In a not too distant past, we’ll say 20 years ago, it was common to be sitting in the cold glow of Dateline watching some surveillance recording of a convenient store being robbed and all you could make out was black and white static footage that barely resembled a dark hoodie and a blurred face.

The old days of just comprehensible analog footage has been completely left behind and digital video has taken its place and moved on.

To no fault of analog; the history and technology of the time is fascinating—interlaced scanning, the absolute need for sturdy coax cable, VHS tapes being changed out every 8 hours—but it just doesn’t have the wow factor anymore.  Even modern analog cameras maxing out at 976×494 resolution can’t match the 1280×1024 resolution of the basic 1.3 megapixel IP cameras.

Network cameras are the wave of the future.  Currently running as high as 10 megapixels, the resolution of IP cameras far outreaches its analog predecessor.  Features such as facial recognition, motion detection, and day night functionality take place directly in the camera which saves some processing power in the server.  H.264 compression, auto back focus, Power over Ethernet (PoE) and even wireless capabilities make IT techs everywhere sigh with relief.

There are some analog cameras out there that can hold their own and still going strong, so the technology is out there to keep them relevant and running.  But in the same fashion with microwaves, dish washers, HDTVs and smart phones, once you have an IP camera, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.