Guides
DVR or NVR: picking the recorder that fits
A DVR records analogue cameras over coaxial cable; an NVR records IP cameras over network cable and usually powers them down the same run. For a four-camera shop on short runs, a DVR is the cheaper sound choice. For larger premises, higher resolution or planned growth, an NVR costs less over the system's life.
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Cabling decides most of it
Every analogue camera needs a coax run for video plus a power run — two cables, two sets of joints. An IP camera needs one Cat6 run carrying both. Across a small shop the difference is minor; across a multi-floor plaza office or a Blue Area suite it is days of labour and a tidier riser. The bigger the building, the harder the single-cable argument becomes to beat.
Resolution and the price gap
Modern analogue reaches 5MP over coax and serves most shops perfectly well. IP goes further and juggles many high-resolution streams more comfortably on one recorder. In PKR terms the gap is concrete: a four-camera 2MP analogue package installs for 55,000–85,000 in Islamabad, while a four-channel 4MP IP system starts near 110,000. Pay the difference where cropped detail at an entrance or a counter genuinely matters, not as a default.
Growth and hybrids
Adding a camera to an NVR is one cable and a spare port; adding to a DVR means a coax run plus power. If expansion is likely, IP is the cheaper system across its life. And when you already own working analogue cameras, a hybrid recorder takes both — keep what works, add IP resolution only at the entrance or the counter where it counts.
What is the difference between a DVR and an NVR?
Can new cameras reuse my old coax cable?
Often, yes — modern analogue formats carry 5MP over sound coax, which saves the most expensive part of a rewire. We test every existing run first, because cable that has spent ten years in a damp wall does not always pass.
Is one recorder type more reliable?
No. Reliability follows installation quality: cheap power supplies, poor joints and recorders shut in unventilated cupboards cause the failures, whichever format sits on the label.
Rather have it done?
CCTV installation means a free survey of your shop, office or home, a camera plan that covers gates, counters and blind corners, cabling run through conduit, a recorder sized for the days of footage you want, and phone viewing working before handover. A four-camera 2MP package in Islamabad or Rawalpindi runs PKR 55,000 to 85,000 fitted.
CCTV installation in Islamabad — prices and scope