CCTV operational requirements: how not to waste money when procuring a video surveillance system [video]

So you want to buy a CCTV system.

How do you know how many cameras you need? And which cameras? What about software and a NVR (or DVR)? How do you know if the installer’s done a good job?

The first thing you need to define is exactly what you need the system for. This is how you get a solution that meets your needs for the lowest price possible.

In the video below CCTV consultant Simon Lambert explains why defining CCTV operational requirements is not a peripheral part of the procurement process, but “the essential foundation.”

If you prefer, you can read the transcript of the interview below the video. Lambert has also written a more in-depth article on setting your CCTV objectives and requirements along with many other how-to guides about CCTV.

It sounds like a boring formality, but it’s how we test that the system works before my clients pay the installer’s invoice.” CCTV consultant Simon Lambert

This is the second in a series of videos where Simon Lambert answers some common questions about procuring, managing and using CCTV cameras and video surveillance solutions. In the first of this series Simon Lambert says that CCTV operators are failing to get the most out of their CCTV systems because most installed CCTV cameras are still set to their factory settings.

Simon Lambert on CCTV operational requirements: the transcript

CCTV operational requirements: a confusing term for CCTV buyers

“I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the phrase ‘operational requirements’ – which to people in the CCTV industry is quite well known. To a lot of people buying CCTV for the first time, it may sound like two normal English words, but they don’t necessarily fully appreciate how it applies to CCTV.

“So I think it’s a pretty misleading term. It’s correct – but it doesn’t sell itself very well.

“The Home Office scientific development branch used the phrase 20-30 years ago perfectly correctly, but I don’t think it explains its own importance, so I’ve been trying to think of another phrase. I can’t say I’ve come up with a definitive answer yet, but quite often it’s to do with designing the images that you want to get from your CCTV – and that image design process is a fundamental at the very beginning and it does several things.”

Defining operational requirements:  typical questions

“It sets the justification and purpose for each picture that you want to gather, which means how wide a spread of picture do you want? How narrow a picture do you want?

“What lighting conditions does it have to work in – daylight, night time? How fast are the targets moving?

“If you’re trying to catch walking people – which let’s face it, most of us are – you may have motion blur just because the shutter speed on the camera is slow enough that a walking person will blur. A moving car with a registration plate will certainly blur if it’s moving at a certain speed and the shutter isn’t fast enough.

“So things like that need to be defined.

“Who’s going to look at the pictures? Are they only going to be recorded to look at later after an incident?”

CCTV buyers often underestimate the value of defining operational requirements

“There are so many questions and the Home Office guidance on that is a free download, it’s perfectly good and it uses the phrase ‘operational requirement’. But talking to a person who has never bought CCTV before, I find that they don’t fully buy into why they need to go through that process.

“It sounds like a boring formality, rather than the essential foundation to their system. It’s how we test the system before they pay the installer’s invoice, to test the system works before the customer pays the bill.

“Now, surely, for the customer that is a terrific thing? That’s the safeguard they need before they spend money and maybe live to regret it – and of course, our job is to protect them from making that mistake.”

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