At its simplest level, CCTV monitors and offers round the clock surveillance in both private and public property.  

Whether you are an educational establishment, commercial business enterprise or hospital, safeguarding your premises, people and assets is crucial. The importance of effective CCTV surveillance is unquestionable.  

The demands on any CCTV installation will vary from sector to sector. For some businesses, the CCTV may be required to act purely as a deterrent, its physical presence simply in place to help ‘prevent unwanted or suspicious activity. However, for many businesses, the requirements can be a lot more sophisticated. With CCTV technology becoming more and more advanced, many businesses are looking at how they can get real value out of their CCTV installation.  

The Importance of a Best Fit Solution  

Whilst today’s systems offer numerous operational and cost benefits, they are not faultless. It is important when looking at any system that you undertake a thorough appraisal of your requirements and objectives and how the technology best fits your needs.  

Take a warehousing operation that operates 10 cameras, 24 hours a day. The main purpose of the CCTV here is to give managers visibility of their entire site, to monitor staff safety, track incidents and to deter theft.  

In this example, a system that only records footage would make the process of identifying an incident both inefficient and costly. With most businesses holding footage for an average of 30 days, this warehousing operation would then need to review over 7200 hours of footage. Not only that, but there would also be the risk that relevant older footage may have also been deleted.  

Choosing a best fit solution can really optimise security operations within this and any sector, ensuring they become more effective, more efficient, and more fit for purpose. Here we look at the many features the latest systems offer and what value they can add to an installation.   

CCTV Features  

Alerts  

Implementing CCTV camera systems, alongside a remote monitoring and control software capabilities, provides live camera feeds that alert security staff to any suspicious activity or movement.  

Sophisticated AI technology and integration with other security systems means that CCTV can be effectively configured to detect events that may require further attention. From alerting security to unauthorised access to a restricted area, facilitating monitoring of high value goods or assets, or tracking potential trespassers and unrecognised visitors, these events can be flagged for review or trigger an alarm to facilitate an immediate response.  

Facial Recognition  

System intelligence such as AI powered facial recognition can help accelerate response times by quickly identifying people of interest. For example, a shopping centre would be able to create a secure watch lists to help assist operators identify known shoplifters or a hospital would be able to track unauthorised individuals that had entered restricted and potentially unsafe zone.    

Furthermore, the system is also able to identify vehicles or objects that could potentially pose a threat to the safety or security of any premise, it’s assets or people. This intelligence can be invaluable to any operator or security team, enabling a proactive response and preventative measures to be implemented to increase the effectiveness of a physical security system.  

Analytics  

Video analytics means that hours of CCTV footage can be sorted through with ease. Appearance searches means that specific persons or vehicles of interest can be easily tracked. In the instance of the warehouse operation, this would have meant that the administration time identifying the instance of theft would have been significantly reduced with appearance searches helping operators compile robust video evidence of the event in question.    

Reduced Costs  

The latest systems are cost effective, enabling ease of connection to video footage via the web or mobile application. When CCTV footage is stored in the cloud and compressed to the most recent standards, costs associated with the physical storage issues and on-site server backups are also removed.  

Not only that, but the benefits of these systems also means that CCTV is now more efficient and effective than ever before, significantly reducing the costs associated with the management and administration a system.  

Improve Your Security System Today  

At TouchStar ATC, our experts believe in a completely bespoke approach to CCTV.

We’ve been supplying bespoke security solutions to businesses across a variety of sectors for more than 30 years. Our experts are on hand and more than happy to assist you in choosing the right system to suit your organisation.

Get in touch today to find out how we can help.     

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – LYNDEN JONES

Lynden joined Touchstar ATC (formally Feedback Data) in a sales role for Access Control in 2010.  Prior to joining the company, Lynden held both Production and Account Manager roles, gaining wide technical and commercial experience within the electronics market.  

In 2013 Lynden was promoted to Sales Director and in 2017 he took overall responsibility of the business as Managing Director.As well as running Touchstar ATC, Lynden still remains extremely active in the sales and key account management aspects of the business. When not involved in the business, Lynden is a keen performance car enthusiast.