CCTV Application and security camera DVR were always divided between the embedded standalone DVR and PC based.Most PC Based DVR system is using software compression. In software compression the system / PC is handling the compression of the pictures captured by the capture card. This process require more powerful machine to handle the processes to compress the images captured. This is known as software compression (SWC). One of the problems with PC-based systems using (SWC)  is ‘CPU loading’. CPU loading is when the computer CPU is overload and overheat causing the computer operating system to halt or not respond. This kind of problem will not occur in hardware base compression were the capture card take all the load of processing the images, leaving the operating system in normal CPU function.

With hardware compression the images captured by the capture device are captured and compressed entirely by the hardware. This process is not dependent on the security DVR software. Hardware compression was mostly used by embedded DVRs. However, professional PC Based DVR are increasingly using Capture cards using hardware compression technology mostly H.264.