The security camera computer of a digital video security and surveillance system is basically the “brain” of the system.  This is where the COmpression/DECompression or CODEC utility is normally used to shrink the size of the incredibly large digital video files made by the security camera.  The security camera computer is also the central controller for the entire digital video system, coordinating all the actions of the components in the system.

Another name that is more commonly used instead of security camera computer is Digital Video Recorder or DVR.  Although admittedly, there are some systems where the DVR is only a storage device and does not control the entire system.  Let’s start from the beginning to see just exactly what a security camera computer does.