spare camera or temporarily removing a good camera from another spots speeds this up considerably.

Difficulty: Easy – Hard

Direct POE installations, basically the same steps as Coax for troubleshooting.

For troubleshooting IP cameras over an existing network? It can be a bit more time consuming. A loss of video problem can be the camera or cable or maybe recorder configuration. But could also be multiple cables between switches/repeaters, bad switches/repeaters or perhaps just a single port has gone bad on the switch. Another device on the network may have a conflicting IP address, or maybe there is a bandwidth bottleneck on the network. These kind of problems will begin to show up as you start scaling the installation. None are big problems but will require someone with some IT experience to troubleshoot. But some common sense does go a long way.

For instance, I’ve been to a site where cameras were regularly dropping in and out throughout the day. Only come to find out that a network switch running to 8 of the cameras was connected to an outlet that turned out to be a switched outlet (outlet was not turned upside down to determine switched), so the employees were flipping the network switch on and off as they left a certain room.

Maintenance

Difficulty: Easy

Fairly straightforward, check hard drives, cable connections and devices. If anything fails, just replace/fix.

Difficulty: Easy to Medium

Direct POE installs will basically be the same as Coax for maintenance issues.

For cameras over the network, you will also have to copy/assign the IP address info from the old camera to a new camera during replacement.

IP Cameras vs HD over Coax: Which technology wins?

Honestly, there is no general best solution for everything. It all depends on your project details and requirements. On larger projects, you may have a mix of both. Sometimes from upgrading existing, and then utilizing your network infrastructure to expand at the same time. If the NVR and DVR utilize the same software, from a users perspective, you may not even notice the difference between the two.

If you need help adjusting the camera to get the perfect image, it’s important to adjust your camera exposure to best fit your needs, check out this beginner’s guide to camera exposure: What is Camera Exposure?