Resources for CCTV

Your property is one of your biggest investments. Whether it’s your residence or your place of business, you have a lot riding on the security of your building. That’s why it’s imperative that you consider CCTV security systems when looking at your overall security plan.

With the advent of digital recording, CCTV has come a long way from the days of a dark security room full of VHS tapes labeled by date and hour. Instead, a moderately-complex CCTV system can be housed in a single computer server that takes up less space than a file cabinet. These advances have made CCTV a viable security option for everyone, not just big business.

When considering adding a CCTV system to your security schema, among the key points to consider are:

1. The placement of the CCTV camera or cameras on your property;
2. The storage of CCTV information you retrieve;
3. The cost of CCTV systems in comparison to the intrinsic value of what you’re protecting.

Place all CCTV cameras so that they have direct line-of-sight of an asset

It goes without saying that you want to have the number of cameras in your CCTV system that strikes the balance between covering your assets and being cost-effective. You want to make sure that every CCTV camera in your security system is directly covering an access point to an asset in an efficient manner. If you have a camera shooting down a door-less hallway, it's not likely the best use of your CCTV resources. It's also not a good use of resources to have a camera with night vision on a target that is illuminated 24/7.

Store only what CCTV information you truly need

As with most digital media, the most perennially expensive portion of CCTV security systems is in storage. Depending on the quality of output from your CCTV camera, the size of your CCTV digital files can quickly become quite large. Make sure that you know exactly how much historical data your security system requires, and choose a digital CCTV system that features automatic purging based on the schedule which you set up.

Use CCTV to protect what really needs protecting

You are the only one who can determine the value of any asset you own. After all, the definition of "value" must include academic, information and sentimental value and not just the replacement cost. That being said, you can further the cost-effectiveness of your CCTV security systems by guarding only items of higher value than the system itself.

• If you have multiple properties you want to protect, save money by broadcasting the CCTV feeds to a single monitoring station. With the digital CCTV options available, all that's needed is an Internet connection.