by Ryan Newkirk

When talking to clients about the requirements of their security system, I often run into business owners and homeowner associations who are looking to place a security system at an entrance or exit to view vehicles coming into and leaving from their establishment. One of the biggest things that I have learned to do, is to inquire about what they expect to be able to accomplish with this camera system. The reason why, is that a lot of people assume that license plate capturing and recognition are one in the same. What the general public needs vs. what government agencies need are typically two totally different things. The general public typically only needs to be able to capture an image of a license plate, whereas a government entity and some corporations need to be able to not only capture a plate but also recognize the information on the plate in realtime. There is a difference and you can’t do recognition without capture and I am going to explain the differences.