Industry View

The CCTV Project Planner

CCTV implementations face a lack of product standardization, a confusing bidding process, and a limiting market structure. Here is expert guidance on critical considerations about bandwidth, frame rate, image quality and more

By Jason Cowling

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When working with bidders, be sure to request line-item breakouts of labor and materials costs on your quotations. Separate breakouts will allow you to evaluate depreciation of equipment. Generally, installing companies will have three types of pricing options; lease, purchase, and third-party lease. As previously mentioned, camera systems will generally last well over ten years. Evaluate your building lease, likelihood of relocating and the like when deciding on a pricing option. Purchase options require large capital outlays. If you purchase your system, you'll have to evaluate taking a maintenance agreement, which are monthly payments to cover normal systems issues. Or, you can also request the installing company's time and materials (T&M) rate. <;p>

Some installing companies also honor their products' warranties. Be sure to request their warranty policies when you are requesting quotations; this can be a significant cost factor to side-by-side in evaluating quotations. If a product is covered under warranty for a year or more, you might not want to contract for a maintenance agreement prior to that expiration, especially if the installing company also covers labor costs during the warranty period. Lease options generally require a lower initial payment, with a higher monthly payment. Most lease options are probably better described as rentals, as you don't retain ownership of the system at the end of the lease period. This option may be good if you are likely to relocate, don't want to outlay a large amount of capital, and want to have full maintenance on your system. Third party leases are generally structured with lease to own options and the like. They also require very minimal initial payments, usually the equivalent of the first and last month's payments. Third party lease options usually have higher finance rates, and significantly increase the total cost of ownership over lease and purchase options for systems.

Lastly, when working with contractors there is a crucial aspect of CCTV systems that is frequently overlooked. When your contractor finishes installing your system, you'll generally be asked to sign-off on the installation, or certify it. This certification essentially is your agreement that the system is working as expected. This also means that you've just been handed a complex software and hardware platform and it's time to start using it every day. You will likely have questions, and need on-site assistance during this initial familiarizing period. Be sure to plan for this by writing in a few post-installation on-site technician visits (at your scheduling). During these visits cameras can be refocused or repositioned as needed, any complex system-level improvements to alarm functions, and the bandwidth and other functions can be improved. It's difficult to overemphasize the importance of support immediately following certification. Video systems that aren't attended to tend to function poorly, especially when an incident does occur and it's lost due to lack of ongoing interaction with the system.