A recent exchange on SIA's Accent listserve raised an interesting issue regarding central station's concerns about CCTV monitoring. CCTV video monitoring is becoming more and more popular, and lucrative. Why install a stand alone CCTV system with local on premises DVR when you can provide central station video monitoring and data storage. The local CCTV system offers the opportunity for recurring revenue only if the system is leased or under service contract. But a Supervised CCTV system offers the recurring revenue opportunity for the video monitoring and data storage as well as lease and service revenue. The CCTV Sale and CCTV Lease standard form contracts are designed to maximize recurring revenue.
But monitoring video presents its own challenges, as the comment below addresses. Thanks to Jeff Martin for allowing me to edit and republish his comment in this forum so that dealers / installers can see the issues of concern to the central stations.
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We monitor hundreds of video systems for dozens of dealers and you could probably say that there are almost that many different ways of dealing with what the operator sees. It's a challenge, to be sure. Some dealers say that it just takes "common sense" (which I say isn't "common"!). End users argue that "it was obviously a person!" when to my eyes, it looks like blowing tarps in the wind (very low res. videos). So, a great deal falls on interpretation and making a judgment call. Video analytics help, but don't eliminate the need for the human involvement to make a decision based on what's on the screen.
In our training, I showed a real video clip of a woman holding a broom and using a rag to wipe the washer and dryer. When asked what the operators were viewing, many of them said "well, it's clearly the cleaning woman so we wouldn't need to dispatch". Probably right. But then I told them that it was someone working with a partner, putting on the appearance of just cleaning the house, while they "cleaned out the house"! Report the facts only, no judgment calls. Make sure you're very clear with both the dealer and the end user on what will be expected when viewing videos. We developed a video response form that is submitted with each video alarm system (we monitor lots of Videofied systems) and it outlines each of the various scenarios that can occur. We ask that the dealer work with the end user to define exactly how they want us to respond for each scenario.
Video monitoring is not cheap. It takes large amounts of operator time and resource. Once your staff gets past the learning curve however, it can be a real moral booster, as they are now more actively involved in helping to apprehend the "bad guys". We see more apprehensions with Videofied systems than we do with conventional alarm systems.
Jeff Martin, PSP
Paragon Monitoring Center