CCTV Documentation
A well designed CCTV surveillance system needs to be well documented, otherwise maintenance becomes very difficult for a number of reasons. Camvex regularly audits CCTV systems and is often supprised at the lack of documentation on even very large CCTV systems. Without appropriate documentation the CCTV engineer or client will be asking themselves the following questions:
- What field of view is this camera "supposed" to be covering?
- Where is the equipment, where are the cameras supposed to be?
- What DVR/NVR is this camera connected to?
- How many spare inputs does this DVR have?
- What IP address, subnet mask, gateway is this IP cameras supposed to be?
- Is this DVR supposed to be setup for remote access, if so what's the public IP address?
- Was this camera un-plugged from the DVR deliberately to make room for another, more important camera?
- What recording settings are these DVR's supposed to be set at?
- Is there enough hard disk storage free to cater for this new camera & maintain required history?
- Is this camera going directly to the DVR or is it going through a xxxx device?
CCTV Site Plans
These plans are one of the most important, they layout camera locations and fields of view of each camera, it also lists other CCTV related equipment, including DVR location, monitor locations, ID Scanner locations and other information.
CCTV Gaming Plans
Many organisations using CCTV require plans marked up with camera locations to meet internal and external compliance requirements. This is often the case with gaming venues and premises with liquor licences. These plans show all cameras within the gaming area and the fields of view of the all cameras covering all gaming related operations including gaming entrances, exits, and cashiers.
CCTV Schematics
The CCTV Schematic is a visual representation of how all the surveillance devices are connected to each other. What cameras are on what DVR and any looping, switching or POS interfacing associated with the DVR. It also shows any networking components associated with the DVR i.e switches, modems etc.
Network Flow Diagrams
Network flow diagrams are applicable for large IP based video surveillance systems that utilize computer networks and infrastructure to transport digital video to Network Video Recorders. The diagram summarizes network utilization and traffic throughput based on the number of factors including:
- Number of cameras
- Image quality settings
- Video codec used
- Number of users accessing cameras simultaneously
- Frame-rate
CCTV Schedule
The document we call the "CCTV Schedule" is an important document containing equipment descriptions and camera location descriptions, it includes:
- Camera location descriptions
- Which DVR a camera is connected to
- Which input of the DVR a camera is connected to
- Camera NO: which corresponds to number on CCTV plan
- The type of camera, Lens, Mount, Housing
- Camera name
- Other related CCTV equipment & more..