Motion Detection

Almost every Digital Video Recorder on the market comes with motion detection built in nowadays, this can be a very important feature that can considerably extend the recording capacity of your Digital Video Recorder.

It works on a fairly simple principle, the cameras that are connected to the digital video recorder are constantly sending images to the dvr. The dvr reads these images as thousands of pixels, and it simply waits for the sequence of pixels to be different from the previous image. Once it notices a change in pixels, it begins to record.

Some DVRs have different levels of motion “sensitivity” levels, this simply works by changing the number of pixels that need to be different from the previous image. For example, a digital video recorder on motion sensitivity level 1 may require 100 pixels to be different, but on level 5 it may require 1000 pixels to change.

The higher end Digital Video Recorders also allow ‘Masking’ which is a handy feature within motion detection, basically it allows you to mask certain areas of the screen where you do not want motion to be detected. Useful to mask objects like trees that may move in the wind and cause a Digital Video Recorder to start recording for no reason.

On some Digital Video Recorders you can also set the ‘sensitivity’ level of the motion detection, this again helps you reduce the amount of motion that is detectable, but in this case it does it on motion speed. slow moving objects will not be detected.