I have VCR's, I want digital... but my CEO wants 1 year retention on tapes. Digital is only 90-120 days (unless I pay an arm and leg). Is there something else I can do that is not so costly for a longer retention for digital?

Is the digital system retaining 90-120 days of 24/7 recording? Check the product manual to see if you have a means of recording only motion/alarm activity. If properly set up, you could increase your retention time significantly, without losing the information that really matters.

I don't have a manual because I haven't purchased the system, but when I inquired about longer retention ... the reps taold me about recording motion only, which would increase my retention from 90 days to possibly 120 days. If I could get something 180 days, I might be able to get my CEO to consider digital. Thanks for the information about motion only though.

Laura,
We're using some great digital recorders that have a function that deletes any frames that have no motion in them after 14 days (or whatever we set it at). That helps with storage. I've been thinking about asking my IS guys if there's some way to back up the existing video on a stand-alone hard drive. Drive space is getting cheaper and cheaper, and who knows, depending on who you purchase your DVR through, they may install a bigger hard drive for you.
Black and white images take up less space than color, so you can use Hi-resolution B&W cameras in areas that Color doesn't matter as much too.

We have digital and VCR- and the digital is sooo great! you can access pictures from you desktop- send pictures or even a series of pictures to the police! And yes- you can delete out all the shots that had no motion in them after a period of time.. or you can copy images onto CD's for 1 year storage.

While the ability to burn CDs of the images is great, I'm not sure it's practical for a total archive storage. Ditto the extra hard drives, as the recorders tend to have huge hard drives to start with, and the storage space of the unit itself is the major driving factor behind the price differential from one model to the next.

Your CEO should wake up! If you don't have a need for the video in 90 days you are not going to need it. (Will maybe once a year). The DVR is far supperior to to VCR tape and will worth the less storage time to get the better quality and search capability. One Location (2) DVR Units, one with 8 cameras and one with 16 cameras. 90 day + storage. We did have 6 month storage, but we speeded up the cameras to take more pictures that are very close to real time. It is a LANEX system installed by Monday Security of St. louis, MO.

Our bank has a digital system with 2 computers each containing 12 cameras. I set them up to record on most cameras during business hours. Two lobby cameras, ATM, night drop, and parking lot cameras run 24/7. After tweaking the recording quality I was able to get 3 months of data. Not enough for our CEO who wanted 6 months. Installed additional hard drives and now get 6 months. Total cost of additional drives was about $600 installed and partitioned. Digital is great!!

We have a branch set up on digital and will burn CDs for the 1 year of retention required by Kentucky state law.