CCTV and the Age of Digital

Video surveillance evolves for better facility protection

By Van Carlisle

In an increasingly competitiveindustry, selfstorage owners and operators strive to make the process of storinggoods as easy and convenient as possible for customers. Unfortunately, thisconvenience often accommodates the legitimate consumer as well as the criminal.For tenants, self-storage provides easy access to furniture, archives,appliances and other goods. From the criminal perspective, storage units offerexpedient access to valuables.

As facility owners and managers well know, self-storage is notjust about providing extra space. Tenants want to know who, or what, is keepingeye over their possessions. Nothing can outright prevent all incidents of theftand vandalism; but a major deterrent is a network of closed circuit television(CCTV) cameras designed to monitor a facility. CCTV is not only necessary from asecurity standpoint, it serves as a way to investigate accidents on the propertyand discourage employee theft.

A Bit of Background

Although surveillance-camera use dates back to the 1950s,cameras first became widely used in commercial security applications in theearly 1970s. They have been steadily expanding in use since. After 9/11, everyelement of the security industry has intensified, and CCTV has been one of theleading categories in terms of growth. Much of the research and development andmany of the product advances for CCTV come from Asia, where low wages andexpertise in electronics create a very competitive environment with a constantflow of new products and features.

Since the 1980s, the most commonly used surveillance setupincludes time-lapse video recorders that allow the compression of many hours ofrecording time onto a single videotape. These days, the video-security industryis evolving from the use of analog videotape to fully digital recordings. VHS video recorders are becoming obsolete in a securitycontext, and for good reason. Tapes are costly, inefficient to store, and wearout relatively fast. Picture clarity is not the best. Also, better integratedsystems are a driving trend.

According to security-industry consultant Joseph P. Freeman,organizations are merging their security electronics into centralized controls,and systems are being merged into integrated information-technology networks. AsFreeman explains, this is all part of the effort to reduce headcounts andorganizational cost structures.

The Age of Digital Video

So what does this mean for self-storage operators? Many of youhave disposed of your home VCRs in favor of a DVD player. Similarly, if you are still using a time-lapse videotaperecording system, now is a good time to evaluate and upgrade your current CCTVsetup.

First introduced in the 1980s, the digital video recorderoffers features unavailable to videotape users, such as advanced searchcapabilities. Other advantages of digital recording over videotape are: bettersystem flexibility, extended record times, better image quality (allowingviewers to identify a suspect), future expansion ability, and a large capacityfor data storage and reproduction. One of the greatest benefits of digital videois it eliminates hours of pouring over VCR tapes looking for particularincidents.

Digital CCTV technology also allows for the monitoring ofmultiple facilities from a single location via telephone, wireless technologiesand the Internet. Systems that allow computer-based access are referred to asIPbased CCTV. This option is popular among absentee owners who like to keep tabson their operation anytime from anywhere. This type of system can be integrated with other securityfeatures, such as point-of-sale, EAS (electronic article surveillance) alarms,access control and even robbery buttons to ensure important images are properlycaptured and stored. A security consultant or vendor can help you determine ifthis solution is right for your operation.

Finally, police love digital CCTV because it allows them tobegin an investigation immediately without having to wait for a lab to processimages. More law-enforcement agencies are using digital recording as criminalevidence. In one case, suspicious activity noticed at a storage unit led policeto $1.2 million in cocaine that was stored inside. Because digital CCTV produceshigh-quality video, law enforcement has approached facility operators whenproblems occur in their areas, hoping to get leads from external cameras.

Ask your security vendor to provide you a return-on-investmentstudy for digital CCTV implementation. In most cases, installation of a digital,IP-based, video-surveillance system earns back every bit of its cost.

Van Carlisle is president and CEO of FKI Security Group, apremier security and loss-prevention company, where he has worked since 1975. Mr.Carlisle studied criminal justice at the University of Louisville and served sixyears in the Air National Guard Security Police Force. For more information,call 800.457.2424; e-mail [email protected]; visit www.fkisecuritygroup.com.