Has your business got CCTV installed?
Security on your premises isn’t limited to CCTV but it’s a pretty big part of it.
For a number of reasons, which we’ll look at below, it’s essential to keep your business and employees safe and secure.
But, if you haven’t got it installed already, it can be easy to put off. We understand that. It may be that you don’t even know where to begin when it comes to installing something like CCTV.
We’ve answered common queries and concerns in this post, to make sure you know what your next steps are.
Why should you consider CCTV?
You may think, why do we need CCTV on our premises?
It can be one of those things that people don’t think about, until disaster happens. Should you experience a break-in however, you will wish you had the upper hand.
On one level it aids you in finding and prosecuting thieves and troublemakers.
However, it’s also a preventative measure. Visible CCTV cameras can be an enormous deterrent to crime and not only that, they often reduce your insurance premium.
Many people may be put off by what they perceive to be the cost and level of work needed to install CCTV. These concerns are understandable but the truth is it doesn’t have to be that prohibitive.
The best CCTV offerings out there are IP based. That is, they run using your internet connection and are fully digital.
We’ll explain a bit more about why you should choose IP based tech over a traditional analogue solution, as we cover some of the considerations you should make if you’re thinking of installing CCTV.
Here’s a few things to consider:
What You Will Need To Install
How you go about installing CCTV will partly depend on what your current situation is.
One of the major obstacles to installing a traditional analogue CCTV system is the sheer amount of additional wiring infrastructure you need to install for it to work.
Fortunately, IP based equipment simply makes use of your existing data network. Audio and video are integrated and use the same wiring you already have.
As such it’s about as easy as possible to set up.
You’ll also need to consider how many cameras you need and where you want to put them. This decision will partly depend on our previous point about CCTV being a crime deterrent.
They obviously need to be in places you want coverage of but make sure some cameras are clearly visible from outside.
Image/Video Quality
Another thing to consider is what level of video quality you want from your CCTV system.
There’s a fairly wide range available, covering different aspect ratios, and levels of detail. It’s fair to say that analogue cameras don’t provide as good image quality as digital cameras.
With a 1080p or 5-megapixel camera you will get significantly higher quality video footage than with an analogue 4 CIF or SVGA camera – a maximum of 800 x 600 pixels.
It’s not just about how much you can fit in the frame though. How far the video has to travel to storage and whether or not the file needs converting could potentially have an effect on the quality of the footage.
With an IP based system, the quality of the footage will stay the same no matter how far it travels.
Who Needs Access To Your CCTV?
When installing CCTV you need to think about who’s really going to need access to the system.
If you operate a multi-occupancy building or shared office space, there may be one person controlling the system for the building but multiple people wanting surveillance access for their own space.
The security of the footage depends on what kind of system you have in place.
One benefit of digital is that footage and feeds can be encrypted to ensure that it only gets seen by the right people.
Also, multilevel user access can be provided for staff and tenants who only require access for a certain part of the building.
Where the footage is stored is also an important consideration. Do you want onsite hardware that could potentially be tampered with or would you rather have everything stored in the cloud?
Unsurprisingly, with IP based systems, management of the system and storage all takes place over the internet.
Not only does this make storage easier but it means theoretically you can access the camera system from mobile devices and other devices not in the building.
What’s the cost?
Cost can be a prohibitive factor to installing CCTV in some businesses.
That said, like anything that gives you peace of mind, it’s probably worth the investment. But it can also be cheaper than you think.
Whilst analogue systems can look attractive, that doesn’t factor in extra installation costs and ongoing maintenance costs that are required. There’s also the manpower required to monitor an analogue CCTV system in the first place.
IP equipment simply taps into your existing wiring infrastructure and also requires very few ongoing costs, due to everything taking place over the internet. You can also monitor remotely and receive alerts to save time physically monitoring a system.
In the long run, IP based solutions are the cheaper option.
Why you should choose IP based CCTV?
Hopefully it’s pretty clear that out of analogue CCTV systems and IP based ones, we recommend going with the latter.
Other benefits of going down this route include:
It’s easier to scale.
No extensive wiring network means no uprooting and reinstalling the next time a major upgrade comes along.
Other features included.
With digital cameras, you can integrate other features that improve automation and increase the value of CCTV.
These include motion detection, data gathering and cross line detection which all run automatically and cause pre-configured events to happen without having to be initiated manually.
This could be used in car parks, warehouses, shopping aisles, behind the counter, warehouses and more.
We utilise smart CCTV solutions for several IoT applications too such as smart parking, people counting and large-scale security deployments. You can find out more about these examples here.
Get your CCTV installed today.
Don’t hang around. As we mentioned at the top, this is one of those things you’ll wish you’d sorted out, after something happens.
If you’ve already got a system installed but you think it could be improved and streamlined, then digital is the answer. Modernise your system today.
We have a range of options when it comes to CCTV systems and cover everything, including installation.
Want to know more? Get in touch using the form below and our team will be happy to help and advise.
