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Video Surveillance Systems: Reality TV

The reasons to invest in new video surveillance systems are everywhere. Zoom in on these six insights to help you focus on what's important and what's just hype.

But Guo smartly deferred to the security team on issues he didn't know about. First, he says, the security team determined the most vulnerable locations, determined camera positions, types of camerasstationary versus pan-tilt-zoom, indoor versus outdoorand then did a cost impact. "Then, we took that and fit it into our computing infrastructure. Without [the security team's] participation, the technology itself is not useful," he adds.

What we have here with digital video surveillance is security convergenceone of the first major security purchases that not only could benefit from but absolutely requires the cooperation of the CIO and CSO.

CSOs can't do this without IT's technological expertise. As much as Guo allowed the public safety team to lead the risk analysis, Bramlitt at First Horizon was ready to cede control of managing the IT requirementsnetwork bandwidth demands, server capacity, storage configurations, data securityto her CIO and CISO.

"We come to mutual agreements on what's adequate," she says. "There's no in-fighting. I understand their business needs; they understand my security obligations." It's almost beautiful.6 Watch These Sneak Previews and Coming Attractions The most promising development for digital video surveillance, the real wow factor, is the creation of the new applications. Until now, video surveillance was what Jones calls a "grudge spend." It was overhead for liability, crime deterrence and loss prevention. And that was it. Before Guo transformed them, the New York state courts were the physical realization of the attitude toward surveillance: Many of the over 200 courts had their own CCTV systemsbig, old, fixed cameras, hard-wired by coaxial cable into basements where a guard may or may not have been staffed to stare at the bank of cloudy gray screens.

The new era of video surveillance is comparatively airy and bright, where cameras give CSOs better pictures faster, in any light or weather; where the Internet allows Guo to log on from home and check in on any of his sites; where sleek technology focuses on business growth; and where it focuses on, say, four business problems at once. Video surveillance suddenly has street cred in marketing, HR, travel services, even customer relations.

Thus, when Dreams bed stores in Britain recently put its system in place, its primary function wasn't even security; it was marketing. The company is measuring foot traffic around the store. The secondary function was security. And the tertiary function was human resources, using the video for training. "That made it a pretty easy sell actually," says Marshall, who oversaw the project (which, by the way, he says was led by Dreams' IT project managers).