The home run came with the availability and explosive
acceptance and use of the Internet (and intranet) as a
new means of long distance two-way communication of
voice, data, and most importantly video. For over a decade
the long distance transmission of video was limited to slow
telephone transmission of video images—snap-shots (slowscan
video). The use of dedicated high speed (expensive)
land lines or expensive satellite communications was
limited to government and large-clientele users. Now the
Internet provides near-live (near real-time) video transmission
communications over an inexpensive, easily accessible
worldwide transmission network.
powerful microprocessors, large hard disk computer memory
storage, and random access memory (RAM) became
available from the personal computer/laptop industry,
thereby providing the computing power necessary to control,
view, record, and play back digital CCTV cameras in
the security system.