The Unfurling

Are you able to remember what CCTV footage look like? It’s an older technology now, but it was in place across the huge number of businesses who required in-store and exterior surveillance.

Still, it was the best technology available at that time. But it was comparatively expensive to install and maintain for a number of reasons. Chief among those is that, until relatively recently, someone was required to continuously monitor the video activity that was being captured. This either required the small business owner to sit in front of monitors showing this activity, or that business owner needed to hire someone who could watch the activity for them.

When it became practical to begin storing video onto hard drives, it was no longer necessary to have someone dedicated to real-time monitoring. This took away a great deal of labor expense, but of course, it did require some technology purchases that were not cheap either.

The other significant limitation of a security system using CCTV protocol was that everything needed to be wired together. The video signal was transmitted through coaxial cable that took it back to a central location. It’s not always easy to run wire through a business facility, depending upon whether there are drop floors and/or drop ceilings through which the wire can be run without getting in the way of operations.

But today’s cameras are light years ahead of old technologies. By and large, they use Internet protocol to transfer signal back to a central storage unit. This can be a wireless transmission now, because scientific advances have created ways to much more efficiently compress the video signal for both transmission and storage. Not only is the signal greatly compressed, but technological advancements have also made it possible to have far greater resolution captured.

We’ve all seen examples of old CCTV footage where you could barely make out the body shape of an accused robber, much less get a real good handle on their facial features. If there was a burglary, this made it really difficult for law enforcement to solve the crime. And even when they believed they had their man (or woman), it’s very difficult to use grainy footage in a court of law to gain a conviction.

All of those complications are a thing of the past with today’s cameras. While they do need a source of power, they no longer need a long cable to transmit the signals they capture, which helps to save significantly on both installation and maintenance.

Why Should You Install the System?

Perhaps theft is not something you worry about as a business owner. However, maybe you want employees to feel safer when they arrive at work or depart after work when it’s dark outside. Exterior cameras, not to mention bright exterior lighting to go along with them, can greatly lower employee risk.

But returning to the subject of theft, did you know that today’s employees are often so addicted to the personal use of social media that office productivity can plummet? If you can see how this amounts to “theft” of valuable company resources, then an activity monitoring surveillance system might be ideal. They are demonstrated to dis-incentivize an employee from wasting time on company computers. You can also monitor how much time is wasted with personal cell phones.

Mammoth Surveillance Camera Systems in New Britain can show you a wide range of options for determining what might be best in your particular commercial setting. You’ll be delighted by the quality of monitoring that’s available, and likely surprised at how inexpensive a good solution can be!