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Security Camera Blog

video camera licensing fees Utah

IP Camera Licensing – The Idiot Tax

Lately, I have picked up a lot of new customers that were frustrated because they were being charged “Licensing Fees” for their security cameras by their previous companies. (They had since fired the old company and found us to replace them.) Why would someone want to pay a licensing fee year after year when they can accomplish the same thing for free? The truth is that many people don’t. They just don’t know that other options exist.

Licensing fees haven’t been around forever. They came about when IP cameras started to grow in popularity. Since IP cameras didn’t require as much hardware, many companies wanted to develop software platforms for managing the cameras without selling the hardware. Many large corporations and government facilities would be able to use existing servers and hardware of their own by pulling the camera feeds and dumping the data to a storage device. The software companies wanted to make money per camera to help with the cost of development, tech support, etc. So, instead of allowing people to install the software and use it with an unlimited number of cameras on a raid storage or large server, they started charging licensing fees per camera. One of the most common software platforms like this on the market is the Milestone software. These fees can easily range from $100 to $200 per camera, and can vary from an annual fee per camera, to a one-time lifetime licensing fee.

If you want to avoid this type of expense, there are alternatives that work for most businesses. Many larger NVR units with software are available on today’s market. We carry manufacturers like Hikvision, Dahua, and TVT who make decent units at great prices. These Linux based NVR units have come a long way in the last 10 years and become much more user friendly with their software. There is free enterprise software included as well for customers that want to connect to multiple recorders at once. Many of the 32 channel and 64 channel recorders can hold up to 64TB of storage which is plenty for most businesses. By using four Hikvision 32 channel NVR units for a client when they were quoted a solution with Milestone Software, I saved one company over $20,000 in licensing fees alone and over $35,000 with my solution that recorded all 120 of their Axis cameras without licensing fees. If you are currently stuck in a situation where you are paying for Licensing Fees, contact us so we can help you start saving money on your security system.

At Dixon Security we are security camera experts! Call us at 801-455-0413 for a FREE on-site evaluation.