Who Needs a Sequential Switcher?

To answer to that question it would help to know what a Sequential Switcher is and what it does.

Suppose that you want to set up a Surveillance camera system that will use more than a single camera. This makes sense because one camera can see and show only what is visible in front of it. You may want to watch your property from different points of view.

In principle you could connect each camera to its monitor and to its recorder. But that system would be cumbersome, intricate, and unpractical. The redundancy of equipment would also make it unnecessarily expensive.

Otherwise, if your system includes only one surveillance camera you do not need a Sequential Switcher at all.

A Sequential Switcher is a useful gadget capable of connecting automatically each Surveillance camera of a set, one after the other in sequence (therefore sequential) to a video recorder and a monitor.

What is obtained is a full vision of a single camera in turn for part of the time. Hopefully any event has a chance of being caught on record. The length of time when each camera is connected can be set in advance.

The trade-off is some unavoidable loss of information with Sequential Switchers. It would happen if a meaningful event occurs exactly when the specific camera is not connected. But in general the chance of losing essential views is low and can be reduced further by accessories as described hereafter.

There is another method, to be discussed elsewhere, that solves differently the same problem. It uses a Multiplexer, an unlike device showing at once on a monitor the reduced views from all cameras. The selection is a matter of personal preference.

Switcher capability is enhanced by useful additions like motion detectors, devices that start up recording only whenever they detect action in the scene. By limiting recording time, precious media memory is used skillfully. Moreover less review time is needed, employed only for meaningful surveillance.

Therefore a Sequential Switcher or a Multiplexer are essential elements of any system that operates a number of surveillance cameras, as they accomplish the function of putting order in the traffic of multiple video signals.

Elia Levi is a retired engineer. He built a website to assist with a step-by-step Guide to understand, design, select and set up, all by yourself the best and least expensive Surveillance System for your Home Security. Read more on the subject of this article at Sequential Switchers.

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