Four Places You Should Cover with CCTV Systems

CCTV systems used to be a very expensive way to provide security for your private or business property. In the past decade, though, the price on high quality CCTV security systems has come down enough to make them affordable for most business and property owners. In most cases, you can provide adequate surveillance coverage for your needs for considerably less than $500.

One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make when designing your CCTV security system is where to place surveillance cameras. If you choose a wired security system, your choices may be constrained to some extent by your wiring. Even if you choose a wireless CCTV system, you may still have to position your security cameras within range of an electrical outlet. Even with those considerations, though, there are four areas you should cover with surveillance cameras.

Main Entrances

If you’re setting up a security system for your home, it’s essential to cover the entrances and approaches to your home for safety sake. A security camera that covers the driveway, front and back entrances will provide plenty of warning that someone is approaching the house and allow you to check who is at your door before opening it. Surveillance footage can also allow you to go back in time and see who might have come to your front door while you were out or at work.

Areas Out of the Line of Sight

Your security cameras should also cover any areas that can’t be seen easily from your house. If, for example, you have an attached garage on one side of house and no windows that look out in that direction, a surveillance camera aimed at that side yard gives you a set of eyes where you can’t physically keep an eye on things.

Areas of Your Store that Are Blocked from Sight

In a small retail store or commercial establishment, position your security camera to provide an eagle eye view of the entire store. Pay particular attention to areas of the store that are blocked from the view of a clerk at the counter or register by aisles, end caps and other store hardware.

Point of Sale

A CCTV camera positioned at the register provides an ongoing record of every transaction carried out by each employee. That serves at least two purposes: you can keep an eye on your employees and discourage them from stealing from the till while at the same time protecting your employees from false accusations of overcharging, rude behavior and other misconduct.

CCTV systems are only as good as the surveillance they provide. Choosing the best vantage points for your security cameras is an essential part of your security plan.

Benefits of Using CCTV Systems with Video Analytics

What do you get when you combine CCTV systems used for security and surveillance with sophisticated video analytics software? If it’s done right, you get an enhanced security camera surveillance system that can pinpoint patterns of activities and bring them to the attention of security personnel, identify problems before they happen and make it easier to find specific events in hours of video footage. Here are just a few of the major benefits of video analytics enabled CCTV systems.

Security personnel can set up video analytics to recognize people, events or situations when they happen and base alerts on known patterns and people. This can be used to watch for specific security risks, monitor the behavior of specific persons or alert personnel to the possibility of a security breach based on what the camera sees.

CCTV systems enabled with video analytics software can reduce the workload on existing security personnel by covering large open spaces, perimeter fencing and remote areas and raising a video alert when specific events occur in those areas.

Video analytics allows you to “tag” faces, people, events and other patterns when they occur in a surveillance camera video. Once tagged, the CCTV system will recognize those patterns if they occur again and “bookmark” them so that you can find them when reviewing security footage.

Heat maps and other sophisticated technology can be used to monitor crowds at large events and watch for patterns that are precursors to problems. Analytics can help CCTV systems become more “intelligent” about things like unusual gatherings of large numbers of people or a change in the way traffic moves at certain areas.

CCTV security systems can be “trained” to recognize patterns of suspicious behavior, such as a person trying multiple car doors in a parking lot, and alert security personnel to take a closer look at the scene.

CCTV analytics can make it easier for personnel assigned to monitor and review security camera footage by flagging specific people, events and out-of-the-ordinary occurrences that might be missed in the hours of footage.

Video tagging can be used to scan and search for specific faces, areas and events making it easy to go directly to those things without having to wade through hours of CCTV footage looking for them. This can be especially helpful in finding and displaying security footage for use in court cases and criminal prosecutions.

For more information about how video analytics and CCTV systems can help make your home or place of business more secure, contact a CCTV professional installer for the latest developments in video security technology.