It's been said that someday almost every electronic appliance will be tied to the Internet; so enters the IP camera and DVR. Don't take this the wrong way, this is definitely a good thing for the digital video security and surveillance system industry. Providing digital video systems with a mechanism to connect to the Internet places the power of versatility and omnipresence in the user's hand. But what exactly does IP mean and how do these devices work? We'll try to answer these questions in the following article.