As the surveillance industry migrates to HD, existing analog users face the dilemma of whether to overhaul their entire legacy coaxial infrastructure. A full migration to IP, after all, is a time-consuming and expensive undertaking.
Against this backdrop, HD-over-coaxial has emerged, enabling the transmission of HD-quality videos over the user's existing infrastructure. In the process, the labor and cost that might otherwise be invested into building a brand-new IP environment can be saved.
“We can use HD-over-coaxial to satisfy people who need high-resolution image monitoring and have no enough IP knowledge to use IP products,” said Andy Lee, MD at AVTECH.
Right now there are five primary HD-over-coaxial technologies, namely HDCVI, HDTVI, AHD, ccHDtv, and HD-SDI. Among them, HDCVI, HDTVI, and AHD transmit analog signals, while ccHDtv and Ex-SDI transmit digital ones.
HDCVI, HDTVI, and AHD are in essence chipsets developed respectively by Dahua of China, Techpoint of the United States, and Nextchip of Korea and are placed in cameras and DVRs on both ends of the transmission.
Each technology has its adopters. AVTECH, for example, chooses the HDTVI technology. “It offers 1080p quality and is easy to install and maintain,” Lee said. “The chipset is open to all manufacturers who can make their own HDTVI products, and its cost/performance is pretty good. And of course, Hikvision, a leading video surveillance manufacturer, also chose HDTVI, and it is an important point as well for us to select the HDTVI solution.”