CCTV Documentation

A well designed, and "managed" CCTV system requires good documentation. The security industry as a whole doesn't have a good track record with documentation. The reality is either the system is not documented at all, or each Service Technician, or original installer keeps the knowledge about the system in their head, or sometimes on their own smart phone. This usually means when you change providers or a different technician attends your site to service your system, they need to spend time on discovery of how everything is connected and works, and you pay for this each time, and how well it is done very much depends on the skill of the Technician and the time they are willing or able to put into this process. Good CCTV documentation provides more than just where the cameras are located, but what networking devices they are connected to and how much bandwidth each segment is using, how and where cameras being displayed and by whom, what permissions does each User have. Maintenance becomes difficult and inconsistent without good up to date documentation. CCTV documentation should be able to answer the following questions:


Where is each camera located

What area is each camera look at, FoV (Field of View)

Record settings for cameras that are used for specific purposes like Face Recognition, AI perimeter protection, People counting, Plate Capture, Age recognition etc.

What is the model and camera type, and how is it mounted

What IP address of each camera, network switch and Client PC

The encoding settings each camera need to be set to, this is very important because it relates to how much retention (recording history) your system will have, and the network bandwidth (equipment) that each segment requires, and is critical to know when you wish to add more cameras, or higher resolution cameras. What is the impact on the storage and network infrastructure. For certain environments, there are laws regarding recording duration and encoding settings that may impact a venues ability to operate if these regulations are not met.

List of User accounts and what cameras they have permissions for and what CCTV operations they are allowed to perform

Details on how, or if the system is accessed remotely.

Where each network switch is located and what cameras and recorders are connected to each one

What recorder is each camera being recorded on, how much storage does each recorder have, and how many spare inputs does it have