Getting the Right CCTV System for your Needs: Simon Lambert Q&A

Buyers of CCTV systems often have unrealistic expectations given their budget, says video surveillance consultant Simon Lambert.

Lambert, who has written numerous times for IFSEC Global, explains why establishing the scope of your needs at the outset is essential if you are to choose the most cost-effective solution for your premises.

IFSEC Global: So Simon, is the most expensive CCTV system necessarily the best?

Simon Lambert: I think my default answer has to be no; typical consultant’s answer, not necessarily. Consultants don’t normally give a straight yes or no answer.

But I suppose the justification for being a little vague is that CCTV is very much horses for courses – it depends what it is you are trying to achieve.

The traditional CCTV around a building, video recorder in the back office and monitor screen on the reception desk was commonplace 20-30 years ago – and it’s still fairly commonplace now – but now there are so many other possibilities because of internet technology.

The purpose of CCTV must be clearly defined from the outset. Once you know what it should achieve the system should be designed to achieve it as effectively, and of course economically, as possible.

Sometimes the most expensive solution may be the most inappropriate, because if you just need to see whether the back door is open when somebody is having a crafty ciggy, then a 29 megapixel camera is wholly inappropriate.

IG: Do customers nevertheless sometimes have unreasonably high expectations?

SL: Customer expectations of CCTV are often skewed by its media potrayal, so our recommendations often mismatch with what they expect. They expect it to be cheaper and clearer than it is, expect it to count people’s spots at three hundred yards from a wide angle lens.

Consequently they will probably be disappointed that they can’t have what they want for £290 from Maplins.  Well you can, buts it’s probably going to be rubbish given what you want it to do.

We really need to re-educate them – and I hope that doesn’t sound condescending .

My job is really getting to the reality of what we can achieve within their budget.  There is no point in me telling them fibs.

IG: How do you see CCTV technology evolving?

SL: The replacement of analogue with digital cameras has actually taken longer to happen than the sales and marketing people would have us believe. The hype has been way ahead of reality.

However, now it is really kicking in. The HD, megapixel side of things is truly becoming commonplace, there’s no two ways about it.

How many of us don’t have HD TV at home now? Now, that’s nothing to do with CCTV, but it’s the same consumer electronics behind it.

So that level of technology is so cheap that CCTV can’t help but be hugely affected.

One thing I have seen lately is a much-improved low-light capability. Security applications very often operate during night-time and low-light capability has always been a weak link.

They were nearly useless, a waste of electricity.

I still think that good lighting is necessary, but the situation is improving and it’s easier to get a picture in the dark than it used to be.

IG: Why do you think the UK has embraced CCTV so much more enthusiastically than anywhere else in the world?

SL: I think we started because of Republican Irish terrorism through the 70s and 80s, when we had a ring of steel around the City of London. That has now dwindled but for whatever reason, the government in the 90s threw a huge amount of money at CCTV.  Hundreds of millions of pounds went into public-space CCTV.

Now it’s so much part of our landscape that anyone building something installs cameras almost by default.  That may be right, that may be wrong, but that’s how it is.

The moment a crime happens, everyone immediately wonders: where’s the footage?  So from the point of view of earning my living, I could say long may it continue, but I actually I spend a lot of my time trying to talk people out of CCTV systems.

I know that sounds silly, but I want them to have a system that does what they want it to do, not the system that they dream of.

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