Breaking down your CCTV needs
From just walking down the street these days it’s difficult not to notice a CCTV camera somewhere along your travels. Interest in CCTV systems has increased lately with commercial and even residential CCTV becoming common place.
Having a CCTV system installed in your home or business can significantly reduce your insurance costs. Our CCTV and alarm systems are NSI Gold Approved due to our approved engineers and surveyors and the quality of our product. Some insurers require this level of approval to count towards their cover – it is beneficial to check if a company have been awarded these credentials.
At Keybury we have an experienced team of surveyors and engineers who are able to tailor a security systems specifically for your premises and needs. As there are a vast amount of different options and equipment available it’s important not to get swept up in the jargon and end up with a system more complex and expensive than you actually require.
We have a number of information sheets available in the resources section of our website that helps to break down the different kinds of CCTV equipment, but here is a quick overview to give you an idea of what you may be looking for.
1. Image Quality
Whether you are after a CCTV system to monitor your home or your business, the quality of the image will generally be your main interest. However, weighing up the cost against the image quality is an important first step and depends on your main reason for installing your cameras. Analogue cameras are more affordable and may be all that you require. Ask yourself what it is that you want from your system. Are you after a deterrent to would-be burglars? Are you simply after a good overview of the outside of your property? You may have specific security problems that you want dealt with which may require a higher quality of camera. For instance, do you want to have images that can clearly detect faces and license plates? ip CCTV (Internet Protocol) encompasses ip cameras, video compression and streaming ip networks and ip recording facilities. 2 megapixels is 5x the resolution of an analogue camera. ip cameras can go to 29 megapixels – but the higher the bandwidth the more storage capacity and bandwidth is needed. Ultra high resolution cameras mean large areas can be covered with few or even one camera. Our surveyors can help you to decide on what you need for your premises and situation. By knowing what you want and telling them your specific requirements it will help them to better understand the needs of your security system and get to the smaller details.
Having a budget laid out will also help the surveyor as this will impact your design. Analogue cameras with digital recording and remote viewing is an affordable option with reasonable image quality. To upgrade to an ip camera with HD megapixel image quality may be twice as expensive.
Another thing to consider when looking at the quality of camera you will need is the lighting at night around your premises. Poor lighting will make it more difficult to detect specific details without higher image quality. Scene illumination becomes even more important when using ip cameras. Poor lighting will not deliver the quality of image expected and actually use more bandwidth and storage.
Check back for another blog on the next step – deciding on the viewing and recording of your CCTV images. In the meantime, why not take a look at the information in our downloadable resources.