Surveillance cameras have come a long way. From the early 1950s, when it was used to capture elaborate royal coronations like Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953 or for military maneuvers at the peak of world wars, to the present digital age equipped with AI technology and IoT (Internet of Things).
In an era where technological advancements are reshaping the business operations landscape, security is a critical concern for industrial complexes, entrepreneurs, and business owners. The need to safeguard your business premises has never been more urgent, and one tool that has proven to be indispensable in this regard is video surveillance.
Video surveillance cameras were valued at 35 billion U.S. dollars in 2022 alone and will continue to rise as we enter 2024. Our recent blog will serve as a video surveillance guide focussing on CCTV cameras to help make prudent business decisions.
The ubiquitous CCTVs
Today, they are everywhere, from swanky malls to the busiest airports. Sitting atop lampposts, traffic lights, dashboards, and buildings, keeping a hawkish eye on every activity, CCTV monitoring is an intrinsic part of humongous government apparatuses or businesses- big or small that want to secure their assets.
What’s a CCTV? CCTV means Closed-Circuit Television. An interconnected system of video cameras transmits signals to a specific set of monitors or recording devices. These signals are not openly transmitted but are used for surveillance and security.
CCTV placement – Mind the spots
From protecting valuable assets to ensuring the safety of your employees and customers, the strategic CCTV placement and deployment of video surveillance technology can significantly enhance the security posture of your enterprise. Everything starts with perfect placement. Where should you keep fixing these cameras?
Monitoring hidden entry points
Most of the security lapses occur due to ignorance of vulnerable points. Monitoring hidden entry points is a crucial aspect of any comprehensive security strategy. These hidden access areas, often overlooked, pose a substantial risk to the integrity of a secured space.
Deploying surveillance technologies such as strategically placed cameras, motion sensors, and access control systems can significantly enhance the ability to detect and respond to unauthorized entries and prevent security breaches.
Front door video surveillance
It is a must-have. What do you do with a spot where there’s sizeable traffic? People, workers, consignments, everything are moving all the time. Upgrade your security game with front door video surveillance – the ultimate protector for both businesses and homes. Say goodbye to uncertainties about visitors, deliveries, and unauthorized intrusion attempts. Whether safeguarding your business assets or ensuring your family’s safety, front door surveillance empowers you to manage access with ease.
Video surveillance in common areas
Watch out for the shared spaces, too. It witnesses high traffic. Whether it’s a bustling office lobby, the common areas in the production facility like a cafeteria or dining space, a residential building’s common areas, or a retail environment, strategically placed cameras act as silent eyes. It goes beyond security – it’s about streamlining operations, ensuring compliance, and improving the internal environment.
Also, it helps to identify incidents and respond quickly. Surveillance footage from these areas has helped fix security loopholes in the overall security architecture. Additionally, you can also integrate incident tracking software with the surveillance system as an additional measure.
Parking place monitoring
Utilizing cutting-edge cameras and smart features, keep a watchful eye on your parking space. CCTV installation in this area is necessary and offers real-time visibility, deterring theft, vandalism, and unauthorized access.
Video surveillance mistakes to avoid with CCTV
Now that we have covered the key areas where you shouldn’t miss installing CCTVs let’s look into the common video surveillance mistakes to avoid when laying out the design for your business. Reports suggest that even the most high-end security cameras fail to prevent crimes and business disruption due to poor management. Let’s avoid it.
Poor cable management
It reflects poorly on the business overall. Poor cable management undermines the system’s aesthetic and poses practical challenges and potential risks. Disorganized cables obstruct maintenance, making it difficult to identify and rectify issues promptly.
If left unattended, it can, in the long run, compromise the functionality of the entire surveillance system. What can be done to avoid it? Utilize cable trays, conduits, and appropriate clips to secure and conceal cables, ensuring a neat and professional installation.
Improper power supply
How’s your power installation? Is it just enough to power your security system, and have you built redundancy in case of outages? Overlooking proper power supply considerations is a critical mistake in CCTV video surveillance installations. Inadequate or unreliable power sources can lead to system failures, interruption of surveillance footage, and compromised security.
Fault in network configuration
Your configuration is the key to an optimally functional security setup. In a networked structure, cameras, recorders, and other components can work seamlessly based on error-free configuration. Common mistakes include improper IP addressing, subnetting issues, or incorrect network settings that disrupt connectivity.
Reach out to professional CCTV installers to avoid chronic problems. For example, you also want to integrate workforce management software for efficiency. Running the system in tandem would require more than the usual configuration.
Ignoring regular maintenance
You wish to get the maximum out of your security installation. Invest in periodic maintenance to avoid gradual degradation of system performance, compromising the reliability of the entire surveillance infrastructure.
It includes simple tasks such as inspecting camera lenses for clarity, cleaning sensors, checking cable connections, and ensuring the proper functioning of recording devices.
Other important considerations
There are a host of other issues you should look into. Are you installing them at the correct height and in the right spot? Cameras shouldn’t face others. Part of the problem arises from choosing the incorrect camera type. Ambient lighting conditions play a crucial role. Refer to the CCTV lighting guide for strategic placement and efficient functioning.
CCTV Lighting Guide
As mentioned before, lighting in your facilities plays a defining role in the quality of the image captured. Too much or too little lighting is a strict no-no. It is always advisable to get the area inspected by security professionals and take field trails. In this section, we will briefly look into different types of installation.
Vertical installation
Anything installed at the top picks a wide view. Choose vertical camera installation for broader surveillance coverage. It adapts to varying lighting conditions, ensuring optimal image quality. Security professionals endorse this method’s effectiveness, making it a valuable consideration in your CCTV lighting guide.
Behind camera-mounted lights
Placing lights behind your CCTV cameras enhances their visibility. The benefits are that it minimizes shadows and glare, optimizing the camera’s performance. Throwing a beam from behind can capture clearer images and improve effectiveness under diverse conditions. Regular checks and adjustments guarantee continued performance.
Light color rendering
Gone are the days of hazy camera captures. Today, light color rendering approximates true-to-life colors using the balanced color spectrum. Critical color-dependent details are accurately captured. When selecting lighting for your surveillance system, consider color temperature and CRI (Color Rendering Index) to achieve optimal results.
Lights on subject’s face
Facial recognition in manned facilities and business infrastructure is a must. Direct lighting onto the subject’s face is essential to achieve this in your CCTV system. Ensure sufficient, evenly distributed light to reduce shadows and enhance clarity.
IoT connection for video surveillance
With fast digitalization, IP cameras, a contemporary alternative to traditional analog CCTV, transmit live footage over a network or the internet as a data stream. A significant development over their analog predecessor, they simplify remote video monitoring and often deliver higher-quality footage.
These intelligent cameras connect seamlessly with other devices in an IoT framework to go way beyond recording and may contain sensors to accumulate a host of actionable data.
Lets’ dive into some of the aspects.
Cloud-based security system
It’s a thing of the future. So why not embrace it? It leverages the cloud to store and manage surveillance data, offering flexibility, scalability, and accessibility like never before. With a cloud-based system, monitoring and managing your security infrastructure can be done remotely, providing real-time insights and alerts.
You may integrate it with security officer reporting software for better workforce management. It is just one of the ways to showcase how a cloud-based security system offers a host of options.
Live streaming to a remote screen
One of the significant innovations of modern times has been the accessibility to data on the go. Stay connected; stay secure, with live streaming to a remote screen. This cutting-edge feature helps monitor the security feed from anywhere, providing instant access to critical information. This improves emergency response time and handling.
Data encryption for enhanced cyber security
With rampant data breach cases that paralyze security installations and production facilities, it’s vital to fortify sensitive data with the latest encryption technologies. Encryption ensures that it remains secure and confidential even if data is intercepted.
This added layer of protection acts as a bulwark against data theft and secures sensitive information, such as personal details, financial records, or proprietary business data.
Video analytics purposes
What do you do with the vast amount of video information you have? How do you extract meaningful information from it? Video analytics provides a proactive and intelligent approach to security, safety, and operational efficiency involving aspects that we discuss below.
Object and people tracking
Video analytics uses advanced algorithms that can recognize and track specific objects, decode patterns, sift through volumes of data, and zero in on particular details such as vehicles or individuals. This is crucial for managing access or monitoring the movement of assets.
Behavioral detection
Most production facilities, even the most advanced ones claiming near-total automation, require some human intervention. Not to mention factory floors where hundreds and thousands of workers move freely, carrying out their daily work.
Video analytics can track and analyze human behavior patterns, detecting anomalies or suspicious activities. This is valuable for identifying potential security threats or unusual events in real-time.
People counting
Video analytics can easily count the number of people, which is helpful for crowd management, retail analytics, and optimizing traffic flow. Combined with time and attendance software, it helps in efficient workforce management.
Automatic number plate recognition
Also called ANPR, video analytics can automatically recognize license plates, enhancing vehicle tracking and access control in parking areas or secure facilities, including law enforcement, toll collection, parking management, and traffic monitoring.
Coupled with the ANPR software, which feeds into the video management system (VMS), alphanumeric characters from the license plate image are converted into texts and matched with the existing database.
Pan-tilt-zoom auto tracking
It’s a powerful advanced surveillance feature. The PTZ auto-tracking feature has optical zoom capabilities, ensuring that the camera maintains a clear and detailed view of the tracked subject, even as it moves closer or farther away.
Video Surveillance Management
Once your areas have been neatly equipped with the security cameras and are up and running, you must take care of the new resources and incorporate the do’s and don’ts for security officers handling it, ensuring your surveillance system’s efficient operation, security, and longevity. We look into two crucial points here.
Storage and retrieval
You never know when you may require that video data. Keep it safe. It may be required for review, analysis, or compliance purposes. Secure housing and organization of recorded footage is a must-do. Involve security professionals who may guide you with the type of storage medium (e.g., local servers, cloud-based solutions), storage capacity, and duration of data retention based on your business type and individual considerations.
Today, the video surveillance storage requirement has increased to almost 100 times compared to previous times. Digital video surveillance brings a host of cost-effective features.
Parting shot
We looked into the intricacies of video surveillance, the nuances, benefits, and best practices for optimal implementation. Whether you’re a seasoned business owner looking to upgrade your existing security infrastructure or a budding entrepreneur planning a new venture, this guide should serve as a primer.
At BCS INT we help businesses secure their spaces with the latest best-in-class software solutions that complement our security products. Our expert security professionals have served different industry requirements. We have long been in the industry to understand every security aspect of your business. Be safe with BCS INT.