Although the name “television” is involved, a closed circuit television or CCTV, has nothing to do with entertainment, sports, or news broadcast. The primal role of CCTV is to transmit surveillance related signals from one place to another. Born in Germany, CCTV was first invented for the use of rocket monitoring in year 1942. It was only in the 1960s when US liberated the use of such device from permit-required to permit-free, which gave rise to commercial and domestic security systems.

 

Like an alarm system, there is also a golden triangle to CCTV’s anatomy. First of all, there is the camera. Like photographic cameras, CCTV cameras come in variations too. Ranging from shapes and sizes, the kind of lenses they accommodate, if they are suitable for outdoor or indoor usage, to functions like zooming and panning, resolutions, and colours of footages etc. Here again, it is important for one to recognise their surveillance needs, so that the right kind of cameras can be purchased.

 

For example, it is recommended to employ water proof high resolution cameras in an outdoor setting so that a wider angle of footages can be captured and there is no need to worry about weather change. In the context whereby the environment hinders the best view (i.e., presence of trees, bushes, or architectures etc.), attention may need to pay to the positioning of the cameras or to choose cameras with functions that permit tilting or zooming into a certain area or enable width and sharpness adjustments.

 

While cameras may be a little overwhelming, recorders are less complicated. Mainly, there exist two kinds of CCTV recorders, one known as the Digital video recorder (DVR) and the other is Network video recorder (NVR). DVR is straightforward as it only records and stores footages from cameras it attached to and shared it onto a single computer. However, NVR will enable the entire network to have access to the footages from cameras it is being attached to. As a result, sharing of footages become more convenient with the use of NVR.

 

Lastly, there exists the monitor, which showcases footages captured by the cameras. Some of the common monitors include LED, LCD, or TFT, each differ in terms of the footages sharpness and vibrancy of displayed colours. Sometimes, more than one camera may be connected to the same monitor, resulting in more than one image being displayed; while others may equip the system with microphones so that sounds can be recorded at the same time.

 

At a glance, the fixed number of parts in a CCTV system may make the installation looks easy. Fair enough, a detailed manuscript may indeed help those who already have some knowledge of what it is about, in a successful DIY. Nonetheless, if recording the wrong footages or sound, wrong cable connection, and indecision in camera choice, are some of the worst nightmares you do not wish to experience, perhaps it is still the best to consult an expert.