Video surveillance of building premises are commonplace these days. Everywhere you go, chances are that you are being monitored by a Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) video surveillance system. From shopping malls, offices, and street corners, to apartment complexes and residential neighborhood schools, video surveillance is becoming a fact of life, helping to protect life and property. Previously the domain of large corporations or the government, building location video surveillance is now economical for small businesses and even individual homes. Recent geopolitical events, and the increasingly competitive nature of business, has brought a new awareness for the need to better protect corporate assets -- whether they be physical locations, information, or personnel. Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) used in conjunctions with other building security systems such as building access control provide a very cost effective way to protect sensitive or dangerous areas.

Today's CCTV vendors offer three alternative solutions. Choosing the right one is dependent on budget, application, and legacy installations. The first, and most mature technology, requires home run cabling and central monitoring. A second solution offers use of UTP wiring but still requires central monitoring. The third technology entering the marketplace is based on the ubiquitous nature of TCP/IP networks and offers secure remote monitoring from literally anywhere in the world. RBC can help you to evaluate your needs. Contact us for a free quote.

Coaxial CCTV Video Surveillance Solutions

Older CCTV system designs require home runs of coaxial cabling to a central monitoring area. There it is coupled to a multiplexer that records live video image feeds from individual cameras and allows viewers to select a camera for viewing on a high resolution TV monitoring screen. In some cases, images from up to four cameras can be displayed simultaneously on a single monitor. The remote control of cameras for functions such as tilt, pan, and zoom (TPZ), require yet another cabling network to control the individual cameras. Although quite effective, the drawbacks of this vintage technology are: the requirement of a central monitoring facility located in a fixed, secure area; two independent dedicated wiring systems; and relatively expensive analog recording equipment utilizing video tape cassettes or digital tape as fidelity requires. Storage and management for these cassettes can get quite expensive and access to information is cumbersome at best. While these systems have been in use for decades, their cost and relative inflexibility when it comes to upgrades, changes, and removals, make them expensive to operate and rarely the first choice for new installations.

CCTV over UTP Video Surveillance Solutions

With the nearly ubiquitous deployment of unshielded twisted pair (UTP) within office buildings for phone systems, CCTV systems were devised to utilize this backbone cabling arrangement. Called video over UTP, these systems connect coaxial based cameras through the use of an adapter and UTP enabled cameras to the building’s UTP network … often via nearby RJ-45 wall jacks. Some implementations of the technology require separate power and control cables for the camera. Other versions utilize a special UTP video cable which carriers power as well as control signals back to the wire closet where special control units are installed. The use of the UTP video cable design eliminates the proprietary control network for the pan, tilt, and zoom options and eliminated the need to run a separate power cable or locate the camera near an electrical outlet. This design allows the locating of cameras in areas where power is not readily accessible. However, CCTV over UTP has many of the same drawbacks as coaxial based cabling systems requiring a central monitoring area where live video signals are recorded on video tape and displayed on closed circuit TV monitors.

TCP/IP Based Video Surveillance Solutions

With the deployment of TCP/IP LAN networks and video compression techniques, new CCTV cameras and software systems began to utilize building data networks. Since the signals were already digitally encoded for transmission over the network, storage of the video data can be accomplished using existing computer data storage disk farms. Coupled with digital image processing and data access control software, access to high-quality images can be strictly controlled based on a user’s authorization credentials. With the availability of intranet and Internet networks and data encryption software, images can be sent securely anywhere in the world. Thus the need for central monitoring stations disappeared thus improving overall security even more since access can be more finely partitioned on a need to know basis. Control of camera functions such as tilt, pan, and zoom (TPZ), along with diagnostic and alarm reporting were enabled through the use of the Simplified Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and supporting camera management software. With the advent of high speed networks such as Siemon's 10G ip product line, live video can be transmitted, alleviating the need for video compression techniques. This provides high quality images even in environments where movement is the norm. Having video in a digital format also allows for the application of pattern recognition technology to analyze signals for abnormalities, such as, motion in an area where there shouldn't be any. Because computers are monitoring for specific events, problems such as lapsed attention spans often encountered with human monitors, do not occur. And because the system components are redundant, a single point failures is less likely to render the entire network blind.

RBC Cable Technologies can work with or install any of these CCTV systems. We specialize in the newer TCP/IP based CCTV systems utilizing Siemon CAT7 cabling solutions. Contact us so that we can show you how an upgrade of your older CCTV system to a new TCP/IP LAN based one can improve your security and reduce your ongoing maintenance costs.