Abstract: A surveillance system including a plurality of network video recorders (NVRs), a plurality of network video capturing devices and a plurality of streaming media presentation devices (SMPDs) is provided. The NVRs can receive and store digitized data packets, as well as transmit video/audio streams, event notifications, authorization codes and control signals. The network video capturing devices, each connected to a corresponding NVR among the plurality of NVRs via a network, can capture video/audio data and providing the digitized data packets by encoding the captured video/audio data. The SMPDs are connected to the plurality of NVRs via the network and can play captured video/audio data and alerting messages associated with the event notifications.