Video monitoring system and control method thereof

The invention discloses a video monitoring system and a control method thereof. The monitoring system comprises at least two dome cameras, a gun cameras and a monitoring client, wherein the gun camera is used for controlling the dome cameras, is connected with the dome cameras through network interfaces respectively and is connected with at least one dome camera through a serial port; the monitoring client is installed with monitoring system control software and is connected with the gun camera and the dome cameras through a network respectively. The control method comprises the following steps: the monitoring client configures a control mode of the dome cameras according to whether the existence of time delay is allowed in control of the gun camera over the dome cameras and a connection mode of the dome cameras and the gun camera; when the network is normal and the existence of the time delay is allowed in the control of the gun camera over the dome cameras, the gun camera controls the dome cameras through the network interfaces; when the network is abnormal or disconnected or the existence of the time delay is not allowed in the control of the gun camera over the dome camera, the gun camera controls the dome camera, which is connected with the gun camera through the serial port, through the serial port. The technical problems of the existence of the time delay of the network interface control and limitation to number of mounted dome cameras in the serial port control are solved, and the advantages of serial port control and network interface control are combined.